blog against racism? Okay.

[beccaelizabeth]

You know that whole 'blog against racism' thing?
Well I couldn't think of much to say about it. I mean, yes, I tend to notice that quite a lot of my fandoms are bleached white (and get bitter about it - look what they did to GA! His dad is the white one, not him!) and others have actual variety in them (Blakes 7! And WTF that there's shows that do it worse than 70s sci fi.) And Martha on DW is awesome and so is Mickey and so is... well, a whole bunch of characters. But everyone knows that, right? So, what to write about it?

I guess I used to vaguely feel that racism was so dumb it would clearly just evaporate on its own. I mean, does anyone actually believe that rubbish?

Well, apparently, yes.

And the thing is, while I am white, all this is pretty close to home now. Because my mini cousins are, like, rainbow colors if you go out far enough on the family tree, and the mini cousin that I actually got to hold when he was still new is the cutest person ever and he's so smart and lively and he can help his grandma with her disability equipment (and, okay, that started out as joyriding in her wheelchair when he was too small to manage walking consistently, but again we're back to 'smart') and he's just brilliant. He's part of why I have concluded that if everyone met people when they were new babies then everyone would totally love everyone forever. I realise there's some rational levels where that probably doesn't work, but new babies are just made of cool, really. They're people, only really tiny! And they've got a future that could go on forever. Humans at the end of the universe? Starting right here! How cool is that?

(And did you notice humans at the end of the universe happen in a variety of colors? Yes.)

But the thing is... I had to realise that there are some people that don't like my baby cousin simply for existing. And that is something I'll never get my head around. But there are even people who think he shouldn't exist, because he's a mixed race baby and there's all many bad words invented about that. Which is so stupid I can't even think of how to argue against it. I mean, there's few self evident truths, but I think "people should exist, especially babies" is a hard one to dispute.

And there's other things that I learned in college that really bug me now, personally, when they would have been numbers on a page before. Like the difference in educational achievement by race. Some of those numbers are family now, you know?

And then I realise they should pretty much have been bothering me the whole time and get a bit feeling-small.

Sometimes though I feel like once I've worried about disability discrimination, and heterosexism, and feminism (and then :eyeroll: and *facepalm* that these things are even an issue, especially feminism!) that I've run out of worry and haven't got much left for remaining isms.

But the thing of it is, they overlap in really unpleasant ways. More black males are diagnosed with mental health issues. Why is that? How about education, with more said to be special educational needs. What's going on there? and Black boys have been more likely to get expelled. Why???

Is it a disability issue, or a mental health issue, or a racism issue? Well it's somewhere in a nasty muddle of all three. Some people are getting treated differently, they're having different outcomes, and somewhere in there something has to change or it'll just keep on being wrong. So it's like I can't worry about things one at a time, because everything connects.

Everyone connects.

Being people means just understanding that everyone else is people too.
Else we make 'people' a much smaller idea, make ourselves-as-people smaller.

I'd like to be people so large we fill up whole universe, dance with everyone, touch every star. I dream big. Got plenty of texts told me we could.

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Good comments. Your little cousin sounds terrific.

[beccaelizabeth]

He is :-)