lightskinjezebel
IBERIAN SCUM
1. the “Food“
I remember when I arrived at my boarding school some classmates were complaining about how the steak and potatoes in the cafeteria wasn’t real. I was completely confused. How could that even be possible? Where does that even begin to make sense. After some time – I gradually began to get it. I would be pleasantly surprised when I would stumble upon food, not a product, but actual FOOD – like from mother nature…
You drink the water over there and you gain 5 kg – it’s crazy! Hardly anything is real over there. Not grown just fabricated…unless you mean grown in a laboratory somewhere. Sugar is in things where it has no business being. Fast-food and bulk take out delivery is the norm. I think the average American citizen has soda instead of blood in their veins and the serving quantities are ridiculous!
I kind of like being able to eat knowing I am not ingesting a cancer inducing ridden appetiser, a main course of a heart attack waiting to happen with a side of diabetes.
2. the Obesity
As most people are fixated upon hollywood movies with actresses that eat a bag of oxygen once a week and sit through 8 hours of hair and make-up (let’s not even talk about the plastic surgery procedures) as well as glitzy music videos and fashion editorial worthy advertisements (the US is the king of Marketing – that I’ll definitely give them), all that glamour that one is spoon-fed from afar is seriously misleading….
In actuality, the average person from the USA is morbidly obese. Uh huh. I dare anyone to deny this. The average woman over there has a height of 5ft4 and is a size 14. That is around 163 cm at a size 48 in Europe….that’s DEEP. I’m not at all into the policing of (especially women’s) bodies, but I am all about healthy living. And the cultural climate over there makes it so that in an attempt to cancel out the negative twisted images of hollywood’s anorexic plastic unhealthy “beauty“, the otherwise unhealthy “overweight” beauty of the average woman is being justified.
My entire time there I was often made to feel like there was something wrong with me. I would be told to eat a sandwich by strangers or that I looked sick. And yet my blood pressure, BMI and waist-to hip numbers were all within the biologically healthy spectrum. These criticisms would always come from people who should have been more concerned with their own numbers….but I got it. The average woman is tormented over there! Subjected to extremely unrealistic standards…..which brings me to my third point:
3. the Sick Standards of BeautyBe skinny, be curvy, have a full chest, tiny waist, flat stomach, firm butt, bubble butt, long legs, the whitest straightest teeth, completely hairless, high heels while its snowing death outside, …what have you – the list goes on and on and on. More often than not, the women are held to these unfair and unrealistic standards that result in scores of “beauty products”, numerous pills, plastic surgery, obsessive diets and eating disorders as they spend money and time torturing themselves in an attempt to live up to these insane societal pressures that permeate every aspect of their lives. And the men?
4. the Sexism
The men dictate and control everything in society under the pretext of being “men” without really doing anything to justify or warrant their privilege. Nowadays, the women are expected to be beautiful, educated, professional, domestic, care-taking sex machines. While the men generally slob about with their beer bellies at sports bars chugging down overpriced hard liquor that their salaries (naturally much higher than their female counterparts) enable them to pay for in the dozens as they sexually harass the waitresses in attempt to “score.” and prove their “manhood.” And yet women are given all sorts of sexist labels within the society, their bodies are constantly policed and they are held to unrealistic standards – of beauty as mentioned earlier, as well as other nonsense.
On another note, the standards of beauty, however already twisted, always pertain to theWHITE standard of beauty. And when there is justice for women, it is often for WHITE women. So the rest of the non white citizens are just, as they say, chopped liver. And that has not even begun to explore the injustice and deep racial prejudices within the system.
5. the Racism
People plagued with cognitive dissonance and selective understanding will fail to understand the racism in the USA since the current President is black. I implore these people, and all those who think like them to define racism. The racism in the USA is so deeply ingrained in the very heart of the country; intricately woven into every fibre of society. The system caters to the Caucasian population and the rest have to work ten times as hard from already compromised positions to get in where they fit in – as second class citizens. Oh…wait? Are you offended by this completely accurate observation? Are you going to call me a “Reverse Racist“…? Because that daft and pathetic label only just reinforces everything I just wrote within this fifth point.
