Dear White People, please do not and I repeat do not wear a safety pin to identify yourself as an ally to the Black, Brown, LGBT, or in other words, the rest of America. 70% of the voters in the 2016 election were white and both the popular vote and the electoral college were mere votes apart, It was not a landslide. It was a message. And important message for ALL of us. NO ONE WILL SAVE US FROM THIS DEBACLE! WE MUST AND SHOULD BE PLANNING TO HELP OURSELVES. In fact, I believe this truth that was revealed on November 8th, is exactly what we needed to cease being complacent.
Now I am all for marches, rallies, and folks speaking out. But, today, this month, and for the next year, I am looking for ACTION PLANS, And I will be the first to admit that I am unsure of what it should look like. I do know that it cannot continue to start with any savior or missionary mentality because those are by products of a colonizing mindset. It must start with a stream of truth. Dear White people stand up and say this aloud, "The United States is a racist, misogynist, homophobic, and Islamaphobic country that was built on the tenets of slavery, free enterprise, and war. And it benefits me and people who look like me." Then repeat it 50 times to make sure that you never forget it. It is deep in the DNA. And like most bad traits, change is usually difficult but it is not impossible. But, change of this magnitude requires that you rip the band aid off and throw alcohol at the wound. Because the more that it burns and hurts, the more important the change. And just maybe it will happen. Maybe.
Each time a child or an adult is being victimized with hate language or actions, speak out and say something. It does not count if you can only have "woke" conversations in your comfortable liberal circles. It strikes a mighty blow when you can be the only voice of reason. That is a start.
So excuse me as I refuse to have a conversation about the obvious. I already know how fucked up this country can be, first hand. But, I am willing to wait for the folks who have always had prime seats to the show to catch up and figure out the not so obvious, SAFETY PINS ARE NOT THE ANSWER!!
Girl, Yeeeesssss!!
ReplyDelete1000% right on.
ReplyDeleteSafety pins are not the answer, but when students who are not the white hegemony are surrounded by the white hegemony they have few ways of identifying a racist/bigot from an ally. A pin is not the answer but for my minority students feeling surrounded on all sides by fear, it seems like a small start in building the army of change. I can't walk across campus shouting my political inclinations. Well... I do, but I have teach too. The pin is a way to remind everyone that this is not ok. We are not ok. Because complacent white people will quickly normalize this whole ducked up situation if we let them. So a pin is one of a hundred things I do.
ReplyDeleteI agree. The safety pin can be a starting point or just a small piece of a larger strategy. Why condemn so vehemently anyone's effort - no matter how feeble - to take a positive stand or resist the current political situation? Encouragement and constructive criticism get better results than wholesale trashing. Also, "white people" like other groups are not monolithic and shouldn't be communicated with as such. Personally, I spent more than a year actively trying to defeat Trump and his message of hate; sadly I failed. Yes, white people elected Trump. That's true. But a significant sub-group of white people worked very hard to prevent that and sadly failed for many reasons. Just my two cents. P.S. Like race, the concept of "white people" is also social construct - a very harmful one at that.
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