As you can see by the title of this article, you very much know that I am writing about what should not even be a controversial topic. Let me just start off saying that this article is not an attack of any kind. I am simply explaining how all lives in fact do matter, but they simply do not matter as much as black lives matter at this time in America.
Hashtags such as #BlackGirlMagic are movements created to empower people of color. Yet, whenever POC (people of color) use these hashtags there is always at least one angry person who has to reply with #AllLivesMatter or #WhitePride because that’s just “taking pride in my culture”. I am sorry to have to be the one to say this in this article, but no, not exactly. In this article, I am going to give you four very key points to exactly why you should rethink before using #WhiteLivesMatter / #WhitePride hashtags.
1. White culture is already the cultural norm.
Just to start out with- I can name 5 white people who have portrayed people of color in movies or television, because apparently, giving the role to a person of the appropriate color is too hard.
The entire Last Airbender cast, Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi, Natalie Wood as Maria in West Side Story, Johnny Depp as Tonto in The Lone Ranger, and lastly Jake Gyllenhaal as the Prince of Persia. Even when a person of color is put in a place of interest, they are converted into a white person almost immediately. Showing that you are white or looking white has been prioritized as the standard.
2. Pride is about visibility.
For communities of color, pride is about visibility. White people are everywhere in the media, sometimes taking priority over accurately portraying people of color as seen in my last point. Even when POC are not converted into a white portrayal, a majority of the time- until recently, their character is drawn into a typical stereotype. Not giving people of color visibility, because they are not portrayed accurately
For a vastly large part of history, it was and (kind of still is) perfectly legal to treat people of color as second class citizens. For instance, in case you forgot, people of color were not allowed to go to school with white people who got the best education until the Brown v. Board ruling of 1954. Less than a hundred years ago. My grandparents had to live through that horrid time.
Unlike “White Pride”, Black Pride, Native Pride etc. are acts of defiance to make ourselves visible and to say being different or not white is not wrong.
3. White Pride=White Supremacy.
White PrideWhite Pride is not like any other racial pride because the cultural norm is basically already white pride. Before you go around saying and using white pride wherever you go, you might want to learn where the term actually came from.
In 2014 in Harrison, Arkansas a billboard from White Pride radio went up that said “It’s not racist to love your people” and that stations website immediately redirects you the KKKRadio.com. Only the people who enslaved, attacked, and killed black people in the name of white pride for over 150 years. If you’re not convinced after reading that, let’s look at some other incidents to show you might not want to be waving your white pride around like an American flag.
In terms of where “white pride” is still alive and well, it is in the American prison community. The Aryan Brotherhood and other outright white supremacist gangs remain an ongoing menace in America.
Recently, white pride has also come back into some universities where white pride clubs have started to appear. While some are legitimate clubs for people who are actually interested in learning about their European history, some were just internet trolls. Yet others groups such as the Illini White Student Union have risen just to torment colored students by setting them up and calling the police on them for “suspicious activities” and confront Black Lives Matter protestors.
4.“Whiteness itself is a moving target thats main purpose has been to exclude” – Francesca Ramsey
Please don't walk away from this article thinking that I am saying you aren’t allowed to be proud of where you are from be it England, Australia, or France. Everyone is allowed to be proud of who they are.
If you didn’t know, white people didn’t only try to just exclude people of color. In the early times of America they even started to exclude other white people. Have you ever wonder why when you see movies set in an older age of America and the Irish, Jewish, Italian, and Finnish were always treated so awfully? It’s because white people didn’t even consider these white cultures white, lower than white people because race apparently determines your worth. People even tried to classify Finnish as Asian. How about this one- for an Irish person to become white they would have had to join in on the oppression of black people.
It is very important for all of you to know there is nothing wrong with taking pride in who you are, whether it is gay, straight, white, Latin, etc. But, before you go around using white pride and all lives matter, just know what history and meaning comes along with it. Especially when the pride you’re trying to use has specialized in the attempt to erase the existence of other people. So whenever people who are oppressed and take pride in themselves regardless of what other people say, it is a revolutionary act.
