by Glenn Rifkin | November 2020
The incident occurred on Dec. 6, 2017. Honestie had stepped out the back door of her home with her mother and another family member to go to the store when they were confronted by police officers with their guns drawn. “Put your hands on top of your—,” an officer ordered them before he was interrupted by Honestie’s mother screaming, “She is 11 years old, sir!” “Stop yelling!” the officer responded, as recorded by an officer’s body camera. He ordered Honestie to walk backward toward him with her hands up. A second officer grabbed her arms, pulled them behind her back and handcuffed her. Honestie shouted, “No, No, No!” pleading with the officers not to place the cuffs on her. The police, who said they had been searching for a 40-year-old woman in connection with a stabbing, removed the handcuffs after several minutes.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Policing] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Blindness] [-ing While Black] [Black Lives Matter] [Assumptions] [Health Disparities]
by Monica Harris | June 2020
Let’s get something straight: white privilege is real. I know because I’ve lived in its shadow my entire life. I’ve felt it even when I’ve tried to forget or pretend it wasn’t there. White privilege wasn’t earned; it was gifted to people who brought others, shackled in the bowels of ships, to serve them. Living in a country where your ancestors were once stuff that other people “owned” leaves wounds so deep they can’t be erased from the collective memory. And when your ancestors were the ones allowed to “own” other people, it creates something equally indelible: an advantage that’s hard-wired into all levels of society. It’s like getting a head start in every race that always puts you a few yards from the finish line. It’s an entitlement that lingers, unspoken, in the back of all minds, silently playing out in everything we say, think, or do.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [Systemic Racism] [History] [Policing] [Slavery] [Implicit Racism] [Economics] [Black Lives Matter] [Police Shootings] [Denial] [Civil War]
by Yolanda Contreras | November 2020
So many times, we see the creation of BIPOC-serving organizations by all white people — organizations devoid of voices exemplifying the very communities that these white people are trying to help. This kind of white saviorism is commonplace because we live within white supremacy — it often exhibits as the erasure of diverse voices in favor of the white dominant voice. Which is tragic, because oftentimes, our personal voice is one of the only things that we have. I’ve orbited around nonprofits and volunteering for almost as long as I can remember, at least ever since I took on my first volunteer gig while in elementary school, assisting the school librarian. I’ve held various volunteer positions throughout the years, which have also included an internship at an esteemed nonprofit. But it took me almost four years after college graduation for someone to actually hire me — to pay for my labor — and for me to finally jumpstart my official nonprofit career. Time after time, I found myself in front of an all-white hiring committee, defending and selling myself. Time after time, I would receive a rejection letter from a white leader figure who deemed me not good enough. Maybe these nonprofits wanted to hire me — but didn’t — for reasons they couldn’t quite put their fingers on. I think it’s the fact that I am a woman of color. And maybe I should have taken those instances as a warning of things to come.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Silencing POC] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [White Culture]
by Thomas J. Sugrue | June 2018
But in fact, civil rights leaders, while they did believe in the power of nonviolence, knew that their success depended on disruption and coercion as much — sometimes more — than on dialogue and persuasion. They knew that the vast majority of whites who were indifferent or openly hostile to the demands of civil rights would not be moved by appeals to the American creed or to bromides about liberty and justice for all. Polite words would not change their behavior. … That history is a reminder that civility is in the eye of the beholder. And when the beholder wants to maintain an unequal status quo, it’s easy to accuse picketers, protesters, and preachers alike of incivility, as much because of their message as their methods. For those upset by disruptive protests, the history of civil rights offers an unsettling reminder that the path to change is seldom polite.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Police Shootings] [Policing] [Politics] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Social Justice] [Justice System]
by L.A. Justice | November 2020
While Black people are being relentlessly pursued because our lives have been determined to be expendable, numerous churches across this country have not only been silent, but too many have been complacent and complicit with these atrocities. Myriad white churches have been guilty of not only espousing racist rhetoric, but also of preaching a theology that urges Christian silence when it comes to standing up for justice, especially when it means standing against the racially motivated brutalization of Black bodies. This encourages the perpetrators of such inhumane violence to continue to act with impunity, no matter how abhorrent the violence committed against us may be.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Policing] [Denial] [History] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Blindness] [Accountability] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Black Lives Matter] [Collective Action] [Cognitive Dissonance]
by Awesomely Luvvie | April 2018
White women tears are especially potent and extra salty because they are attached to the symbol of femininity. These tears are pouring out from the eyes of the one chosen to be the prototype of womanhood; the woman who has been painted as helpless against the whims of the world. The one who gets the most protection in a world that does a shitty job overall of cherishing women. The mothers, sisters, daughters and aunties of the world’s biggest bullies (white men). But the truth is, white women have been bullies themselves because they’ve been the shadows behind the white men who get all the blame. They have been doing much of the subjugation in white supremacy without any of the accountability, because: innocent white woman is a caricature many have chosen to embrace, even subconsciously. Why? Because it shields them from consequences. We talk about toxic masculinity but there is toxicity in wielding femininity in this way.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [White Fragility/Tears] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Defensiveness] [White Blindness] [White Privilege] [Accountability]
