Responses to racism
Racism was much worse back in the day you don't know how lucky you are ........ Ok white master thank you for pointing out our place, is that a whip I detect in your hands?
Unpacking the context of that statement is important. So yes we can't compare he pasts but does that mean we are to be stuck in the past? Water supply was terrible in the past as was internet connectivity should we then be happy that black people are working as slaves ........ oh wait we are still doing their bidding
When your oppressor decides what constitutes oppression you are never free. White people deciding what is racism is indicative of white privilege and white fragility. They probably said that to people in the 60's at least you aren't working in plantations anymore be grateful we only segregate you. Or earlier - hey at least you are working in plantations not stolen from your countries and tortured on ships.
Being racist is beneficial to society - white society to be precise. Immersed in a social, economic and political system they benefit from prevents them from seeing privilege or their own exclusion. I have had plenty of people say but being stopped at airports is fine or black men invite trouble because of how they dress. White men in grey suits should frighten us to death similarly they caused the banking crisis, started wars.
I am sorry but black people don't need to feel grateful that white people aren't lynching them anymore, neither do we need to congratulate them on behaving decently towards us.
I am sorry but black people don't need to feel grateful that white people aren't lynching them anymore, neither do we need to congratulate them on behaving decently towards us.
1 comment:
interesting. it is the same balance of power thing that pertains in any social division between have and have nots, those with power and those without. in the yorkshire villages where i came from it was the black-faced miners coming up from the pits who were meant to be grateful to the pit owners for being allowed to do a horrible dangerous job. to feel grateful that for my fathers generation it wasn't quite as bad, they had showers in the pit head buildings instead of having to walk home black and get a wash in a tin bath in the kitchen.
or the workers in the steel smelting factories in sheffield, who were supposed to be grateful that they didn't get molten metal poured on them quite as often as they used to.
now of course with no pits left and all the steel works closed down, the people with no jobs are meant to act grateful for being allowed to have a little handout from the government. and turn a blind eye at being told all the time that they are scroungers.
all about levels of privilege again though.
the english miner who was so covered in coal dust that it was embedded in his skin and would never wash off, could always make a joke about the bloke from jamaica who came over here to take up the jobs that the government advertised overseas after the war, cause a black man working down the pit was always darker than the white man working down the pit, the white miner could feel that he was reclaiming some of the whiteness that was hidden by the dirt from his job.
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