I would also add that it is interesting to me the way that white people try to interrupt conversations about racism and make it about themselves and their families or make it clear that not “all white people” are like that. I realize that even though I never say all white people and go out of my way to make it clear that white people and whiteness are different things, that the reason why they assume that is because when they say “Black people do this,” or “Asian people are like this,” they mean “all,” So it is assumed that we’re doing the same. Racism is the systematic and institutionalized oppression of racial minorities to the benefit of the racial majority. Racism is prejudice plus power. Period. Other oppressions happen too, at the exact same time, but IT HURTS so much when we bring up racism and instead of getting to have a conversation about racism, whiteness, white privilege, learning about it, understanding it, figuring out how to stop it - instead we have a conversation about white folks and how not ALL of them did bad things (which we know) or how to decentralize the conversation to talk about or understand other oppressions or just a conversation about the history and contributions of white people and how they helped us escape from slavery (which white folks don’t deserve praise for, you are not supposed to enslave people, helping people be free is what we are all supposed to do, it isn’t progress when laws are passed that free slaves) - which is STILL RACIST. That not even when trying to have a conversation about racism, can I have a conversation about racism. I also have to come soo hard, have an airtight definition, with facts, and diagrams and a diversity of examples and that still isn’t enough to have a conversation about - you guessed it racism! As someone who has part of my hustle dedicated to anti-racist work, I still only get to talk about racism, the painful effects with People Of Colour and Indigenous folks - white folks never want to to talk about, resist being accountable to it, never want to show empathy or appreciation for the daily resistance work and education that we do around the pervasive experience of racism. I will keep trying and resisting and fighting for all of us a People Of Colour, as Racialized Bodies and as Indigenous Folks alongside all of you, to have our voices and our truths recognized for what they really are - science, knowledge and beauty forged on the crucible of experience.
— Kim K. Crosby
Posted January 29, 2012 at 5:37am
