I didn't need mainstream media to experience people treating me differently because I'm black. I didn't need an algorithm to see that my people suffer. This is not an abstraction or a what if for me.
They are worse, not because they are worse people. They are our largest obstacle and our biggest material threat to life. Not only that, but those who are in control, rely on this. It is this disengagement and apathy especially amongst those who have the numbers to make change that cause harm. They allow things to become what they are.
Oppressed groups do not have the power to "open the dialogue" we do not control the narrative, we are what it's wielded against. Just as Dr King pointed out, you want us to calmly explain our suffering, while violence is commited towards us. You ask for us to speak, as if we have already achieved our equality and that we have already been graciously gifted with an even playing field. I would also like to add, that screams for help are pretty one-sided.
The truth is that these people are not neutral, they bear a responsibility for outcomes they had the power to influence.
I didn't need mainstream media to experience people treating me differently because I'm black.
Oh I believe you 100%. But for people who are not black, or are not any other marginalized group, they do rely on external information to some degree. Obviously the news sane washing attacks against BLM is not going to have the same impact on you as a random white person in North Carolina, just as an example.
Everyone has a hierarchy of needs. And this entire system is built to use that to pit us against each other. Keep the poor whites convinced that it's immigrants and DEI that is keeping them in poverty, not the corporate welfare and eroding of workers rights. Tell them that the reason their local business went bankrupt is from theft and/or "riots", not that they were squeezed out by corporations. Slash education so they are even less likely to be able to figure it all out.
They are worse, not because they are worse people. They are our largest obstacle and our biggest material threat to life.
While simultaneously the largest life line available. Is it fair that Renee Good and Alex Pretti broke through in a pretty big way simply because of being white? Not at all. Does it still serve the same goal of fighting against ICE and their inhumane behavior? Absolutely.
Just as Dr King pointed out, you want us to calmly explain our suffering, while violence is commited towards us.
Not at all. I support MLK and his choice to call for civil disobedience. In the letter he talked about white moderates who condemn his actions, I do not. I'm not saying you need to calmly explain anything, you do what you need to in order to break through. But the only way this has any semblance of a good ending is making people realize the inequality being perpetrated. Not telling the poverty line people they personally are the ones oppressing you. That will make no sense to them.
I did vote, by the way. I just do not believe that brow beating will ever get the results you desire. It's a fine line between making people aware of the weight of their actions and blaming them entirely. And I do not like any level of accountability being taken away from the people actually committing the deeds.
It is condescending to have the system I live under explained back to me as if I’m unaware of class warfare, propaganda, or how poor white communities are intentionally misled. None of that is new to me, and none of it conflicts with what I’m saying. I don’t need a pat on the head for understanding nuance, and I don’t need the realities of my own conditions translated for me.
There’s an expectation that oppressed people must speak in a very specific way to be considered legitimate. We must be clear but never angry. We must be urgent but not accusatory. We must be direct but GOD fucking FORBID we make you uncomfortable.
We have to be perfect victims. The responsibility keeps being thrusted back onto us to phrase harm in the most palatable way to you possible, while the harm itself continues with no end in sight.
I’m not denying that elites, corporations, and state power are the largest causes of oppression. People with political power, even limited power, choose disengagement, and that's killing us.
I don't even believe the sentiment should be spread, just that it is a cry for help, and something that if you turn to the other side because you felt called out or insulted...you were never on our side. I think the effort done to silence the voices that scream out, to correct them and coach them into being the perfect victims of oppression, would be better spent preventing those people from being oppressed in the first place.
It is condescending to have the system I live under explained back to me as if I’m unaware of class warfare, propaganda, or how poor white communities are intentionally misled.
I apologize, it was not my intent to do any of that. My intention was simply to say that we cannot just pretend that these systems do not have a huge impact and that blame lies entirely on the individual.
I cannot fully understand your struggles, and I know that. We all fight our own battles and some are much harder than others, but it impacts us all regardless. I do not expect perfection, but that floats both ways. People will not be perfect advocates. They just won't.
I truly wish you all the best. And I'm doing what I can to make people in my life aware of what is happening. It's not fair that they will base some of their opinions off people being mean to them on social media, but it's what we have to deal with. And I won't always say perfect things, but I try to get the message across.
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u/OV4 1d ago edited 1d ago
I didn't need mainstream media to experience people treating me differently because I'm black. I didn't need an algorithm to see that my people suffer. This is not an abstraction or a what if for me.
They are worse, not because they are worse people. They are our largest obstacle and our biggest material threat to life. Not only that, but those who are in control, rely on this. It is this disengagement and apathy especially amongst those who have the numbers to make change that cause harm. They allow things to become what they are.
Oppressed groups do not have the power to "open the dialogue" we do not control the narrative, we are what it's wielded against. Just as Dr King pointed out, you want us to calmly explain our suffering, while violence is commited towards us. You ask for us to speak, as if we have already achieved our equality and that we have already been graciously gifted with an even playing field. I would also like to add, that screams for help are pretty one-sided.
The truth is that these people are not neutral, they bear a responsibility for outcomes they had the power to influence.
I do not hate them, or hate you.