tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34037757296667253412024-03-12T17:08:44.703-07:00Outthinking the Predator Energy
A blog about spirit, politics, healing from whiteness, confronting white supremacy and thinking ourselves free.ellenmariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09938660457092563646noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403775729666725341.post-83539346201518623122016-08-12T07:46:00.004-07:002016-08-12T07:46:49.115-07:00The Whiteness Project Covers the Same Old Ground.<div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Whiteness Project is created by documentary filmmaker Whitney Dow and with the support of POV/PBS. His stated goal from the website is to interview a 1,000 white people about, "<i>Their relationship to, and their understanding of, their own whiteness</i>." Work done around whiteness is much needed but I do not think this project hits the mark and I do not think it will be useful. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The first installment is 24 interviews with white people in Buffalo, New York. The second installment features 24 interviews with millennials in Dallas, Texas. Both segments follow the same format, with each interview lasting around 90 seconds and heavily edited. You do not hear any questions posed to them. After each segment a statistic flashes on the screen stating a reality about whiteness and white supremacy such as: what percentage of white people support reparations, have non white friends and so forth. I watched all the interviews in their entirety and you can also watch them and read more about the project here. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">First they are mostly painful to watch as almost every person interviewed puts forward racist comments mostly about so called “blacks”. They are almost funny in that shake your head at ignorance kind of way as when the young woman who inexplicably has her hair rolled in cans laments not knowing when she can talk about kool-aid or fried chicken because apparently in her mind these words are offensive to “black people”. Or the white woman who is convinced every “black man” she says hello to wants her because she is a voluptuous woman and has a convertible. You have the whole litany of comments: “I don’t see color. It’s not my fault. I didn’t hurt anyone. Everyone is prejudiced.” and on and on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Despite the stated goal in both segments only three or four people out of twenty-four actually talk much about whiteness, name racism or white privilege as being the reality. There are three people in the interviews that are white and also black or Latina/o and are wrestling with that. Because of the highly edited format there is no space for the handful of participants that actually bring up real issues to delve deeper. This project is being lauded for finally dealing with whiteness but it actually reenforces the same problem that talking about whiteness runs into time and time again; white people don't want or don’t know how to do it. So many fall back on ignorant opinions about a generic notion of "black people" and repeat the untrue mantra about who benefits from affirmative action. The only acknowledgment of whiteness in most of the interviews is to state the belief that as a white person we receive no benefits from being white. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The kind of comments I highlighted above are far from revelatory and are all well trod ground for white people. There is no shortage of venues on the internet and in media where these views can already be heard. Giving them yet another platform does not add anything of use to the conversation. I wish at the very least the filmmaker had set a ground rule for himself and participants that they were only allowed to speak about their own experience being white and were not given air time to express opinions about other imagined people. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I question the usefulness and point of the whole project. How will a thousand soundbites from white people really move the conversation forward? As a white person I have taken part in a lot of sloppy actions and conversations where the notion that talking about “race” (race not whiteness is how it is usually termed) is better than not talking about it. Without clarity of thought, without clarity of motive and intent just doing something, anything about race or whiteness usually produces more alienation, confusion and often just more straight up racism. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The filmmaker states on his website that he started this project after being asked by an audience member about his own racial identity and his first response was, "I don't have one." I wish he had pursued that troubling realization more before launching this project. From the aesthetic choices of the stark white background to the heavily edited interviews there is something deeply white about this whole experience. A blankness, without context, without history, without anything grounding you to this complex world but your own opinions and fears about other imagined people. Pure whiteness right there, but to what end?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although far from the majority there are actually many white people who have given it some real thought and made it their life's work to confront white supremacy. Not every white person dealing with whiteness and white supremacy thinks the same or has the same approach or is successful at their work. Mr. Dow could have been in conversation with many white people that are doing that work. I could personally name upwards of twenty-five people he could contact. With them he could have explored the ups and downs, the mistakes and triumphs of that work. Mr. Dow could have put whiteness in contexts with the reasons whiteness exists: white supremacy, colonization, patriarchy, slavery and capitalism. Mr. Dow could have acknowledged and wrestled with the complexity of centering a project on whiteness because most white people need this work but for many people of color they are tired, bored, done with how whiteness is already centered and needs to be uncentered. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A project like that could ask big questions, hard questions about why does white supremacy continue even in the face of so much talk about race and racism. Instead it covers the same old ground that leads us right back to whiteness still with no answers, no clarity, no actions to transform ourselves and to join the struggle to truly heal and transform our world. </span></div>
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ellenmariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09938660457092563646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403775729666725341.post-84221205365681632322016-01-04T10:34:00.002-08:002016-01-04T11:00:47.860-08:00A rock and a hard place-White Domestic Terrorism<div class="p1">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The cautious treatment of armed white men taking over a federal building in Oregon with vague demands about land rights and a promise to shoot if approached by law enforcement is a clear display of the sickening double standard we live with in this white supremacy.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Imagine for one moment a group of armed black, Muslim or native men (the last group having the clearest actual claim to stolen land and sovereign rights) making threats and taking over government property. We already know the probable outcome; the building would have been stormed already and many if not all the men would be in custody or dead.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is a reason this is playing out like this.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Domestic terrorism works.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the 1990’s there was a rise in white armed militia and the two botched stand offs in Waco,Texas and Ruby Ridge, Idaho.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then came the Oklahoma City bombing of the federal building by two white militia men.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In 2009 the Department of Homeland Security issued a report that detailed the troubling rise again of organized white domestic terrorists. Besides the horrific act of terrorism carried out on September 11, 2001 by foreign terrorists almost every other act of terrorism in the U.S. has been carried out by white people (mostly men) who are white supremacists, anti-government and/or anti-abortion.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span class="s1" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Before and after the attack on 9/11 the majority of people killed in the U.S. by terrorism have been killed by white men with guns and bombs. The victims of these attacks include police officers, specific racial and religious groups and abortion providers. Prior to 9/11 there is an unending litany of terrorism perpetrated by white domestic terrorists that includes lynching, bombings of churches and mob violence. The U.S. Government is handling this latests act as they handled the stand off with many of the same men involved in the Bundy ranch standoffs in 2014. They do not want to escalate this situation because they are well aware that these armed white men will shoot back. That is backed up with years of violence including direct acts of cop killing by right wing extremists including the murders of police officers by </span><span class="s2" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jerad and Amanda Miller in Las Vegas in 2014. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is no comparable history of domestic terrorism by any other group in the U.S. no matter how much arm chair racists commenting on the internet wish to believe otherwise.