Yugen

osobigbear:

So one of my followers brought this site to my attention

http://ghettohikes.tumblr.com/

Basically this is a site started by some guy named cody who takes “urban kids” on nature hikes to broaden their horizons and whenever they say something funny he quotes it and posts it to the site.

here are some of the quotes.

Okay lets talk about these quotes for a minute please and for that matter the name of the website.

This man has over 400,000 followers who swear by him! but do you think they know he is being racist? Not only that, do you think they know it isn’t real? 

Here is the issue

1. It is exaggerating black vernacular, it is reminiscent of every movie in which a white person had to write a part for a black person. “Yo dawg, i’m up in dis bitch yo, my homie told us you be smacking on some snacks G”. It is a caricature of how we speak, but because of how we are seen socially and presented in the media people are more than likely very willing to accept this caricature as truth. Making blacks seem more ignorant than people already believe us to be.
2. This goes right into my next point, it is championing stereotypes and perpetuating them. It is personally mediated racism, It is saying to people, “you know how you viewed black people through unfair representation, showcasing the worst instances in our culture rather than highlighting our achievements? well I am here to tell you it is true, here are some “quotes” from the kids i teach to prove this point.”  this is prejudice.
3. It gives white people more ammo to say shit like, “HOW IS THIS RACIST? IT IS FUNNY AS SHIT YOU ARE JUST BEING SENSITIVE.” This site is making black people into a punch line. Just like folks who did/do black face, they are trying to make the black experience something that can be laughed at or mocked which also feeds into the white victim culture we have going on in america as of late.
4. This site isn’t really run by some dude who takes kids on  hikes, it is run by a guy who runs numerous twitters and blogs under various names. So this person is causing a lot of damage for shits and giggles.

Now that we know about Ghetto Hikes, lets voice our opinion about it as people of color or folks who support people of color. I am tired of black people being mocked, caricatured and made to seem ignorant just so people can have a laugh. It isn’t funny, it is distructive and only furthers the gap between POC and white folks. We can’t progress if stereotypes are constantly being perpetuated and beat into peoples heads like this. Lets stop this…NOW!

Does this look familiar to anyone?

timemagazine:

At TIME.com, we’re working on a guide to the best Tumblrs out there. But we want to know what you think first.

What Tumblr can’t you live without? (Aside from ours, of course.) Whether it’s news, photography, design or just cat videos, we want to know what you follow — and why. 

Reply to this post (and include the URL) with your picks. We’ll mark popular suggestions as “Readers’ Choice” in our final list, which should come out by the end of January.