Cw: racism
(I'm not retweeting Alex because she has gone through enough the past few days & I don't want to send more trolls, it's now on us to step up and help out)

This is the impact of whitness within #archaeology. We need to talk about it because it has to stop.

Whiteness is not about skin colour, and a big part of whiteness is privilege. We white archaeologists have A LOT of privilege. Especially within a field still struggling with a legacy of colonialism. A few days ago, whiteness in archaeology was rightfully critiqued.

A white archaeologist took offense to that comment. This archaeologist does critique & challenege the colonial nature of archaeology, but this became a #NotAllArchaeologists situation. Read this article & replace "men" with "archaeologist". https://medium.com/@KirstyStricklan/why-men-should-stop-saying-notallmen-immediately-f657e244f7a1

Now, myself and another white archaeologist were called out for unfollowing the offended archaeologist. I went through a day of messages that only served to support my decision. But I have the privilege to ignore that, to walk away. My BIPOC colleagues don't.

One colleague has since been described as "dangerous" a couple of times, because he unfollowed/blocked the offended archaeologist. He's been "reported" for his "lies". Another colleague patiently wrote a long thread educating us on problematic whiteness in archaeology...

...and since then she's been subject to several waves of racist comments, like the one shared earlier. I was tagged into some of it when the racist guy replied to me, but otherwise my white privilege protects me from it. And protects the offended white archaeologist from it.

I get it, it's easy to become defensive when facing an uncomfortable situation. An uncomfortable reality. But white archaeologists NEED to be open to being uncomfortable. We have to recognize when we're reinforcing whiteness, even unintentionally, & challenge & stop it.

When white archaeologists see our BIPOC colleagues being subject to racism & any other problematic behaviours, we NEED to step in and help block it and stop it. We also NEED to to challenge other archaeologists when they're the ones being problematic.

To make this field better, safer, and more inclusive we need to challenge the dominant whiteness of it. Yes, it will be uncomfortable, it will be exhausting, it will be frustrating. But it has to be done. Otherwise this field will never move out of that shadow of colonialism.