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This country is really between a rock and a hard place.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On one hand we have state sanctioned violence by police murdering and terrorizing people of color and then a militarized response whenever people rise up against such killings.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On the other side we have white supremacist extremists willing to use violence and intimidation that goes largely unchecked by the government.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is truly the twisted reality of white supremacy when you have cops and federal officials who have actually been directly targeted by white supremacist/anti government groups still acting as if it is Native ranchers in Nevada * or community members in Ferguson, Baltimore and Minneapolis that are a threat and must be dealt with as if they were a group of armed terrorists spoiling for a fight. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is not hyperbolic to say that our government consistently fails to protect us from the real dangers in this world including corporate caused climate change and pollution, rampant gun violence, rape, police brutality and domestic terrorism. It is a dangerous situation all around. </span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span>* If you are unfamiliar with this situation please check out this video. <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/04/19/video-dann-sisters-battle-save-their-cattle-stark-contrast-clive-bundy-154521" target="_blank">Watch</a></span></div>
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ellenmariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09938660457092563646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403775729666725341.post-14089720350028186382015-08-17T07:25:00.001-07:002015-08-17T15:07:22.554-07:00White Progressives and the Fracture of Good Order<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">for the fracture of good order </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the burning of paper </span></b><b style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">instead of children </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the angering of the orderlies</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">in the front parlor of the charnel house</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We could not so help us God, do otherwise</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For we are sick at heart, our hearts</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">give us no rest, for thinking of the Land of Burning Children...</span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">These lines came to mind when thinking about the </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Marissa Johnson </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">and</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"> </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Mara Jacqueline Willaford </b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">interrupting Bernie Sanders speech. The video is uncomfortable to watch, it is truly an interruption. </span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> To be honest my own momentary thought when first hearing about the action in Seattle was, "But why Bernie? Bernie is good."</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">After watching the video what stayed with me is the </span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">break in this young woman's voice. The pain that you could hear as she declared over boos and shouts, "My life fucking matters." She started to cry while talking and this has gone unmentioned in so much of the comments on their action. That hit me deep because much is said about the stereotype of the strong and/or angry black woman and what I see there is even when your voice breaks and you cry so many people (especially white people) can't even see/feel that. Damn.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">And whatever you think of their strategy (and to be clear it was a strategy and this piece is not about that) Marissa Johnson was making a brilliant point that was completely missed in the uproar over her </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">fracture of good order.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Seattle is one of the most progressive cities in the USA as is my own city Minneapolis and yet in both cities life for many Black, Brown and Indigenous People is full of the same struggles and inequalities as cities that are not </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">progressive.</i><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> In fact my own city Minneapolis tops many lists for most livable, most bike friendly and healthiest and yet at the same time tops lists for highest racial inequity in education, jobs, police brutality and arrests and convictions for non-violent crimes. The point being that in a white supremacy progressive politics that at their core are not about dismantling white supremacy and patriarchy will not actually dismantle white supremacy and patriarchy. It is actually that simple. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">This is what people of color/</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">feminist/womanist /</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">activists/thinkers/artists have been saying for a very long time. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">I have read many white people saying that the Black Lives Matter activists made no alliances with this action. I think the uncomfortable truth is that these activists weren't trying to win approval or allies. What a thought. Maybe they don't really care if white people are upset by there actions or if we think they are good, right, deserving</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> of our support or anything else. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Maybe it is the failed response by white progressives not just to this moment but to what has been going on in this country for years that has failed in the alliance</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> building. Maybe we as white people collectively failed a long time ago to build alliances with progressive black, brown and indigenous people. And maybe black, brown and indigenous people are going on with or without us to transform the world.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Maybe white progressives are the ones who are behind and need to catch up to join a movement that could actually transform our world. A world that teeters on the edge of so much loss and also so much possibility. It's not that we bring nothing to that movement, each and every one of us are needed and worthy. But maybe we white progressives collectively don't bring what we assume we bring. Maybe we don't have the biggest vision, the clearest analysis and the best answers to get us all out of this. It's not about feeling bad, it's about winning. And I do think that most white progressives very much want a world without racism. </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Bernie Sanders is a smart, grown man with years of political experience, lets assume he can handle being interrupted and he can handle criticism, even angry criticism. If he responds to being pushed to articulate a platform that really addresses white supremacy it will make him a better candidate. What if white progressives pushed him even more to become a candidate that actually earned wide spread support from communities of color. And the operative word here is EARNED. Now that could really be interesting. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">The question is can this uncomfortable moment make us white progressives become clearer, more resilient people who can really be of use in the struggles that are happening to transform this world for all people, whether </span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">you are supporting Bernie Sanders as part of that strategy or not.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">On May 17th, 1968 the year of my birth, Father Daniel Berrigan along with eight other people entered a draft board in Baltimore and removed draft files of men that were about to be sent to Vietnam. They burned the files with home made napalm. </span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">At his trial Father Dan read a statement/poem that reads in part...</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our apologies good friends</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">for the fracture of good order the burning of paper</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">instead of children the angering of the orderlies</span></b></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">in the front parlor of the charnel house</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We could not so help us God do otherwise</span></b></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For we are sick at heart our hearts</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">give us no rest for thinking of the Land of Burning Children...</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We say: Killing is disorder</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">life and gentleness and community and unselfishness</span></b></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">is the only order we recognize...</span></b></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">The heartbreaking truth is we all live in the Land of Burning Children. We are the land that in 2015 must have a movement that declares, "Black Lives Matter!" and "Native Lives Matter!" and a movement that declares "No human being is illegal!" </span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">You can disagree with tactics. It is an important conversation to keep having for anybody that actually wants to win real changes for ourselves, our communities, the earth that is our home. </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">It will not be enough to elect Bernie Sanders to transform this country just as electing Barack Obama was not enough. