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[THREAD] Thinking about how us white folks are being asked to intervene when family members, coworkers, friends, etc. voice white supremacist ideals or "jokes" & how I think this requires more complicated labor and intentionality than a lot of us are realizing.
It isn’t as simple as just saying “No, that’s RACIST” when Uncle Joe makes a quip at Thanksgiving. Verbal correction in the moment is one thing. You should speak out. But realize this correction isn’t going to fix anything.
Actually, in my experience, my intervention often serves to push bigoted family members further into voicing hatred (and unifying to do it) as an attempted corrective to me and my "college brainwashing."
It depends on your relationship. But as a friend said to me the other day, her white working class family revoked her right to critique them the moment she got higher education. This is v. familiar to me. In these circumstances you have to accept that you cannot sway the speaker.
If your corrections are making your family/friends/whoever louder and more aggressive in their hate, are you still helping? Or are you making them more dangerous? I worry. I don’t have a good answer for this.
As part of grappling with that, recognize that while it’s less gratifying (and might feel less urgent) to publicly acknowledge and correct your own biases and the ways you benefit from white supremacy than to challenge other offenders, it’s important.
I know, Uncle Joe voted for Trump and is overtly racist, and you’re “woke” and liberal, and it feels like he needs the correction more than you need to eat humble pie. And if you have family members like mine, even self-acknowledgement can trigger verbal attacks and ragefests.
But we need to realize what the purpose of speaking up is. It isn’t to fix Uncle Joe. He might be unfixable. You have to understand that speaking out can cost you those relationships and grieve them as part of your labor.
Realize that those bonds and love might be contingent on upholding their white supremacy without challenge. Accept that loss as a necessary step toward justice. Every time you don’t rock the boat, you are sacrificing black and brown people for the reward of familial affection.
Instead, the purpose is to be heard shifting the norm. To vocally acknowledge white supremacy & racism & your complicity & the ways you and your family/friends/whoever benefit, & to challenge the social acceptance of these.
Speaking isn’t for problematic Uncle Joe, it’s for everyone else who’s hearing Uncle Joe speak unchallenged.
That means that the more publicly Uncle Joe speaks, the louder you need to speak up.
That means that the more publicly Uncle Joe speaks, the louder you need to speak up.
This is where I think the most work needs done. Because to do this, you have to hear those voices and give them access to your voice. If you’ve blocked all your “problematic” family members on Facebook, you’ve opted out of all of that labor.
Look, I get it. It is miserable and exhausting and traumatizing to alienate your family. Sometimes it’s dangerous. Assess your intersectional privileges and vulnerability. The burden is massive. I don’t have a great answer.
I know I kept unfiltered social media and constantly challenged my family’s BS, and it maybe helped for a while, until Facebook alerts started giving me panic attacks because they were actively cyberbullying and verbally abusing me. That wasn’t the right approach, maybe.
But neither is avoiding and blocking/muting every single connection of yours who is problematic, which is what I see most of my "woke" white friends doing. If this were easy, it wouldn't need done. We have to shoulder some burdens because lives are being lost every day.
Just because you’re not seeing anyone who’s overtly racist in your sphere doesn’t mean your labor is done. Sometimes it means you’ve opted out of the work that needs doing. And make no mistake, that burden will land on someone else, maybe someone else more vulnerable.
That's my perspective. More important are the black and brown folks' voices. Keep listening and learning and amplifying. Acknowledge the racist white supremacist structures that have shaped every bit of our lives. Do your part instead of turning away or congratulating yourself.
Here seems like a good place to start, regardless of gender: https://twitter.com/TatianaTMac/status/1266247666666663943?s=20
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As usual @ISASaxonists says it very well https://twitter.com/ISASaxonists/status/1266388962098249736?s=19
And @itskindred saying it way better and more concisely than me: https://twitter.com/itskindred/status/1266240276726550533?s=19
And read this WHOLE THREAD. And then do it again. https://twitter.com/thearmchaircom/status/1259494371789070338?s=19
Also something that is bothering me A LOT is the silence from some of my UK associates, or sentiments like "what's happening in America is awful and unacceptable" that leave it at that. Um, it is, but a lot of y'all have got family money. Where'd that come from?
How are you redistributing it? Where'd the institutional wealth that's the foundation of our privileged access to an Oxbridge education come from, hmm? How's diversity looking at those institutions? There are no clean hands here. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/07/how-survive-as-black-man-at-oxford-university-michael-donkor
