I’ve Been Very Quiet These Last Few Days – As A White British Person, It Seemed More Important To

I’ve been very quiet these last few days – as a white British person, it seemed more important to keep quiet, listen and put the work in offline to make sure I’m part of the solution and not part of the problem, than to performatively demonstrate that I care. (If I had an audience, it would be different, but let’s be honest – I don’t.) There are a great many petitions and donation links circulating at the moment – if your Tumblr dash and Twitter feed look anything like mine, you’ve seen them twenty times already today, and these are proof that there’s a lot we can all do from behind our computer screens.

However, most of these links are, understandably, US-focused, so for those of us in the UK it can be difficult to know the best way to help. One thing many of us might not have been aware of is the fact that the UK sells tear gas and rubber bullets to the US. There has rightfully been a lot of discussion about how the UK is far from innocent when it comes to racism and police brutality, but our goverment’s direct role in supporting and exacerbating the violence currently occurring in the US is often overlooked.

Like many people, I was ignorant of the danger posed by rubber bullets – the name is disingenuous for something that can be profoundly disabling if not fatal. A photojournalist lost her left eye a few days ago and is now partially blind (she’s already working again and being extremely badass about the whole thing). Tear gas is evil at the best of times, but during a pandemic that affects the respiratory system, it is unfathomable. To continue to sell these weapons to the US makes our country complicit in the lives lost and injury caused.

There’s been a call for these sales to be suspended (see article linked above), which would send a clear message that the UK does not condone this brutality. It’s only a drop in the ocean when it comes to putting a stop to the harm caused by the UK arms trade more generally, but it’s a drop that would help.

So please, if you’re in the UK, write to your MP in support of suspending these sales. While you’re there, ask them to condemn Trump’s response, and demand that the government release the delayed report about BAME Covid-19 deaths. It’s easy to feel helpless adding your name to dozens of change.org petitions, but there are concrete issues you can approach your elected representatives about, and these are some of them. None of us can fix the world, but we can help.

You can write to your MP very easily using WriteToThem.com. You don’t need to be registered to vote, you just need to live in their constituency. If you have a home and term-time address (e.g. you’re a university student), you have two MPs. You don’t need to know their name, because WriteToThem will find them for you. You don’t need to send a long, thought-out email (although that’s great!), you just need to make it clear to them that this is an issue their constituents care about.

The world is awful right now. Let’s do what we can to make it a tiny bit less awful. <3

when people ask where you see yourself in 10 years

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fandoms-ruined-my-life-siriusly

4 years ago

turkey and azerbaijan are attacking armenia right now, and it's 1915 all over again because the world is distracted and people are too busy wondering if they're gonna live or die, and who gives a shit about my country anyway? my mum told me to tell my friends and explain to them what's happening and that we are the victims in this war because azerbaijan is spreading lies and people are believing their lies and i told her, what good is that going to do? do you think anyone's going to come to our aid? is russia going to help us? is america? is england? erdogan said they will finish what their ancestors started, and he means genocide. he means ethnic cleansing. he means to massacre every last one of us. and in doing so admitted to the very same thing turkey has spent 105 years denying. i don't know who to tell and what good telling people will do because we're a small, insignificant country, and we have nothing to offer to the people in power, the handful who rule the world. so i sit here with my pain and i feel helpless. i know there's twitter threads and links to petitions and people being urged to contact their senators, and sorry if im being pessimistic, but azerbaijan has been attacking us for the last 22 years, and though we defend ourselves, we can't do anything to stop them. they've violated ceasefires (and geneva conventions) multiple times. i don't think they'll rest until every last one of us is dead.

we just want peace. we just want to live peacefully. we're not asking for a lot here.

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fandoms-ruined-my-life-siriusly

5 years ago

Reblog if you’re an MLM that supports WLW, a WLW who supports MLM, or you’re neither and support both 💕

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fandoms-ruined-my-life-siriusly

5 years ago

Y’all telling me we’ve had a day for 5 whole years and no one told me?

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fandoms-ruined-my-life-siriusly

7 years ago

I hate it when parents go “ Do you think you’re smarter than me” or something like that and then when you go “ I never said that.” They go “ yeah,but you were thinking it”.

Are you a mind reader because if so, we need to have a conversation such as why wasn’t this awesome power passed down and what planet are you from.

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fandoms-ruined-my-life-siriusly

4 years ago

the term “protect asian lives” i think, inherently, is so much better than just “stop asian hate”

protect asian lives is more so of a call for people to act, that we need to protect these people (of course, there can be connotations that asian people are wildly seen as docile and weak)- but, no, what the point for “protect asian lives” would be moreso of, we need to put an effort into protecting this minority (much like other minorities)

“stop asian hate” seems so much more of just.. an empty term, that we just need to stop hate- but racism isnt just hate. its prejudice, scapegoating, stereotypes, fetishization, all of that!

like, there is a stereotype that asian people are bad at driving (especially asian women)- that makes it, i think, just that much easier to just blame it on an asian woman that, the reason she, say, got into a car crash, was because she was an asian woman (of course, most likely not that blatant about it, but even then she would probably still be able to be blamed for that reason)

also, as seen, asian culture itself, its highly fetishized (especially japanese culture, with high relevancy of weeaboo culture). it can make asian people (again, especially women) feel pressured to fit into these sexualized stereotypes that media presents them as.

the racism isnt just the hatecrimes, but those sure as hell jolted us into realization that, yeah, asian people are definitely oppressed. we are not “close to white” and dont tell us that.

so thats why “protect asian lives” just is that much better, i think. because we do need to protect asian lives

(also, there are other terms like wewillbeheard)

why stop asian hate is kind of a bad term

post about how media negatively harms asian women and also donations

why not to use asian lives matter

acts that you dont think that are deemed racist but are

more asian charity stuff

records on recent asian hatecrimes

nytimes post on asian american racism

also, non asian people dont clown but please rb

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fandoms-ruined-my-life-siriusly