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy (as bell hooks succinctly puts it) is not something so easily dismantled and transformed. Amazing, smart, courageous people have been at it a long time including many white people. As hard as this world is I can not imagine the complete hell it would be without this resistance and creation. </span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Now is the time for white progressives to collectively figure out how to become a part of a movement that really centers dealing with, challenging, or as the t'shirt I have seen so bluntly puts it "Kill white supremacy" and I would add kill patriarchy and all that brings with it: homophobia, transphobia and misogyny. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">If white progressives do not make the core of our work </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">dismantling white supremacy and patriarchy </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">then all our progressive politics and even all the gains we make become nothing more than making the Titanic a nicer ship to sink on.</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><a href="http://www.tomjoad.org/catonsville9.htm" target="_blank">Full statement by Daniel Berrigan</a></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are many great pieces being written by People of Color about the deeper issues brought up by this moment. Here are two.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/08/13/22694043/guest-editorial-i-support-bernie-sanders-for-president-and-i-also-support-the-black-lives-matter-takeover-in-seattle" target="_blank">I support Bernie Sanders and I support the Black Lives Matter takeover in Seattle.</a></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/ablc/2015/08/11/blacklivesmatter-hurt-feelings-white-progressives/" target="_blank">Black Lives Matter More Than Hurt Feelings of White Progressives.</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ajWs3z8rs0" target="_blank">Listen to more of what </a><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ajWs3z8rs0" target="_blank">Marissa Johnson has to say about her action.</a> </span></span></span>ellenmariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09938660457092563646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403775729666725341.post-87050849828538969642015-07-31T12:51:00.000-07:002015-08-15T14:19:45.972-07:00White supremacy killed Sandra Bland no matter how she died. <div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">First, because I am writing and thinking about people I do not know I want to acknowledge what is stolen and never forget- I am talking about real people and their families immense loss. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="p2" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So much of the media conversation is centering on the idea that Sandra Bland committed suicide while being held in jail and was not murdered. Of course it matters if she was physically murdered by someone or if she took her own life or even if she was denied proper medical care after her assault. And I want to state here that it is not at all clear that she did kill herself and people have every justifiable reason to suspect she was murdered or died from being </span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">denied proper treatment in jail. </span></span><br />
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Denial of medical care is another form of murder as in the devastating case of 24-year-old Sarah Lee Circle Bear who was jailed on a bond violation and was found unconscious in her cell o</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 16px; text-align: start;">n July 6 after pleading for medical help. I</span><span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 16px; text-align: start;">n Circle Bear's case the autopsy claims she died of a meth overdose. Again, even if that is true, having drugs in your system or a drug addiction does not mean you should be left to die in your cell for a minor offense. </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Read more about her case.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 16px; text-align: start;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 16px; text-align: start;">t</span><a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/07/28/manning-sarah-lee-circle-bear-died-while-police-custody-family-seeks-justice-161204" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: start; vertical-align: baseline;">http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/07/28/manning-sarah-lee-circle-bear-died-while-police-custody-family-seeks-justice-161204</a></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s important to articulate that however Sandra Bland died, the man that stopped her for failing to signal a lane change and then on camera antagonizes and proceeds to brutalize her is to blame for her death. As is the system of white supremacy that is the police system that arrested her and the jail system that held her.</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don’t mean this as a metaphor. Even if every single thing the sheriff’s office is throwing out there turns out to be true in some form or another the real truth remains...<i><span style="font-size: large;">If Sandra Bland had not been stopped by this man and physically assaulted and then arrested and held in jail she would not be dead right now. No matter what her personal struggles were in life she would be alive, starting a new job and dealing with those struggles. </span></i>Take a moment and think about what this kind of assault and imprisonment would do to you? The sheriff wants people to think if he proves she killed herself while under his control some how that lets them off the hook and turns this into just an unfortunate incident. </span></span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To add to this ridiculous assertion, The Waller County sheriff, R. Glenn Smith releases the toxicology report that shows elevated THC in Sandra Bland’s body after her death. This has no bearing on the case. The ridiculous assertion that some how marijuana use prior (or some how during) her imprisonment is an explanation for what they claim is her suicide but the physical assault and wrongful imprisonment would not be a factor is ludicrous. </span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">White supremacy is a killing force in our society. Whether Sandra Bland was straight up murdered or brutalized and terrorized in a way that caused her to harm herself the responsibility falls on the people and institution that used their authority to stop her, assault her, imprison her. Let me just name that one more time- <b>Stop her. Assault her. Imprison her.</b> She died under their authority. </span></span></div>
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<div class="p2" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It matters to nuance this conversation even if it turns out that Sandra Bland did some how take her own life. Because what we are really confronting is that <b>white supremacy is terrorism</b> and it does just what terrorism is supposed to do. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">From the FBI website:</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 16px; text-align: start;">Domestic terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics:</span></div>
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<ul style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.1440000534058px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; list-style: square outside none; margin-bottom: 0.75em !important; margin-left: 1.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-align: start; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="blackgraphtx" style="border: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 16px; list-style: disc outside none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law</span></li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="blackgraphtx" style="border: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 16px; list-style: disc outside none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population (or governments)</span></li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="blackgraphtx" style="border: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 16px; list-style: disc outside none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The seemingly endless videos of Black, Brown and Indigenous men, women and children being terrorized, punched, kicked, tackled, choked and outright shot down by police all over this country is the context in which to examine how a woman driving down a residential road, minding her own business could end up dead after forgetting to signal a lane change. </span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is horrifying to face the outright murder of human beings and it is equally horrifying to face the terrorizing of people to the point that they harm themselves. Either way the system of white supremacy and the people that hold authority in that system are responsible for this woman’s life being stolen from her and from those that loved her just as it is responsible for stealing Sarah Lee Circle Bear from her children and family. These stories are just two of too many to count and each life stolen by white supremacy breaks the hearts of so many and continues to terrorize whole communities in our country. </span></span></div>
