Read on Twitter
A lot of people would start on a previously hidden path to becoming less racist if they stopped problematizing all their negative reactions to minorities.
(same with sexism, anti-LGBTQism, etc.) https://twitter.com/ThePerilousDeer/status/1294639328962973697
(same with sexism, anti-LGBTQism, etc.) https://twitter.com/ThePerilousDeer/status/1294639328962973697
Why do I keep hearing about elite white folk making rude comments about black people's hair, against their better judgement?
It's very easy not to talk about people's hair! And to understand within oneself that there are viable hair-aesthetics outside one's own.
It's very easy not to talk about people's hair! And to understand within oneself that there are viable hair-aesthetics outside one's own.
Especially, I would imagine, when you're among the elite! You've already proven, probably, that you have some measure of self control, that you're good at ticking boxes.
What has happened is that they skipped over the part where they related to the Other as, well, an Other Person, with all the possibility for reactions and disagreement and negativity that entails, including about historically acquired, cultural traits.
They are haunted by what they cut off, by what they stuffed. So they end up making all these unexpected mistakes.
If you immediately freak out at yourself when you notice that you have a negative reaction about group X, well, you're moving in the opposite direction of being able to see them clearly.
I'm guessing some of these people just need to sit with the weirdness they feel about other people's hair, just be present with it for a hot minute. Even with any potentially unfair criticisms they have towards group X.
Or (scarier for some people), any potentially *fair* criticisms.
Something the History of Oppression is obscuring is that people are gonna feel weird about one another, and have criticisms across cultural lines.
These things have been seized on by the history of racist/classist oppression, as justifying pretexts, but that's not like the whole origin of why people feel that way / think those thoughts.
tbc I'm trying to move into a world where there are fewer weird comments about black women's hair, not more. my point isn't that people should feel free to run their mouths, or that they should take their initial aesthetic reaction to someone's hair as gospel truth.
my point is that people aren't gonna be able to be reasonable about hair aesthetics until they calm down and think normally.
"I feel such and such. What I want to do about it is this or that"
is SO much better than
"YOU JUST TOOK PART IN THE HISTORY OF OPPPPRESSSIOOON."
"I feel such and such. What I want to do about it is this or that"
is SO much better than
"YOU JUST TOOK PART IN THE HISTORY OF OPPPPRESSSIOOON."
From within certain parts of white culture, certain parts of black culture appear to have a bold streak that is difficult for some people to understand or to conceptualize as like not uncouth.
People will have a hard time working their way towards a genuine appreciation of that "bold streak" if the first thing they do is stuff or problematize all their discomfort about it, or (in reverse) about their comparatively mousy aesthetic.
"How do you do, fellow black folk" (trying to adopt the language, etc.) is the mirror image of making fun of black folk without really setting out to, because they both trace back to that unresolved weirdness.
The version of antiracism that tries to respond to the weirdness with "Do you see how this takes part in a system of oppression and is bad and wrong and puts them under you and so on and so forth" is deeply unhelpful.
Same can be said about people's feelings towards white men, fathers, anyone with real or assumed cultural power, etc.
Lots of people all over the place are trying to choose between stuffing their feelings and expressing them as like the gospel reality instead of actually experiencing and/or investigating them.
