by Maralee Bradley | June 2016
I’ve been wrestling with talking to you about some things I think you need to know. I’ve wrestled with it because I feel my own sense of shame—shame that I didn’t know or understand these issues before they touched my family. I’ve felt fear that you’ll respond in subtle ways that make it clear you aren’t safe for my child. I’ve been concerned that you won’t believe me and then I’ll feel more angry than if I hadn’t said anything. But my son is getting older, and as he transitions from an adorable black boy to a strong black man, I know the assumptions about him will change. And I need your help in keeping him safe.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Assumptions] [Policing] [Colorblindness] [Systemic Racism] [Anti-Racism] [Individual Change] [Advocacy] [White Privilege]
by Fred Barbash | October 2015
Larry Mantle, a radio host in California was moderating a discussion last month at UC-Irvine on the fraught subject of “microaggressions,” words, though uttered innocently by white people, are said to deeply offend those who are less privileged when he made a big mistake: As he called on the first questioner, he asked “Where are you from?” That’s a standard question for talk show hosts. But the audience froze in silence, briefly and uncomfortably, before breaking into a nervous laughter. Katrina, the questioner, explained: “People are laughing because of the question,” she said. But she forgave Mantle. “I don’t need to take offense at that,” she said, “because I’m part of the privileged majority who don’t constantly have to put up with questions of where I am from.” Asking someone of color or any minority “Where are you from or where were you born?,” the guidelines suggested, could send the message that “you are not a true American. You are a perpetual foreigner in your own country.” The same for comments like “you speak English very well” and “What are you? You’re so interesting looking!” Saying to an African American, “When I look at you, I don’t see color” is a kind of “color blindness” that denies “the individual as a racial/cultural being.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [Colorblindness] [Microaggressions]
by Brian Corr | June 2020
A few people have written me to say they struggled with one particular part of what I wrote in my last piece, …But does my Black Life Matter? Here’s what I wrote: “But always beware the temptation to choose which Black people to follow and then using your privilege to promote them.” …I am asking you to examine your own need for agency, to examine your desire to take action, to examine the entitlement and privilege that allows you to decide what you want to do and to examine all the life experience that tells you that you should be in charge — even as you “follow Black leadership.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Black Lives Matter] [White Privilege] [Accountability]
by Ashleigh Atwell | February 2020
A Black British academic ruffled some feathers when he deemed whiteness “a psychosis” and took Britain to task for its oppressive history.
Birmingham City University professor of black studies Dr. Kehinde Andrews made the comments on Sunday during a “Good Morning Britain” panel discussion about the use of “Empire” when referring to Britain and its territories. The talk was prompted by commentary from British Labour Party candidate Lisa Nandy, who argued the “Order of the British Empire” should be changed to the “Order of British Excellence,” per The Guardian.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [White Fragility/Tears] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [History]
by Hop Hopkins | June 2020
…As I struggled to maintain my posture and keep up the rhythm, I thought about the level of commitment it takes to hold someone down for nine minutes straight. The realization horrified me. The cop who has been charged with murdering George Floyd had to have been deeply committed to taking his life. The police officer had so many chances to let up the pressure, to let George live. Yet the officer made the choice not to. To spend nine minutes taking the life-breath from another person: That is what white supremacy does to white people. That is what white supremacy does to the rest of us too. White supremacy robs each of us of our humanity. It causes white people to view Black people as less than human. Every one of those cops watching George die was convinced that the man pinned to the ground was less than human, was in some way disposable. During the street protests and marches of the past two weeks, many people carried signs that read “Racism Is Killing Us.” It’s no exaggeration to say that racism and white supremacy harm all of us, because in addition to robbing us of our humanity, racism is also killing the planet we all share.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Racial Terrorism] [Policing] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [POC Climate Action] [Advocacy] [Indigenous] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [Collective Action]
by Christina Capatides | June 2020
…”It’s a very painful kind of silence because it removes our voice,” she said. “It doesn’t allow us to express our very specific pain… No one would ever go to a breast cancer walk and criticize them for talking about breast cancer. You wouldn’t walk up to someone who has experience as a breast cancer survivor or someone who’s lost someone from breast cancer, and say, ‘How dare you talk about breast cancer? Why not talk about colon cancer? How dare you exclude other cancers?'” Rachel Lindsay, who famously broke barriers as the first black Bachelorette, said she is taking note of which white friends and public figures have gone silent. And she believes that, in the digital age, it is the duty of public figures to speak out.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Black Lives Matter] [“All Lives Matter”] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [White Defensiveness] [White Fragility/Tears] [Systemic Racism] [Anti-Racism] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts]
