Madame Thursday

Sep. 19, 2011 at 12:01pm with 253 notes

Reblogged from crackerhell

Talking All The Time To Keep Myself Awake: Additional Things White People Should Stop Saying to Non-White People

eshusplayground:

the-doctor-dances:

madamedevideoland:

the-doctor-dances:

notyourkinddear:

How they feel so guilty

How bad they feel about racism and about their own privilege

How angry they are to realize that racism/privilege and other oppressions/inequities exist

How they now understand how non-white people feel being oppressed by racism because they also…

Sooooo, in an open dialogue between a white person and a POC about racism / white privilege, that white person is then not allowed to comment on how much those things suck, or express that they are upset about white privilege existing?

I mean, I’m going to be straight up here: I hate white privilege. I hate it because it means that I am automatically better off than other people for literally NO reason. And I hate that. It makes me an instant enemy, and I hate that. I hate that people would feel instantly uncomfortable with me. I understand, of course, WHY they do, but it’s still something that I wish I could make go away. I wish I could make privilege go away, and throw everyone on equal ground. But I’m not allowed to express that sentiment?

Well, the way I understand it, is generally it’s not about you. POC don’t really want to hear about how much you hate/feel guilty/ashamed/embarrassed about privilege, because, frankly, it’s pointless and it doesn’t solve anything.

I don’t think anyone hates privilege more than those who don’t have it, so hearing someone who does have it talk about how much they hate it…I think it would be like rubbing salt in the wound.

We get it: privilege is bad. I think a more productive way of talking about privilege would be how to properly identify it and address it, because there are so many people out there who have privilege and don’t even know what it is. That, I think, is more productive than talking about how much it sucks.

Does that make sense? I hope it does.

I do understand that. I guess that it’s just a little upsetting that there can’t be any sort of dialogue about how much it sucks that I can actually participate in. I understand the salt-in-the-wound idea (only in theory, of course), it’s just a little unnerving, I suppose.

…And NOW is when it hits me that doing the “I hate white privilege” thing is roughly the same as dudes talking to feminists going “Well patriarchy hurts men, too!”

Damnit. I’m an ass.

I mean this in all honestly and not in a snarky way at all, but why didn’t you finally get this until a White person pointed it out to you? And why have you not extended any acknowledgment or credit to the people of color saying the exact same thing in this conversation?

FUCK WHITEY