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<div class="p2" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
ellenmariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09938660457092563646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403775729666725341.post-13110392114713974162014-12-26T08:31:00.003-08:002014-12-29T08:06:33.946-08:00There is no right way to be in white supremacy.<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1">I am thinking of </span><span class="s2">Guillermo Gómez-Peña</span><span class="s1"> and Coco Fusco, their work “Couple in a Cage”. They toured museums in a cage as the last known primitives. You could “observe” them in their cage or for a dollar they would perform a tribal dance, tell a traditional story or you could have your picture taken with them. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"><a href="http://www.thing.net/~cocofusco/subpages/videos/subpages/couple/couple.html" target="_blank">The Couple in a Cage</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1">Everywhere they went white people either:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Didn’t get it was satire and thought they were real. Some of these white people were fascinated and marveled at how they had never seen a TV before or were upset by the fact that in the 1990’s people were being toured around in cages. </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">or</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They “got it” and assumed they were in on the joke. They paid for the dances and stories and to have their picture taken with the savages, laughing the whole time. Or they “got it” and were upset by the responses of other white people acting in all of the above ways. </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I did not see the work in person but I did see a later piece at The Evergreen State College with Guirromo and another collaborator Roberto Sifuentes which had a similar idea but invited the audience to dress the artists up with various stereotypical outfits like living dolls. This time no one thought it was “real” but white people’s responses fell into the “I’m in on the joke.” or “The joke isn’t funny.” category. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For white people this work speaks deeply to the experience of whiteness in a white supremacy. In the face of history, racism, whiteness there is no “right way to be” and that is a very uncomfortable space to be in. Often those that think they are most in the know or in on the joke can act out the most racist behavior which proved true at both of these performances. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another truth is that the behaviors of white people in that space can cause people of color pain and anger. And people of color will have different and to be clear many differing experiences with being there. I attended the Evergreen performance with several friends that were not white. One of them left she was so upset by the racism being displayed in the space, another woman was playing with the dynamic, laughing and egging on the white people who were so sure they were “in on the joke” while dressing up the men in racist costumes. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So there was no right way to interact with “Couples in a Cage.” or the other work by Gomez-Pena because there is nothing right about it and the bloody history it draws from. </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Messy, painful, confusing. That is the reality when confronting white supremacy. The work white people need to do is not going to be neat or easy and often that work can be painful to people of color to witness. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But to figure out what to do next is going to require some real thinking, some real daring. And this process is not one that many People of Color are going to enjoy witnessing because it is confusing and messy. We as white people are behind in many ways and as painful as it is to deal with that it is time now to do the real thinking and from that thinking the real work. But we need to do that work not to be liked by anyone, or to be the good white people or the white people who get it or thinking there is a right way to act within white supremacy but to figure out how to rejoin humanity in the struggle to transform and heal our world from white supremacy. </span></div>
ellenmariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09938660457092563646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403775729666725341.post-9018728276752499962014-10-22T10:15:00.000-07:002014-10-25T12:35:11.316-07:00Why no one not even the Klan seems to want to be called racist.<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
“He called me a racist.”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">MATT LAUER:<br />
“Well, what he said, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”</span></span></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:<br />
“That’s — “he’s a racist.” And I didn’t appreciate it then. I don’t appreciate it now. It’s one thing to say, “I don’t appreciate the way he’s handled his business.” It’s another thing to say, “This man’s a racist.” I resent it, it’s not true, and it was one of the most disgusting moments in my Presidency.”</span></span><br />
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Whenever Rush Limbaugh or the like are called out directly for being racist or fueling racism with their comments they always respond in the same way, they deny they are racist and then often accuse their accusers of being the ones who are racist. They treat the naming of racism as the ultimate crime as when George W. Bush who was president during 9/11, Katrina and the invasions of two countries calls the moment when Kanye West named his lack of response to Katrina as not caring about Black people one of the most disgusting of his presidency.</span></span></div>
<div class="p5">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think it has less to do with the idea that no white person wants to be called racist in 2014 and more to do with racism itself. Yes in 2014 there are a lot of white people that balk at the idea of being called on their racism or being labeled as racist. This is for the most part white people that truly do not want to be racist and may not have the tools or the ability yet to confront their own learned racist behavior. But the folks that I writing about here and their followers don’t shy away from inflammatory comments about race. So why do they constantly deny the label racist and act as if the very accusation is itself the worst possible of actions?</span></span></div>
<div class="p5">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is not because these folks are merely uninformed or making a thoughtless comment or assumption, these folks are true white supremacist and they know what they are saying and why. White supremacists actually believe (or are willing to align themselves with the belief for their own benefit) that white people are some how genetically superior just for being born white and that it is white people that are under attack. Furthermore the white supremacist believes it is not the history and reality of white supremacy that has caused the bulk of suffering for people of color it is their own savagery and inferiority that has brought it about. Or as equally prevalent the idea that people of color have not suffered at all from racism and merely play the race card and sit back while the money and power roll in. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“You’re dealing with people who are professional race baiters, who make a very good living off this kind of thing. They make more money off of race than any slave trader ever. It’s time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history where they belong with all the other vile racist groups that emerged in our history.” - Mark Williams president of Tea Party Express</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of the most insidious parts of this is to deny that you are racist and then accuse your accusers of being racist. This plays directly into the white supremacist ideology that white people, the so called “white race” are under direct attack by people of color and that it is actually white people that suffer at the hands of racism. </span><br />
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<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is part of the white supremacist belief system that when people of color (and to a lesser extent race traitor whites) name your racism they are merely crying out against the true and the natural order of things. Of course you ridicule their audacious attempts at naming for themselves what is happening. Naming is power. You can study the history of our country from colonization and slavery through the attempted genocide of Native Americans, forced relocation and boarding schools, lynchings, segregation, denial of voting rights, internment of Japanese Americans during world war two, the on going attack against recent immigrants, the war on drugs and prison industrial complex and the death squad mentality of so many police departments towards communities of color. You will see again and again how necessary it has always been for white supremacy to deny people the ability to name what is happening to them. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1">This brings to mind the term g</span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">aslighting</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">which </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">is defined in Wikipedia as a form of</span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span>mental abuse<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">in which false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span>memory<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">,</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span>perception<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">, and </span>sanity<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">.