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i wanted to speak on this earlier but twitter s/uspended me but i think this should still be addressed, esp because this hits close to home and i am extremely disappointed by this individual. not a callout post but i am not going to look away from antiblackness in my community
the art community has had another cycle of artists saying antiblack things + being asked to recognize their mistakes. it usually seems to start out smaller but with the way ppl deal with (justified) criticism online theres a strange is to double down and defend the person
deflecting your responsibility in causing harm is not the way to go, intent doesnt mean shit when it is something that has hurt others and to act like the people that were hurt in the first place are in the wrong is putting salt in a wound you opened
almost all situations where someone is in the wrong- no matter how big or small, ends up in escalation (on their part), being more deflective, accusing others of attacking them, and not actually recognizing what the issue was in the first place
^ all this honestly just results in way more offensive and out of line things to be said, which wouldnt have happened if they handled criticism responsibly the first time around
this is a reminder that when someone critiques you for an action or something you said that may have been a form of prejudice, that is an attack on the behavior and its your duty to detach yourself and your ego to evaluate the issue with a clear and critical mind
but instead of all that we got a shitshow of people enabling bad behavior and reassuring the person who did something wrong just because people r too ignorant to hear that maybe they can be in the wrong
if its unclear until now, this is about javi and fatma, two artists i LOVED at one point, fatma especially considering her massive influence as a creator here, and i did message her about it when all this was going down
hoping that maybe a familiar face telling this to her would give her a reality check? and she may be reading this rn and if u are fatma: i still want better for u and still think you need to evaluate the damage you have done here
arabs are not exempt from antiblackness, and its strange how we talk about it like its some distant thing when it is rooted in our language and culture. i recommend reading this article for a deeper dive https://scenearabia.com/Life/Arab-Anti-Blackness-Racism-and-the-Violence-that-Doesn-t-Get-A-Hashtag
and of course, the thing that crossed the line is the "الله يكسر إيديك" (TR: may god break your hands) tweet was appalling to me, but i also do want to add context and break this phrase down from a native speakers perspective to help u guys out
its basically a colloquial idiom, and for some reason arabs have super violent idioms that are used to express extreme emotions. another example for this is "طله عيني" which literally means "they gauged my eye out" and is an idiom used to express that someone gave you a hard time
in the case of "الله يكسر إيديك" theres an explanation here. we can take away that this was used as an extremely rude and fucked up way to victim blame people who were offended
it is still EXTREMELY inappropriate to say especially in these circumstances. if people took away the literal translation of the idiom and felt offended, the "actual" non literal meaning is STILL EXTREMELY BAD IN THIS CONTEXT. your anger is absolutely justified
now lets unpack ANOTHER thing which is extremely common and not even limited to one situation. saying "american" when black ppl r critiquing you and believing antiblackness is an exclusively "american" issue. its not!!!
if youre complaining about white americans make that distinction. but most of the time there is a TREND of non western ppl suddenly complaining about "americans" whenever BLACK ISSUES are put to the forefront and that is no coincidence!!
the non western perspective on america is EXTREMELY distorted. i can put my own hands up and say that i DO hold a bitterness when thinking about america because of american imperialism but i have learned to remove and separate that from the people and ESPECIALLY nonwhite people.
when u start complaining about nonwhite and especially black people under the umbrella term of "americans" its painfully obvious
THINGS ARE INTERSECTIONAL!! i wish people were aware of the privilege they DO have instead of focusing on what they dont. there is a giant irony in established artists talking about "privilege"
american companies related to the arts barely hire black people, in fact sometimes the industry BLACKLISTS them from even entering the industry at all (and we see proof of this on twitter when black artists are put on block chains)
and an excuse that ive seen is that under censorship people in the middle east cant talk about social issues. well guess what black people are part of the middle east and have been for the longest time, --
so its our duty to weed out antiblackness in our community when we go through similar things as middle easterners and or arabs
im tired of seeing our communities stay stagnant & ignore issues, i know not everyone can speak up like i do but if you cant ur due diligence is at least to uproot antiblackness in yourself and the people close to you. reputations of antiblackness online will always be remembered
also here is a video from palestinian actress maryam abu khaled talking about arab antiblackness and colorism
if i missed anything or need to be corrected lmk because i kind of just typed my thoughts out all in one go at 1 am on my notes app LOL
