#NeverForget
One of these things is exploited unlike the others. Slavery has become more than a dark point in history and has become about personal gain and getting what they want because of the suffering of their past family members, some of the people exploiting it not even connected to slavery. We should never forget that happened, but it should be treated with respect, not like a cheap excuse.
You’re the one treating it as a cheap excuse, when you dismiss it. You think it’s possible to run a country based on 450 years of racialized slavery, then as soon as slavery is technically no longer legal, that it’s over? That it’s effects aren’t going to continue to linger?
The “exploitation” is using slave labor—literal honest to gosh slave labor—to build a country into one of the most wealthy and powerful nations on earth, while excluding the people who created that wealth from sharing in it, or political power, or education, and then acting like changing the subject is the same thing as fixing the problem.
No. The exploitation comes from people today thinking that because their ancestors suffered from slavery, that they are entitled to money from the government and special treatment. We should never forget the pain that slavery brought to people, and we should hate that our forefathers thought of this as a good way to build a society, but expecting benefits from a life you never lead is wrong and a cheap way to get out of what you can do and simply don’t choose to.
The amount of poisonous racist B.S. in our society that makes a young person like you believe all that is just one more reason why slavery is still a big deal and one more example of how its effects resonate today.
Do you know who the number one recipient of welfare is? WHITE PEOPLE.
You know who gets the most affirmative action? WHITE PEOPLE. (Women, specifically.)
You know who gets the most scholarships? WHITE PEOPLE.
You know who gets hired the most often and paid the most, regardless of education and things like criminal records? WHITE PEOPLE. Men more than women, hence affirmative action, but white women still have it better in this sphere than Black men.
We, you and me, we reap the most benefits of the social safety nets. We are the ones who are most likely to get unearned benefits, to be given the benefit of the doubt, to get consideration we haven’t earned. The whole system is slanted to give it to us, while begrudging every cent and crumb and scrap of help that Black people manage to earn for themselves, because we just know they haven’t actually done anything to deserve it.
This myth you’ve swallowed, these racist images of “welfare queens” and “lazy people who would rather live off benefits than work”, those exist to reinforce the system of white supremacy that replaced slavery, and also to keep the class system in place by making sure lower classes of white folks are always suspicious of the people below us instead of the ones above us.
Do you know what those benefits actually amount to? You can’t live on them. Welfare isn’t a cushy life. Nobody chooses it.
But there aren’t enough jobs to go around because of economic mismanagement and corporate greed, and the jobs that are available go to the people with the most social connections, the people with the best school transcripts, the people who know someone in HR or who look like what the interviewer thinks of as a “professional” or “nice, decent, ordinary person”… all things that skew heavily towards whiteness.
This is systemic racism, and you’re participating in it.
(Source: floacist, via lordkaufman)
Marilyn topless sorry must reblog
Just because who the fuck doesn’t want a topless Marilyn Monroe on their blog?
fucking love Marilyn Monroe
Read above and you will have to reblog this
America’s first set of perfect tits
(Source: shamelessphotos, via katkraze)
![thefrogman:
Here is a dancing gorilla. Feel free to add music.
[Glove and Boots]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/3e4b599ee080a865b5c7e9d660c06a84/tumblr_ml7je9ORdZ1qzrlhgo1_250.gif)
Here is a dancing gorilla. Feel free to add music.
