Anti-racism would be most effective if it focused on Black bodies across the globe. Why hasn’t it been? Here are some of the macro reasons:
It is a gaslighting reinforcing system that needs to be interrupted and dismantled, not a natural/organic system that needs cultivation.
“Reasonable” scholars know this, but because they want to sell books and keep their audience, they won’t say it. They probably don’t have publicity people ⚪ who can answer that sort of press.
All, or most “reasonable” people would probably interpret in this idea as “Black supremacy”… just the Black version of what we’ve been living through, because of lack of a full telling of the human story.
Most don’t understand this colonizing/plantation system enough to deduce sustainable solutions.
And most importantly, most don’t stay focused on a salient question like, “What problem are you trying to solve?”
Every group that racism is decomposed into exists in the Black community. It seems to be decomposed so white people can share in oppression, and it is cultural to them to consider things in their individual categories, and not its full scope all at the same time. Name a group that we have diversity deconstructed into that doesn’t exist in the Black community? I especially look forward to comments that address that question.
I could go further to say, it is decomposed so Black people aren’t the beneficiaries, but that would be paranoid and radical, huh? We have already proven that everyone, and sometimes the Black community benefits when we win policy progress. If white women are removed from diversity numbers, how diverse are your companies really? I would not be surprised to learn that in every diversity category, white woman are the top beneficiaries by sheer numbers. And now the Supreme Court has taken down Affirmative Action based on race, what is left - Affirmative Action for white women? Don’t forget that Black women couldn’t vote when Black people couldn’t vote, we did not benefit when women got the vote. It is why the media outlet, the 19* has an asterisk. If you want to learn more about this, spend a little time with Dr. Tommy J. Curry's book, The Man Not. Here is a video where he discusses the topic.
What we don’t often talk about are outcomes when it comes to this. I have even heard conservatives talk about being “outcomes driven” people. Well, what outcomes are you driving – a whiter Christian planet? It seems that is what one is after when they support those outcomes. The data is available. Anytime you see white people predominate, check for systems that keep that in place and make it possible, because they are only the majority in those sorts of spaces. It is the reason Critical Race Theory is taught in law schools. Some don’t want anyone educated to dismantle these practices.
What stops any of those white people in those decomposed diversity groups from pouring their energy into the policy changes they seek with the caveat of making sure it has positive outcomes for the Black community? If it is not guaranteed for the sake of justice, it will not happen.
Also, my decades-long understanding of this has never made me hate anyone else. I even see all of humanity as an extension of the original people because I know that story as well. Humanity is all the shades of Blackness. Instead of telling the human story the way it is - started with Black people in Africa and white people only started to predominate through murder in past 500 or so years. Out of 14 billion years, 500 is a drop in the bucket. I believe that racism was created to compete against the persistence of original people. It was a toxic reaction to finally sailing all over the planet and finding Black bodies of many shades thriving everywhere.
It started by attacking Blackness, and the through-line in the recent human story is that it always attacks Blackness in every area of human activity. Until that is ended, white body supremacy will not be transformed. We will continue to have plantations in many forms.
Please watch this and anything Resmaa Menakem does. He is the best source of anti-racism work for me. There are many in the ecosystem teaching and surfacing information that we need. I am thankful for those who exposed these truths to me over 35 years ago... Confirmation is a beautiful resource.
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