</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Instances may range simply from the</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span>denial<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span>disorienting<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">the victim. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">The term owes its origin to the play/film</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span><i style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Gas Light</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">that show a woman purposely driven mad by her husband. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p5">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In these cases of racist gaslighting it’s not really about getting people to admit their racism. That is a waste of time and actually a fight most of these folks want to have especially folks like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck who profit from their white supremacy. It is really about supporting the people who have the courage and clarity especially in a public venue to name white supremacy when they see it. Because as we witness time and again folks that name this behavior especially People of Color, are often met with incredible backlash. </span></span></div>
<div class="p5">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Race is a very complex subject but white men and women who are pursuing a white supremacist agenda in this country will always deny they are being racist because that is part of the very agenda of white supremacy; to deny, ridicule and dismiss anyone who attempts to name their behavior and to name an intricate part of our national history for what it is. So keep naming, resisting and staying clear about the agenda of those who play this game. </span></span></div>
ellenmariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09938660457092563646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403775729666725341.post-18377819265780951512014-08-05T20:22:00.001-07:002014-08-05T20:23:52.643-07:00<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I wrote this poem ten years ago and it resonates tonight... </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The Way Forward is with a Broken Heart </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">(for Henry and Eleanor at 2 years)</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1. It all comes at once the ever breaking and mending of the heart. I was dreaming and then I woke to the sun in the sky and a bus full of people heading to D.C. to say no to war. We were driving so close to the place of my birth, the only land my little heart and fists ever knew. Born into exile on tribal land, the makers of the Serpent Mound, the People of the Valley. My own tribes destroyed long ago into states and a history of brutality offering only this lethal legacy of white supremacy.</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And yet I can still kiss the Ohio sky and the city, Dayton, only my arms width wide. You know how you can love a place for the geography of how you survived? The girl in me alive again, expect good things from people like you do from trees and rocks and the beloved dandelions of childhood alleys. Dandelions, they insist on calling weeds. Weeds that can make wine and nourish and crowns for the heads of city kids, that deserve beauty. </span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Always the babies are the back beat to my heart. Even sleeping on this bus going 70 across Ohio I know the weight of them, slung on my hip with great care. They are all heartbeats and openings, soft breath and delicate bones and something of stars that floods them and they shimmer. Effortlessly they re-knit my spirit back into the universe as over and over it is torn from the very fabric of what it means to be human.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In turn I am all mama bear protective, wanting to shield them, realizing with the force of breath knocked out of me, that I would die for these children. I want to keep the world gone mad from their door, from their beauty and souls. I know I can’t and it breaks my heart again and again and gives me the reason to go on.</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And to feel how much we need children to be wanted, not had like car accidents or accessories. This society rides it’s indifference towards children with poverty and bombs and a sick disneyfied morality full of toys that beep and flash and will talk to your children so you don’t have to. As if some piece of plastic crap can hold them, when they are still so much stars and deep roots that shudder under the bones of knowing. The true names of things written in a language beyond words on the back of their lids, a map to another world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">2. It all comes at once, the ever breaking and mending of the heart. It is easy to have fun in America, entertainment is cheap and plentiful like gasoline and Big Macs we consume endlessly, on the pay later plan. I tell you almost everyone that has ever been my teacher in life was a drunk once, had to be. Walked closely, the razor edge of self-destruction, wandered lost in America with one more round to take the edge off civilization. One more round to take the edge off remembering. Empty for the promise of a good time to fill you up. Too hungry to ever be fed.</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This is the dream. You wake from the troubled sweat of sleep, the blur of lights you navigate by are gone, only the darkness cradling you. Run now from quiet stars into frozen fields, beat cracked hands till earth opens like steaming bread. Go all the way in. Emerge small and newly afraid but clear-eyed. You have to survive America to have something to teach.</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And in that is the real lion’s share of joy, because the people who can really party in the scared sense of the word are the people who know surviving is worthy of celebration. Anyone who has ever danced with a room full of people to Stevie Wonder’s You Haven’t Done Nothing or Spearhead’s People in The Middle or screamed along to Bikini Kill’s, Rebel Girl or the drums or the fiddle or whatever gets you off- you know what I mean. Singing and dancing are your birthright. Joy, a commonly held need like clean water and the air we breathe.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Sing now the praises of men that write sexy songs without the tired old hatred of women in the beat. They gave me back a freedom to shake my ass, without feeling shame or dirty. Taj Mahal, I would name a son for you. Sing now the praises of women that never gave up their sexuality though it was bought and sold, loped off by the church and slavery, packaged as Jeans! Beer! Get some! To know true pleasure in a society that wouldn’t know sexy if Aphrodite herself rose up on the half shell and bit Hugh Hefner on his boring porno ass is some kind of fine revolution.</span><br />
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<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">3. It is not original sin we are born into this world with, it is a broken heart we inherit. So often I question the usefulness of things, I want my poems to stop all the rape and killing. I know if we could turn bombs from earth we would. I know peasant or villager are just metaphors by the powerful for people who do not matter. Like the urban poor, they are there to be studied or killed depending on the need. To be studied or killed, depending on the need. Then in that madness they will deny that you grieve. </span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I am mad with this world and I must remember again that without the music and art of other people. Without the good company along the way, I would be dead or worse. The audacity, the sheer audacity of people to go on loving, demanding bread but roses too. The eleven year old boy in Mississippi who was asked by the cop with the club, What’s your name? and he shouted, Freedom! Freedom is my name.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The audacity of buses and buses of people riding through the night to D.C. and they don’t get weary. And the Muslims in the parking lot of the truck stop in Maryland, facing the rising sun because war or no war, the day breaks and you pray. I am shy now, with my coffee, my lack of cultural ways but I pray too, am humbled by the sunrise that makes me dream a bigger dream.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Rollin’ on in good historical company</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">marching with all those ghosts </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">that know the way,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">don’t fear the dead</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">they are the path we walk on</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">the bones will rise</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">from earth, blessed clave </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">giving us the rhythm </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">to go on marching</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">dreaming</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">creating</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">fall in love</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">raise children</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">don’t give up</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">all at once </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">and among the mundane details of the day </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">resistance flows through us</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">and it is beautiful to witness</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">and it is beautiful to feel</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">and the real joy of living</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">is in that moment,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">our scarred and sacred hearts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">mending and breaking</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">mending and breaking</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">and beating strong.