6. the Colourism
With slavery at the foundation of the USA, and the continued marginalisation of the non-caucasian citizens….in comes racism’s tormented cousin, Colourism. Sadly, the centuries of oppression has rendered the non caucasian population dreadfully twisted, with a lingering slave mentality rooted in deep wounds that have not yet healed – “white is better.” This colours a lot of their interactions (no pun intended), since in the days of slavery, being whiter meant survival. And even today, quite honestly, being whiter still means better chances at succeeding in the USA. We see a lot of division and self hatred amidst the “blacks, yellows, browns, reds” designating value based on what is perceived as “white traits” and consequently, treating or mistreating each other based on this sick paradigm.
When I lived in the USA, being African was the worst thing I could possibly be. Since the negative portrayal of Africa in the media made certain people of colour lack pride in their African heritage and all non caucasains wanted to distance themselves from all the negative things that they felt the African continent represented as much as possible. Where did that leave me? As an African woman – it was not easy asserting my self-love amidst the ingrained self-hatred bred by the society – but I’m proud to say that my self-esteem is still very much intact.
7. the Sick Dating Scene
Attitudes of both racism and colourism also play out in the romantic department. As an African woman – I was at the bottom of the dating chain which makes me feel weirdly more appreciated in Europe as a black woman. But that aside, the entire world of relationships is made to be so complicated and for no reason at all. The dating scene in the USA is so unhealthy. There are too many hang ups and chips on shoulders to navigate. The tug of war between the sexes, the glorified infidelity, the financial dating mazes, the endless extremely immature and unnecessary psychological games, the fear of real intimacy, the painful evolution of feminist outlooks into a traditionally patriarchal society, thecodependency, the external pressures….just a lot of bullshyt really.
source: 10 Reasons Why I Don't Miss Living in the USA | ZARA CHIRON
I remember when I arrived at my boarding school some classmates were complaining about how the steak and potatoes in the cafeteria wasn’t real. I was completely confused. How could that even be possible? Where does that even begin to make sense. After some time – I gradually began to get it. I would be pleasantly surprised when I would stumble upon food, not a product, but actual FOOD – like from mother nature…
You drink the water over there and you gain 5 kg – it’s crazy! Hardly anything is real over there. Not grown just fabricated…unless you mean grown in a laboratory somewhere. Sugar is in things where it has no business being. Fast-food and bulk take out delivery is the norm. I think the average American citizen has soda instead of blood in their veins and the serving quantities are ridiculous!
I kind of like being able to eat knowing I am not ingesting a cancer inducing ridden appetiser, a main course of a heart attack waiting to happen with a side of diabetes.
2. the Obesity
As most people are fixated upon hollywood movies with actresses that eat a bag of oxygen once a week and sit through 8 hours of hair and make-up (let’s not even talk about the plastic surgery procedures) as well as glitzy music videos and fashion editorial worthy advertisements (the US is the king of Marketing – that I’ll definitely give them), all that glamour that one is spoon-fed from afar is seriously misleading….
In actuality, the average person from the USA is morbidly obese. Uh huh. I dare anyone to deny this. The average woman over there has a height of 5ft4 and is a size 14. That is around 163 cm at a size 48 in Europe….that’s DEEP. I’m not at all into the policing of (especially women’s) bodies, but I am all about healthy living. And the cultural climate over there makes it so that in an attempt to cancel out the negative twisted images of hollywood’s anorexic plastic unhealthy “beauty“, the otherwise unhealthy “overweight” beauty of the average woman is being justified.
