After reading White Privilege Essential Readings on the
Other Side of Racism Part 1, the following thoughts ran through my mind:
- · Duh, of course this is what the world is truly like for people of color.
- · I’ve known or felt this shit all of my life.
- · There is a whole book dedicated to calling out White peoples’ shit /stuff I – We’ve always known and this book will be largely read by people of color.
- · The White folks in my class, who are essentially being forced to interact with this new knowledge (mirror) of themselves are probably somewhere have full on emotional breakdowns.
·
That shit, that privilege, that opportunity to
move throughout the world impacting (negatively) people that you have been
systematically conditioned to be ambivalent to pisses me off… because I can
never get there myself.
I wish life gave me that courtesy… the opportunity to just
be, sans the interference of what it means to be me… Black and a Woman born and
raised in the depths of the South.
I wish that I could just now… at the age of 34 be accessing
this knowledge… fresh and vulnerable and that it would be first presented all
intellectually within the confines of a doctoral program.
I wish that I could have the privilege of making a decision
to take this knowledge and live my life differently or say to hell with it and
carry on in my blissful ambivalence, unconsciously fucking shit up for the rest
of the world.
This, for me, is the other side of racism. Not that I want
to be racist, that is, have the power to systematically control the livelihood of
those different from me… BUT that I want the power to have the pieces of me add
up to something that is considered normal… whole… equal…
I want the world to see me and know me and not treat me like I was one of God's workshop rejects or mishaps.
I'm sure I have more to think and say on this front but this process of reading and digesting more of what life really is for me as a multiple-minority is exhausting and painful.
Im moving on so that I can carry on... Because I don't have the privilege to do anything else.
Thanks Monica. Some PoC can only dream about what it would be like to have the roles reversed. Yes, books like these are necessary--narratives and essays written by scholars of color, but also some woke white scholars. The ongoing struggle seems to be not just in content, but delivery of the message (thinking DiAngelo's premise of fragility). Your life's work as an educator fits right in here. When you are ready and willing, I'd love to hear where you recognize you have privilege. Thanks for your post.
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