</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Note: The title of this poem is from a book by Alice Walker whose words have been a gift to me on this hard, beautiful journey. Much of this poem was inspired by a bus ride from Minneapolis to Washington D.C. and the subsequent Anti-war march I attended on April 20, 2002. The poem is dedicated to my beautiful niece and nephew and to all children. It has been read at many peace and justice events and protests. </span>ellenmariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09938660457092563646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403775729666725341.post-46398328542058456182014-02-19T18:27:00.001-08:002014-09-10T14:10:10.886-07:00<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I am carrying names around. Chants of grief and confusion. Chants of love. I know deeply loss and longing but there are things I do not know. Nightmares that walk up to you in the day or under the moon and steal your child. White supremacy is predator energy manifest. That is not a metaphor. </span><b style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Renisha Mcbride are not metaphors. </b><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Real things in the real world that must be done like repeal these stand your ground laws and the spirit cries out to take them back from a world so sick at heart it must say out loud- they were good, they did nothing wrong. To sing these names as they were given with love and to not forget. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This is a poem speaks to the madness of white supremacy and I feel that madness right now. </span><br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<b>It Was A Long White Night</b><br />
<br />
I can not speak</div>
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> it breaks under me cold and brittle</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> it cracks and turns to dust in my worn hands</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">the hands of a house cleaner</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">the hands of a woman</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">last night despair and maddening thirst</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">to know culture</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">what it feels like to be inside</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">not seeing, buying or appreciating but being</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">forever</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> birth, life, death always belonging</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">like driving by the Grand Canyon or taking a picture of it</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">or living in that wide, deep place so that every stone</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">knows the rhythm of your breath</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">the weight of each bone set in motion</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">in the car next to me at the stoplight</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">white boys yelled, Take that stupid sign off your car!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">You ugly lesbian dyke!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The sign asks How many white men were attacked after </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">the Oklahoma bombing for looking like Timothy McVeigh?</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I had to laugh, what else can you do? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Especially at lesbian dyke as opposed to heterosexual dykes?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">they were not laughing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">their faces flushed red in that way white folks get</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">when we are angry, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">we blush like that when we are making love too</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">but I didn’t think of that until later at home</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">in the bath tub, I choked on tears</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">while my neighbors through the apartment wall cheered on </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">the football game</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">it wasn’t their anger that got to me, I’m used to it</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">it was this thirst</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> I carry like grief</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">they carry like weapons.</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I can not speak, whiteness</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">does not even use the same language</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">black pride means loving yourself</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">white pride means burning crosses</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">we don’t say white folks and hear home</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">don’t know how home might feel</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">we’ve lost so much</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">we often don’t even know </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">we are lost anymore</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">so when they ask me </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I will have to say yes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">yes, I know the hard set faces</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">of young white men</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">the cruel mouth spitting</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">the flat lean bellies</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">the red flush of beer and hatred</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> I have studied for my own survival</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> for the sake of sanity, angry white men</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">waving the flag to ward off the sky</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">the blue that could break something in blue eyes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">and yes, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I do</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">and do not</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">claim them</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">as my own. </span>ellenmariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09938660457092563646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403775729666725341.post-71639252459084467862013-07-29T14:24:00.001-07:002015-08-07T06:25:23.575-07:00<b style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">What is wrong with saying, “We are all one race, the human race.” </b><br />
<b style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">and “I don’t see race” </b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">As conversations about white supremacy are again coming up on a national level I think it is important to look at one of the ways we white people often try and bridge communication with people of color that does not work. Here is an example of how this “We are all one.” or “I don’t see race.” plays out. It is a just one example based on an actual experience and I think it gets to the heart of the matter. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A meeting is being held to plan resistance against the impending invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003. It is an excellent turnout of maybe 40 woman and men eager to work together locally to protest this war. The gathering is about 85% white. People are going around the room introducing themselves and sharing both their despair and anger over this looming war and also ideas for protesting it locally. The 5th woman to speak is an African American woman in her early 50‘s; she shares that she is glad to be here and her interest is on focusing efforts in the Black community especially around recruitment of African American youth into the armed services and also tying the war abroad to the racism and inequality at home. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The next person to speak is a white woman in her late 40’s. She states that it is important that we not separate ourselves by race. That we are all one race, we are all one family, the human family. That the powers that be want us to focus on our differences not how we are similar and especially as women and mothers we should come together in solidarity to stop this war. She further states that she does not even see a persons race when she looks at them, she sees only sees a human being.