My entire time there I was often made to feel like there was something wrong with me. I would be told to eat a sandwich by strangers or that I looked sick. And yet my blood pressure, BMI and waist-to hip numbers were all within the biologically healthy spectrum. These criticisms would always come from people who should have been more concerned with their own numbers….but I got it. The average woman is tormented over there! Subjected to extremely unrealistic standards…..which brings me to my third point:
3. the Sick Standards of BeautyBe skinny, be curvy, have a full chest, tiny waist, flat stomach, firm butt, bubble butt, long legs, the whitest straightest teeth, completely hairless, high heels while its snowing death outside, …what have you – the list goes on and on and on. More often than not, the women are held to these unfair and unrealistic standards that result in scores of “beauty products”, numerous pills, plastic surgery, obsessive diets and eating disorders as they spend money and time torturing themselves in an attempt to live up to these insane societal pressures that permeate every aspect of their lives. And the men?
4. the Sexism
The men dictate and control everything in society under the pretext of being “men” without really doing anything to justify or warrant their privilege. Nowadays, the women are expected to be beautiful, educated, professional, domestic, care-taking sex machines. While the men generally slob about with their beer bellies at sports bars chugging down overpriced hard liquor that their salaries (naturally much higher than their female counterparts) enable them to pay for in the dozens as they sexually harass the waitresses in attempt to “score.” and prove their “manhood.” And yet women are given all sorts of sexist labels within the society, their bodies are constantly policed and they are held to unrealistic standards – of beauty as mentioned earlier, as well as other nonsense.
On another note, the standards of beauty, however already twisted, always pertain to theWHITE standard of beauty. And when there is justice for women, it is often for WHITE women. So the rest of the non white citizens are just, as they say, chopped liver. And that has not even begun to explore the injustice and deep racial prejudices within the system.
5. the Racism
People plagued with cognitive dissonance and selective understanding will fail to understand the racism in the USA since the current President is black. I implore these people, and all those who think like them to define racism. The racism in the USA is so deeply ingrained in the very heart of the country; intricately woven into every fibre of society. The system caters to the Caucasian population and the rest have to work ten times as hard from already compromised positions to get in where they fit in – as second class citizens. Oh…wait? Are you offended by this completely accurate observation? Are you going to call me a “Reverse Racist“…? Because that daft and pathetic label only just reinforces everything I just wrote within this fifth point.
6. the Colourism
With slavery at the foundation of the USA, and the continued marginalisation of the non-caucasian citizens….in comes racism’s tormented cousin, Colourism. Sadly, the centuries of oppression has rendered the non caucasian population dreadfully twisted, with a lingering slave mentality rooted in deep wounds that have not yet healed – “white is better.” This colours a lot of their interactions (no pun intended), since in the days of slavery, being whiter meant survival. And even today, quite honestly, being whiter still means better chances at succeeding in the USA. We see a lot of division and self hatred amidst the “blacks, yellows, browns, reds” designating value based on what is perceived as “white traits” and consequently, treating or mistreating each other based on this sick paradigm.
When I lived in the USA, being African was the worst thing I could possibly be. Since the negative portrayal of Africa in the media made certain people of colour lack pride in their African heritage and all non caucasains wanted to distance themselves from all the negative things that they felt the African continent represented as much as possible. Where did that leave me? As an African woman – it was not easy asserting my self-love amidst the ingrained self-hatred bred by the society – but I’m proud to say that my self-esteem is still very much intact.
7. the Sick Dating Scene
Attitudes of both racism and colourism also play out in the romantic department. As an African woman – I was at the bottom of the dating chain which makes me feel weirdly more appreciated in Europe as a black woman. But that aside, the entire world of relationships is made to be so complicated and for no reason at all. The dating scene in the USA is so unhealthy. There are too many hang ups and chips on shoulders to navigate. The tug of war between the sexes, the glorified infidelity, the financial dating mazes, the endless extremely immature and unnecessary psychological games, the fear of real intimacy, the painful evolution of feminist outlooks into a traditionally patriarchal society, thecodependency, the external pressures….just a lot of bullshyt really.
source: 10 Reasons Why I Don't Miss Living in the USA | ZARA CHIRON
...she makes some points. If I had no connections, I'd explore other decent parts of the hemisphere (gonna travel anyway)...
