Wake Up

racismschool:

Are Dreadlocks really cultural appropriation?

YES

Here’s why:

Dreadlocks originated first with Jamaican Rastafarians and then in Indian Sages and Yogis. Specifically it was started by holy men. These men renounced all of their worldly belongings (Including combs) and as a result their hair started (and remained) to turn into dreadlocks. In the beginning, it was actually something very beautiful to show that you’d given yourself and all that you possessed to GOD. 

Then, it turned into something ugly. When these holy people were seen by others, they were looked down on. Seen as less than because as they gave up all they had, that also meant they gave up their money. They were the poorest of the poor and the dreadlock became a sign of being poor, dirty and less than human.

This was an extremely spiritual symbol. It was not a fad or something people did to show their love of weed. 

As time went on, the Indian culture did not see anything terribly interesting about the dreadlocks. However, Jamaicans as well as those in the Caribbean thought otherwise. They believed that the dreadlocks were part of a religious lifestyle and actually considered the hair to be holy and powerful.

Dreadlocks are believed to have made it to the USA during the time of slavery. Both Black slaves as well as Indian slaves were captured and both brought this holy symbol and belief with them. 

For the ignorant that want to get dreadlocks because they are Bob Marley fans or because they “Like the Rastafarian lifestyle.” I say, FUCK YOU. Many of you believe that the “Lifestyle” you like so much is about “Relaxing and smoking weed.” Nothing could be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, if Bob Marley was any kind of representation for your wanting the locks in the first place, you know absolutely NOTHING about Bob Marley.

He was a truly spiritual man. His hair, his lyrics and the way he lived his life were representative of this. (Yes, he did some questionable things. That isn’t what this post is about though) For you to take a spiritual symbol and chalk it up to your love of weed, is not only appropriation, it is down right disgusting and cruel. There is this gross misconception that just because religion is a weapon, an afterthought or something to reference during political debate in this country that it is the same in others. IT IS NOT. Your actions are shameful and mean. You are acting disrespectfully and you have chosen to do so with no forethought or concern for who you are hurting.

This “Hair style” that you are choosing to believe is about sticking it to your parents, smoking weed, “loving” Bob Marley (even thought you clearly know nothing about him) or even about “Love and peace” is SO MUCH BIGGER THAN THAT. It is just not bigger than that TO YOU. It isn’t “That big a deal” TO YOU. That is how you know without a shadow of a doubt that you are in fact a bigoted cultural appropriator. You just don’t give a damn. Privilege and entitlement reign supreme. 

I have no respect or kindness for those that chose willful ignorance. It took me less than three seconds to find this information on Google. I don’t mean, it took three-ish seconds guys. I mean, I timed myself and found page after page after page of this information. I mean, I timed myself and withing those three seconds, I found more than one page that answered every single question I had. What is your excuse? You are CHOOSING to be a racist, bigoted, cultural appropriating piece of garbage. It is not okay.

This post begins by stating that dreadlocks are culturally appropriative, but your thesis later drifts a bit.  Are you arguing against anyone who wears dreadlocks, anyone who wears dreadlocks because of a perceived connection to marijuana, any white Americans who wear dreadlocks, or any white Americans who wear dreadlocks because of a perceived connection to marijuana?

revolutionator:

draconicalgorithm replied to your post: One of the things that worries me is that I have a friend who says that sexism isn’t really a thing anymore. I just feel like I can’t articulate myself to her well enough to convince her otherwise.

I think it’s just that she doesn’t get why it’s wrong. She actually said she doesn’t understand why people would be upset that women get paid less than men, as long as she’s still making money. I feel like I can’t explain it any more than “its wrong”

well, you shouldn’t really have to explain it more than that. i’m unsure how anyone can look at two people doing the same job, see that one person gets paid less for an arbitrary characteristic they possess (in this case gender) and be like

‘welp, just the way the world is! makes sense.’

that’s like, i don’t know. getting paid less because you happen to have a lot of freckles, or because you have IBS. it’s nonsensical? it shouldn’t be a thing that is in effect? i’m sorry i can’t offer more help on this! but it sounds like it’s to do with your friend’s attitude and that’s something that takes a lot more than reasoning to negotiate with u___u i do know that feel though, sad fistbump

I disagree.  I think there are wrongs in systemic discrimination besides arbitrariness.

Think about hiring people for a job.  If there are six applicants, and you decide which applicant to hire by rolling a six-sided die, then your decision was stupid.  But I don’t know that I would argue that it was unethical?  You treated the six applicants identically.

And perhaps more importantly, that die roll was uncorrelated with everything else that has ever happened to those people.  If the next job gives them another die roll, they have just as good a chance of getting that job as anyone else does.  The die rolls they’ve seen in the past aren’t hurting them here.