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The woman who had spoken just before her interjects at this point that she does not agree that we are all the same and she will not work with white people if that is their attitude towards race. The room erupts in emotion and tension as the white woman tries to defend her position and the black woman continues to argue that she is not comfortable with the assertion that we are all the same or that it is possible or necessary “to not see race.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Various other people intervene some other white people trying to explain to the black woman what the white woman meant. The few Black people, Asian Americans and the one Native man present, heartily agree with the black woman as do a small number of white people. The black woman says directly to the white woman, “You know nothing about me and what I have been through and I don’t know you at all. For you to sit there and say we are all one is just total nonsense.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The white woman begins to cry and says maybe she should leave. Some white people comfort her and insist they want her to stay. The rest of the meeting continues but the energy in the room is noticeably tense and the next meeting that takes place is half the size and easily 95% white and only one of the people of color present at the first meeting shows up. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Of course race is a politically constructed category. So truthfully we are all one race. So why was such a comment at this meeting so disruptive? I can think of several reasons.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1. The declaration “We are all one race.” is often used by white people to deny racism and the complexity of experience rather than to bring people together. Regardless of the intention of this white woman. Just because we are all one race does not mean we all share the same experiences with race, war, meetings to plan protests, living in the USA and so on. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">2. When a white person says to a person of color that they do not see race it is an empty statement. Perhaps what we as white people are trying to express in that statement is that we do not see negative things about someone else based on race or that we are working hard to see passed the socialization of white supremacy which is positive. But as a comment it undercuts that effort by bringing up the history that white people never see our own race which is a big part of our problem when we want to deal with racism. Or ends up sounding more like, “I see you just as I would see a white person.” Which puts being white right back at the center as the norm. You can see or know someone’s “race” without it being racist. And to claim you don’t see race is to attempt to erase the reality of racism in our society. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">3. There is often an assumption on our part that we are a blank slate to people of color. That a white woman would state “We are all one.” right after a black woman talked about racism does actually have a history for many, many people of color. That history includes dealing with racist people at meetings. Dealing with white people that are very happy to have a person of color at a given event but want to be reassured that the person of color is either “like them” or “likes them.” I am not being flippant about that what I am trying to get at is that most people of color have dealt with a lot of white people before you or I came along and some, maybe a lot, maybe most of those white people have been oblivious to the realities and complexities of racism, or oblivious to their own racism or flat our hostile and racist. Because of that history it can be tricky to walk into a room as a person of color to discuss protesting war or anything else with a bunch of white people you don’t know. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I have admittedly made some educated guesses as to why this comment was upsetting for the black woman and other folks in the room but I think it is important to make some educated guesses as to what prompted this white woman to say what she said. After the black woman had just laid out her interest in working around the issue of recruitment of black youth into the armed services and focusing on the connections of this racist war with racism at home to have a white person basically assert that race doesn’t matter, that we shouldn’t focus on race was a complete shut down of what this black woman was sharing. Why did this white woman feel the need to express that particular assertion at that time? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">My guess? She felt left out of the black woman’s comments about focusing on the recruitment in her own community and bringing the issues of race home. Often white people want so desperately to be connected to people of color and yet we have no real vision for what that connection would look like. It feels good to have a meeting with people of color present that is focused on a seemingly clear cut issue of a imperialist, racist war our government is going to wage in a far away place. But when a person of color complicates that for us by bringing up the reality of racism at home which brings up the specter of racism in that room we panic, fearing we will be separated by this from people we desire to be in connection with. And so we fall back on the pathological behaviors of whiteness and try and negate that separation. Sadly we do this in ways that usually result in separating us from other people more. The black woman in her first comments did not say, I don’t want to work with white people, she said she was glad to be in this room. And yet the white woman after her I believe heard something else in the black woman's’ comments. Her desire to focus on the Black community made the white woman feel left out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> I know I can’t be a hundred percent certain about the twisted layers of experience that led one woman to say one thing but I am guessing from my own experience I am pretty close to the mark. Truly hell hath no fury like a white person when we are not at the center of something! And I am speaking from experience here as well. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">What do you do as a white person when you are in a room and something like this happens? Provided you are not the white person making the comment. Hopefully having a more grounded idea around the problematic “We are all one.” or “I don’t see race.” can help you be clear and useful. You could assert that solidarity must come from an understanding how different people experience race. It is another opportunity to practice the act of challenging an assumption of another white person without playing good white, bad white. But sadly regardless of what you say these situations can ruin any potential coalitions that are just forming. When something like war or the recent events around the George Zimmerman trial comes up and there is a lot of energy to organize the fault lines in our own understanding of white supremacy really show. This is part of the vital ongoing work white people need to engage in. </span><br />
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<br />ellenmariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09938660457092563646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403775729666725341.post-50167984011152640052013-07-21T10:30:00.000-07:002013-07-21T10:34:38.917-07:00<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>We are all Trayvon Martin. We are all not Trayvon Martin. </b> </span><br />
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In a world where tragedies are reported like weather it is easy to become numb or deal with tragedy in an off hand way. I do not want to be numb to the reality or deal with the actual horror of anyones death as a metaphor or merely a jumping off point. My own loves are a conduit to that. Not in a morbid way but in a way that keeps me connected to my own humanity. I let my heart rest on the notion of what I would be going through if my beloved niece or nephew were shot dead by someone and if the person who shot them were acquitted of that crime. I carry that with me because we owe it to Trayvon Martin and to his family and friends not to merely turn him into a symbol. We owe it to all our children to dare to feel how much we truly love them and we owe it to ourselves to stay alive to our sorrow and to our love. </div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">When I was 21 and about to attend college I went to see a professor give a talk. He was originally from South Africa and now living and teaching in the U.S. After the talk I found myself chatting with him in the lobby. At 21 I was hyper aware of my identity as a white person and so our conversation from my side was going something like this. “As a white feminist I think...” or “As a white anti-racist, anti-imperialist I believe...” and so on. After a few of these statements he put up his hand and said in a very clear, ringing voice, “Yes Ellen, it is good that you recognize being white in a white supremacy however, you should never align yourself with the very whiteness that seeks to destroy us.” His words shook me up and set me well on a path to walking with more than one reality at the same time. This is life long work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I think it can be positive that white people have posted images of themselves in hoodies or declared I am Trayvon Martin. When I was in 10th grade in Dayton, Ohio I wrote Free Nelson Mandela and No More Apartheid in South Africa on my notebook in big block letters. I knew about him mostly from bands I was into like the Specials. I had their 12inch <i>Free Nelson Mandela</i> which talked about his imprisonment and I had some ideas about apartheid in South Africa from the song <i>Sun City</i> that came out in 1985. The song featured many singers of the time declaring solidarity with the anti-apartheid movement and the video showed images of resistance and brutality in South Africa. This 15 year old white girl in Dayton really had no idea what it was like to live and resist under apartheid in South Africa nor a deep understanding of the complexity of what was going on there. I also didn’t understand my countries involvement in both apartheid South Africa and the reality of white supremacy in America. But what I did know is that when given the choice I wanted to align myself with what Nelson Mandela stood for and against what apartheid stood for. I wanted to stand with humanity in the face of oppression even if I didn’t really get how to do that yet. