This woman gives me food for thought

[kenny]

Why “I’m not racist” is only half the story

How white defensiveness derails progress on racial issues.

bigthink.com

 

[monarch64]

10/10, valuable content. Thanks for posting!

 

[JPie]

Thanks for sharing this, Kenny. I found this passage to be particularly relevant to many of the conversations I’ve witnessed and had on PS:


How do so many of us who are white individually feel so free of racism and yet we live in a society that is so profoundly separate and unequal by race? And the question that's never failed me is not, "Is this true or is this false, is this right or is this wrong," but: "How does it function? How do these narratives that I tell, how do they function?"

When I tell you "Well, I'm just an individual. Why can't we all just be individuals?"

When I tell you, "I was taught to treat everyone the same."

When I tell you, "But it's focusing on race that divides us."

When I tell you, "But I have lots of friends of color!"

Those narratives have not changed our outcome, and they function to take race off the table and to exempt the person from any further engagement. And in doing that they function to protect the current racial hierarchy and the white position within it. It doesn't have to be what I'm intending to do, but it is the impact of those narratives.