Non-Black or Indigenous people of color and/or people who are otherwise marginalized, *students* through faculty, staff, parents and friends: please question your investment in building on the labor of Black and Indigenous folks for your own gain.
The discourse around affirmative action in this country takes the shape that it does because Black people fought for far more than that, and this is what we were asked to settle for. Black labor.
When you ask for a bigger piece of it, and when you demand Black people recognize you are owed, you are talking to the people whose community fought for the conversation to even be had.
A classic example of this: a white gay man in my discipline made a big deal about how unfair it was that an award was "only" for Black/Hispanic/Indigenous folks and white women. He's one of several senior white gay men in my discipline. How many Black women are there like me? One
Rather than looking longingly at the small piece of the pie that people have managed to carve out for themselves, organize to make it bigger and then say you want some.
The man involved in that conversation didn't think about or care how his attitude impacted me as the only underrepresented minority party to the conversation. I didn't apply for the award that year because of that discussion because he made me feel bad. https://twitter.com/IBJIYONGI/status/1253120548084879360?s=20
It's not just white people who are minoritized or who have experienced struggle in some way who engage in these kinds of behaviors. I see a lot of confused stuff coming from Asian American folks and non-Black and/or white-presenting Hispanic/Latinx folks.
Please understand the particular positionality of Black struggle and anti-Black racism -- and similarly Indigenous struggle and anti-Indigenous racism -- in this country. Stolen lives and labor. And that every door they opened, you have walked through thanks to them.
I'm tired of seeing NB/non-Indigenous POC look at the things Black people and Indigenous people have -- HARD FOUGHT SHIT, like people died, people DIED -- and saying, "It's unfair that I don't get a bigger piece of that."
And a lot of you have swallowed one of the big myths of the diversity and inclusion racket: that social justice is about "diversity of all kinds." Nah, son. Social justice is about that kind of equal opportunity that understands the need for repair -- reparations.
You can follow @IBJIYONGI.
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