Which is *not* true if you don’t hire them (or pay them less) because they’re a woman, or black, or whatever stupider-than-dice reasons people use.  That’s more like making a die roll once, and having it arbitrarily hurt or help them for every job they ever apply for.

tl;dr: I think “arbitrary judgments that are correlated with a bunch of other peoples’ arbitrary judgments” are a lot more wrong than “arbitrary judgments”.

revolutionator:

hey i want to kind of get a request out here to like….GOOD HOMESTUCK ARTISTS many of whom i know but

What Pumpkin has a print submit feature! if you make a big enough art in a good enough dpi you can submit your work to the print store

and i think it would be REALLY GOOD if we got some officially buyable print interpretations of dave and rose that are not the ‘default’ white and blonde model? different races for john and jade would be excellent too but dave and rose are characters i NEVER see interpreted differently

i would do this myself but i cannot draw ( or at least i can’t draw to a standard i would feel comfortable asking people to pay money for, whereupon they could hang it on their wall)

i don’t think as many people know about the print feature as should so yeah if you guys could get this out that would be awesome

charleswallacemurry:

Who wants to read and tell me what’s wrong with my personal essay for the common application?

The answer is every single one of you. 

The prompt is, “Please provide a statement (250 words minimum) that addresses your reasons for transferring and the objectives you hope to achieve.”

And my sweet sweet words under a cut:

Read More

I’m bad at tumblr, so I’m replying to this by reblogging.  (How should I have sent a lengthy response, btw?)

Read More

(Source: charlesherbertbest)

asksamvimes:

==> Days in the future, but not many…

Your name is SAM VIMES, and you’re pretty sure this is WEIRD WIZARD SHIT.

You have had it up to here with WEIRD WIZARD SHIT.

And after you’ve finished living up to your family history of REGICIDE you are going to PUNCH EVERY SINGLE WIZARD. 

maragidyne:

my friends and I have discussed what it would be like if you had sex with a voice actor

what if they suddenly slipped into one of their voices and not one of their sexy ones

like if you had sex with Patrick Seitz and then all of a sudden RUSSIAN SUSHI or Todd Haberkorn turning into North Italy 

ajsndd; N IABGEPT 

OK THIS IS REALLY STRANGE I KNOW BUT I LAUGH SO AHRD

I had a boyfriend who used to read me a lot of books and things.  He was an amateur voice actor, and he liked to do a lot of voices.

And I had to tell him

that if he used his Granny Weatherwax voice

sex was over

(Source: historiacruxes)

halflifewolf:

i want to fill this prompt about pasta sauce making trolls submissive and horny because first of all that’s grade a hilarity and second of all i love sub!karkat with my last dying breath, my tombstone will read “reira saburo, liked reading about trolls bending over and taking it”

but it’s like three in the morning and i haven’t gotten more than four consecutive hours of sleep in like three days

i’m not even doing this “karkat gets fucked fest” thing either i just

really want to write you that porn, mysterious dreamwidth prompter

#problems

I absolutely would not ever mind johnkat; if you happen to get a chance to do this I would be thrilled  :-D  . This came out of a socialanxietystuck discussion of the “I hate cilantro” website, which has detailed essays and poetry about how terrible cilantro is.  Lots of poetry.  Lots.

(Source: mattishidasboyfriend)

I want AO3 to have a feature

where I can suggest spelling and grammar corrections

like all the author has to do is click “yes, make that change, he was right” or “no, don’t change that”.

I want to fix every typo.

dorothy-cotton:

nevvyweather:

The whole “derp” thing came from this. Back in 1999.

Matt Stone described the word as “something you say when you screw up.”

It’s been a stupid meme all along. It’s not a slur or an “ableist term” for cross-eyed or mentally challenged people. It’s just a stupid meme.

Stop turning it into a bigger deal than it actually is.

Remember when I tried to add this to a discussion, and I ended up with three social justice bloggers explaining to me why I was an ableist.

social justice blogging more like “ignoring facts and violently cramming your opinions down the throats of people who disagree” blogging

I’ve been wondering if it’s an age thing.

Like, if middle and high schoolers now are actually using it as a slur, then it would come across as ableist to people who have to live with that.  Whereas to people like me, nearing 30, it seems initially ridiculous.

So, that’s one theory which, if true, would explain a lot of the confusion.

rimbaum:

And no, the commission prices thing wasn’t anything to do about my mood. I just wanted to pass that along to show how a lot of fandom artists undersell themselves because it is pretty rampant! I love when I’m able to buy artwork that I can afford, and even happier when people give me art, but people should be able to make a living wage off the creative arts.

Not really related, I bought a $1 sketch commission off of DeviantArt once.  The artist was pretty clearly making a proof-of-concept “I want to prove that someone will pay something for my art!” offer.  It seemed like she needed the experience (it took like 5 messages from each of us before I could get her to explain to me how I could send her some money.  She didn’t seem to understand that I’d need more specific contact info than “send it to Paypal”).

It was a neat sketch, and I like to think I helped her figure out how to do things.