Zwarte Piet Is Racisme // Black Pete Is Racist

◾️ zwarte piet is racisme // black pete is racist ◾️

where i’m from, Sinterklaas is celebrated today; a winter holiday like Christmas, but imagine instead of jolly elves giving you presents and bringing you joy, it’s white people in blackface - Zwarte Piet, a racist caricature.

because of this, late november - early december is Hell for black people in the Netherlands and Belgium. you walk down the street seeing white people doing blackface minstrelsy, you grow up seeing tons of blackface imagery in stores or on TV, and the conversation on whether or not its racist is being dominated by complete disregard to the Dutch colonial & slavery history. 

while changes are being made (slowly), the amount of gaslighting and racist violence black people and POC here have to endure is draining and traumatizing. “it’s for the kids!” they say, but i’ve seen first hand how it has negatively impacted black kids in my family, making them question their place in society, myself included. black activists have campaigned against the tradition and those speaking out have been beaten and harassed by both the police and the far-right. and yes, this happens in a country that prides itself on being sooooo tolerant.

it should not take that much effort to change a “fun, family friendly holiday tradition for kids” in such a way that is inclusive for EVERYONE - in a way that remains fun and pleasant without harming others, especially marginalized folks.  today i wanted to speak up and use my platform in hopes to educate, spread awareness and advocate for change.

nosy bears

Spoopy Season Safety

dark urkel tribute hd

(twitter)

if non-hispanics reblogged it would help a ton!

so, i've been noticing lately that english speakers that don't support neopronouns have been saying stuff like "neopronouns are for americans, no one else uses neopronouns in other languages! they're confusing to non-natives!" and it honestly upsets me SO MUCH, because that's simply not true! neopronouns exist all around the world, and i'm here to speak for hispanic neopronoun users as an argentine myself.

spanish has neopronouns, hispanics use neopronouns! it's not debatable!

spanish does not have an equivalent to they/them, "someone dropped their wallet, if i find them i'll give it back to them" would be "a alguien se le cayó su billetera, si lo encuentro se la devolveré" (someone dropped his wallet, if i find him i'll give it back to him).

so, since there's many non-binary people that felt like they needed a gender-neutral pronoun for themselves, elle/le was invented as opposed to él/lo.

as you may know, a neopronoun is a pronoun that is not official to a language (although some neopronouns may become official), and since elle/le is not official to spanish, it's a neopronoun to us.

and no, this isn't our only neopronoun.

we have others such as elli/li, ellu/lu, il/li, etc. that do not have a translation to english, kinda like how xe/xem, ze/zir, ae/aer, etc. do not have a translation to spanish.

and yes, these are actually used, and not only online: i've had many friends in my country that used these pronouns among nounself pronouns (a friend that used él/ella/elli/quack, another one that used elle/ella, etc.)

so, i've made an il/li/-i pronoun flag!

il/li are pronouns derived from italian, and they're one of the most common neopronouns around here!

[ID: On the left, there's flag with 5 stripes all of the same size, the colors of these stripes from top to bottom are: mint green, turquoise, white, light purple, and brown. The image on the right is the same flag with the color-meanings of each stripe, and from top to bottom, these are the meanings: Mint green - italian origins of the pronouns, Turquoise - disabled and neurodivergent users, White - neopronouns around the world, Light purple - trans hispanics, and Brown - people of color hispanics. End ID]

this is the flag with its meanings, any hispanic / spanish-speaker that IDs with these pronouns is free to use it!

WEBSITES FOR WRITERS {masterpost}

E.A. Deverell - FREE worksheets (characters, world building, narrator, etc.) and paid courses;

Hiveword - Helps to research any topic to write about (has other resources, too);

BetaBooks - Share your draft with your beta reader (can be more than one), and see where they stopped reading, their comments, etc.;

Charlotte Dillon - Research links;

Writing realistic injuries - The title is pretty self-explanatory: while writing about an injury, take a look at this useful website;

One Stop for Writers - You guys... this website has literally everything we need: a) Description thesaurus collection, b) Character builder, c) Story maps, d) Scene maps & timelines, e) World building surveys, f) Worksheets, f) Tutorials, and much more! Although it has a paid plan ($90/year | $50/6 months | $9/month), you can still get a 2-week FREE trial;

One Stop for Writers Roadmap - It has many tips for you, divided into three different topics: a) How to plan a story, b) How to write a story, c) How to revise a story. The best thing about this? It's FREE!

Story Structure Database - The Story Structure Database is an archive of books and movies, recording all their major plot points;

National Centre for Writing - FREE worksheets and writing courses. Has also paid courses;

Penguin Random House - Has some writing contests and great opportunities;

Crime Reads - Get inspired before writing a crime scene;

The Creative Academy for Writers - "Writers helping writers along every step of the path to publication." It's FREE and has ZOOM writing rooms;

Reedsy - "A trusted place to learn how to successfully publish your book" It has many tips, and tools (generators), contests, prompts lists, etc. FREE;

QueryTracker - Find agents for your books (personally, I've never used this before, but I thought I should feature it here);

Pacemaker - Track your goals (example: Write 50K words - then, everytime you write, you track the number of the words, and it will make a graphic for you with your progress). It's FREE but has a paid plan;

Save the Cat! - The blog of the most known storytelling method. You can find posts, sheets, a software (student discount - 70%), and other things;

I hope this is helpful for you!

(Also, check my blog if you want to!)