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">At it’s core white supremacist patriarchy is about a complete loss of humanity. I mean our humanity as white people or the humanity of people like George Zimmerman even though he is not white but clearly aligning himself with a white supremacist ideology. Much more has been and needs to be said about this loss of humanity but for this line of thought my point is that to align yourself as a white person with humanity is positive and against what white supremacy and patriarchy stand for. I remember the men in Bangalore, India last year that held a protest after the horrific rape and murder of a woman there. Someone in the Indian Parliament had made a comment about the way young women dressed being a factor in rape. These men all put on skirts and took to the streets in an act of solidarity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The impulse to claim solidarity with Trayvon Martin and with all victims of white supremacy can be part of a rehumanizing process for white people. Staying clear about standing on the side of humanity but also recognizing you have a different experience is the nuanced approach necessary to deal with being white in a white supremacy. To this point it is also positive that white people are declaring how our experiences in a white supremacy are so different from what happened to Trayvon Martin and other victims of white supremacy. It is just as important to highlight the insanity of racism and racial profiling and to ackowledge who is directly harmed by that system. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">For many white people around the
country especially younger people the horror and injustice of this murder might be their first experience with how truly evil white supremacy is. We
as white people should support them as they find their way and also
learn from them as they bring new ideas and approaches to the
struggle. Engaging with other white people around the complexity of being white in a white supremacy is not the same thing as throwing our energy down the abyss of arguing with white people pursuing white supremacy. Choose your battles wisely especially on line with anonymous racists. They thrive on conflict. Call something out as racist but then move on. Our energy is better served engaging with other white people that are maybe confused or even defensive but trying to figure it out, even as this can be painstaking work. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And there are real concrete things we
can work for in our country. An end to stand your ground, an end to
stop and frisk, a call to challenge racial profiling and to change our prison
and justice system just to name a few. None of these are easy or quick struggles but they are possible and vital. Trayvon Martin is sadly far from
the only victim of white supremacy and patriarchy in our current time. I can name two in my own community just this year. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">CeCe McDonald <a href="http://supportcece.wordpress.com/%20" target="_blank">http://supportcece.wordpress.com/ </a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Terance Franklin <a href="https://www.facebook.com/JusticeForTerranceFranklin" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/JusticeForTerranceFranklin </a>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> As white people working to challenge white supremacy as an institution, as an ideology as well as working to heal from the pathology of white supremacy and to be of use to the struggle for justice we must be honest about our experiences being white even as we reclaim our humanity. It is not one or the other but both together that can bring about clarity and action from white people. </span><br />
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<br />ellenmariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09938660457092563646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403775729666725341.post-9364729972911865272012-10-18T18:47:00.000-07:002012-11-04T10:11:23.905-08:00Life in marvelous times.<div style="background-color: #f3f3f3; color: black;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I have been edgy this fall, after a
summer of drought and polar ice melting and politicians talking in empty
platitudes about job growth. As if we can grow jobs without clean
water, clean air and life in balance. You can't grow jobs let alone
food without an Earth that can sustain us. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I don’t want to make any more lists of
the ways it is done, the killing of bodies, hearts, mountains, streams.
It all swirls, it is all real, all connected. Greed, ignorance and
hatred. The world is complex and fragile and we need to bring our best
selves to all we do. I’m not afraid of my anger or despair but it needs to be
connected to my love. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">My worry for the world has been waking me in the depth of night. That worry which usually manifests as worry for children: both the small circle of children that are my very personal heartbeat and for all the circles of beloved children all over the world. An hour or so before dawn I lay in bed listening to the wind and everything swirled in my head and my heart beat fast and I felt panic and terror wash over me in sickening waves from the belly through my chest to clamp around my brain. I tried to breathe deeply and find a place of power in myself not just distraction or rationalizations but something to strengthen me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I thought of Snake in the sun, yellow and black, her small beautiful head raised above fall leaves. I sat across the path from her in a timeless experience as she bathed in the sunlight that fell in small pools among gold and red leaves. The simple experience of sitting with snake, the softness and quietness with which that moment both required of me and gave to me has remained. It washes over me in times of stress and both gentles and strengthens me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Here we go into the election (finally!) I think Obama will win. It will be close and voter suppression looms large in my mind. But hopefully on Tuesday we will reelect Obama and then for anything to come of four more years he must be pushed from an empowered, visionary and courageous people’s movement. The amount of money and time spent just to hold on to this moderate democrat as well as working to defeat ridiculous amendments to make voting harder or marriage something only available to some people feels maddening but necessary. I have my eyes open, I am not in love with the idea that a president can save us. I am in love with the idea that we can save ourselves, save each other. And we do, all the time! No matter who wins we need new/ancient ways of thinking. We need strategies and both immediate action and a long term vision to meet the changing times. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So hell yes I am voting but it is what we do after the election that matters most. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We are here at this time as the Earth is in great transition and we are Earth and we are changing. What an honor, what a responsibility, what a possibility! There have been many turning points and I think we stand on the edge of one now. John Trudell assures us, "</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We are in the right place at the right time." This song by the amazing Yasiin Bey (who used to go by Mos Def) carries me forward. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's scary like hell, but there's no doubt</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">we can't be alive in no time but... NOW!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">...All over the world, you can feel it</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">All over the world, feel it</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Spirits rise everywhere</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's just a sure shot to the heart</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's just a sure shot in the dark</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's just another place in the stars</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Wonders on every side, life in marvelous times</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Life in marvelous times<span style="font-size: small;">...<span style="font-size: large;">now, always.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Now more than ever we must walk with the complexity of our situation. The politics, the strategy, the facts and figures but also the spirit realities, the joy and love for people and the knowledge that snakes elegant head rising above the leaves is also power, is also happening, is also now. Always. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Thank you. </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOuHan9loRs" target="_blank">Listen to "Life in Marvelous Times" by Yasiin Bey </a></div>
ellenmariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09938660457092563646noreply@blogger.com0