To White People Who Want to Be One of the Good Ones – The New York Times

Posted: June 22, 2020 at 2:44 pm


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Maybe, just maybe, this work I need to do, this learning and unlearning, is not all about me. As a white woman in America, its second nature for me to center myself in the discourse, but also to vanish from it when its convenient. So permit me, please, to make this work of undoing my complicity in white supremacy in the name of racial justice all about me, you and literally everybody else.

First up, I disagree that this is in fact work. Work is chores, and chores get done. Mopping the floor, watching The Help, getting a root canal; those are chores that thankfully all come to an end. When youre white, understanding racism and anti-blackness is not a root canal, its not a one-time-only, pay-your-money, drill-the-rot-out-and-get-through-it type of experience. This is a lifelong project we get to approach with grace and curiosity and the full understanding that it will be difficult at times and beautiful at times and any chance we have to take part in it is frankly rather stunning.

In a culture fixated on self-improvement, perhaps you could think about rescinding your power as a kind of barre class for your moral compass. In the beginning it will be difficult on those tiny, rarely used muscles, but boy will you be aligned after some years of daily practice.

I hope you dont, though. I hope you understand that grappling with this countrys brutal past and imagining a future that is fair is not something you are expected to do alone. Youre simply one drop in a new wave, a wave that slips easily into an ocean of people, deep and permanent, who have long been eroding the cliffs of white supremacy.

I hope this comes as a relief to you, as it did to me. There is great solace in putting aside the fallacy that youre entitled to a starring role in this story. When you jump from the brittle scaffold built by violence and go tumbling into the tide, youll see that its easy. Youll find leaders and peers there, all around you. You wont worry then about messing up or getting lost; youll know at once where youre needed. Much of the time that will be behind these leaders and peers, often beside them, or when faced with danger, youll be in front of them, bashing into the cliffs yourself so they can float and sparkle and enjoy the world away from the fight.

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To White People Who Want to Be One of the Good Ones - The New York Times

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June 22nd, 2020 at 2:44 pm

Posted in Self-Improvement




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