we need to take some time to read this AGAIN, as the conversation turns to the fact that it is often really white progressives who make it hard to breathe at rallies and at marches. The defensiveness that emerges or erupts when whiteness is critiqued is fragility and is not just a product of white privilege, but an expression of white power. anti-racism is not a crusade for the warm feelings of white folk; in fact, anti-racism fails so often in American progressive circles because it takes on the feelings, thoughts, and opinions of white people about non-white existence as its primary concern, and fails to focus on the disruption of white supremacy, the supremacy of white opinions, the supremacy of white personal experiences, the supremacy of white conversational space. anti-racism fails precisely when it accepts within itself the supremacy of the white perspective over the perspective of those who are victimized and assailed daily by this very thick social dust bowl of disdain imposed upon our bodies. this too applies to the silencing of of women of color by patriarchal voices and trans persons of color by hetero supremacy inside and outside of our very own communities, it applies to male and hetero fragility too. black lives cannot matter, to you or anyone else, if all of the stories of those lives, all of the voices that tell them, and the vibrations they send to the most needy regions of our ethical consciences and our moral consciousness are rejected in favor of a blameless, non-culpable, and superior sense, idea or notion of our self. If you find yourself being personally defensive against critique that wants society and those of us who comprise society to be better listeners and more critical political participants, youre participating in a form of racist violence. you can march and protest all you want; go ahead and change your profile picture, but when you think you are the judge and the jury about whether or not you are racist or imperfect, you are, all bundled up in one person, your own little Darren Wilson and Bob McCulloch, your own little grand jury. While you may not spill the blood that keeps black bodies alive , you silence the voices that keep black experiences alive in political discourse; thats a violence all its own. Stephanie, this is my answer. libjournal.uncg.edu/index.php/ijcp/article/view/249/116
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 20:32:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015