Anonymous asked: you guys are really an inspiration. A lot of what you post has opened my eyes to the biases/ stereotypes we see everyday, but don't notice. I wonder, how have you come to form opinions on these types of things? I am an African-American female, so, you'd think that I would be the first to pick up on these types of things. But actually, your blog has made me realize just how ignorant I, and a lot of people I come in contact with, are.

For me it mostly came from reading, but I can’t speak for the other admins. There’s still a lot that I personally have to learn, and it isn’t always easy. A lot of it requires a fundamental shift in your world perspective. For example, I’m white. I benefit from white privilege. But it took me a long time to understand how privilege and oppression intersect; the fact that I don’t have gender/sexual orientation/class privilege does not mean that it negates the social benefits I receive purely for being white. And like I said, it took me a long time to really understand this, and it took a great deal of reading and talking to people about the structures of whiteness. Patricia Hill Collins’ matrix of domination was a huge help to me when I was working to educate myself on these issues, and so did feminist authors like bell hooks.

We’re socialized into internalizing many of these attitudes in ways that are so subtle (and yet prevalent), that it takes a great deal of work to try to shift our minds into viewing it from different angles. But because it is so prevalent, these things have become part of the cultural norm and it’s easier for us to accept them without really critically analyzing the culture around us. 

-Admin Anna