Oh goody.

Now I actually have something to rant about.

Despite the fact that I would consider myself Caucasian (my grandpa is native, but I don't really look it, so I hesitate to class myself as anything else), I really hate white people sometimes.

Specifically, white people who can hide out on the internet and try to disguise their racism as being a logical view of the "facts".

Let me lay it out for you. Apparently, Vaseline has launched a new Facebook application in India that will allow users to lighten their skin colour in their profile picture. This is to help promote a new "skin lightening" product for men that Vaseline is launching, called Be Prepared.

The fan page of TotalBeauty makes an update and post about it on the website here and the person writing the update says they find it a bit racist. Fair play to them, since I do too.

But silly me! Of course, I've forgotten that there's bound to be a shit-storm of white privilege raining down and saying OMG NOT RACIST A TAX ON TANNING BOOTHS NOW THAT'S RACIST BECAUSE ONLY WHITE PEOPLE USE THEM (any person that actually believes that, particularly Republicans, since it was their "side" of the "debate" that came up with that shit, deserves to be hit by a semi truck with a bunch of pitch forks on the front) and saying that anyone who finds it "racist" doesn't get it.

I had the misfortune of engaging in... I hesitate to call it a debate, since she said nothing that even made sense, so let's call it a "discussion"... with one of these privileged white girls (clearly with a tan, of course... it's interesting, isn't it, that within "white" cultures, people want to be tanned, but within darker-skinned cultures, people want to be lighter/whiter...) who said that an application to lighten skin up to five shades wasn't any more racist than cosmetics (I don't even know) or braces (again, I don't even know).

I suppose this is going to contain two rants (eyyyy! Making up for that absence?), but I'll keep with the Vaseline thing first.

It is racist. Someone on there brought up a really interesting point, though. This desire for lighter skin among darker races (particularly ones that were colonized by European powers) is as rampant today as it was when the nations were under European control, and part of that is because European powers saw pale skin as a sign that you didn't have to work outside for a living, also known as being "well off". But now, within more "white" countries, being tanned is a sign that you can afford to flee to some tropical place and get a super dark tan while you're on vacation. Strange, isn't it?

But yes. Back to my point. It's yet another example of white privilege not understanding how a darker skinned person might view these products and Facebook applications as flashing signs that say that they're not good enough as they are.

It's weird, though, now that I'm thinking about it... a lot of the really popular Bollywood actresses are quite light... Tyra Banks, a very famous black supermodel, is still pretty light... so even though we're not harping on about the caste system (don't even get me started), are we still promoting the image that we generally prefer lighter-skinned people? TOO MUCH DEEP THOUGHT FOR A BLOG ABOUT RAGE.


And now I'm really going to rage.

Spend five seconds on Facebook, and you'll quickly find that the internet is the perfect place for a person to act like a giant fucking asshole with almost no repercussions. It's true. Go there now, click on the first page that comes up and look at its discussion board, if it has one. It works even better if we're talking about a political page.

If you have any reason to want to try and keep your sanity, do not comment if you're going to say anything that is contrary to what everyone else thinks. If this is a pro-Bush page (... why would anybody be a fan of that? I mean George W., for all you perverts), don't get on there and start talking about what a dicktastic fail he was. You'll be called un-American within five seconds, a liberal fascist within a minute and a Nazi within five. It's true.

But the funny thing is, nobody would call you a Nazi to your face, would they? They'd hide behind the tight nod and pursed lips and think it, but they would never say it.

I hate the internet sometimes. I really do. I hate it because it makes people feel safe enough to say and do things that they would never have the balls to do in real life.

One could argue that my blog is the same way.... except... you'd have to have never met me to think that I don't rant all the time about everything.

Haven't written for ages...

But this one will be short.

Shut the fuck up, you little bitch.

I will smash your head in with a fucking shovel.

No more dealing with people on the pity potty, no more trying to make someone feel better about themselves when even they can't do it.

Fuck you, slit your throat, I'll kill you, I fucking hate you, shut the fuck up, please die, go sob your heart out, and by "sob your heart out" I mean "kill yourself", ads;ljghads;jgh