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When a college friend told me that I was “cute for a black girl,” her statement had weight. It was spoken to a black woman on a campus with a 2 percent black population, in a state where black people were equally scarce, in a country where race bias is still pervasive. She was speaking in a culture where her own white features were prized and considered beautiful and mine were not. She was speaking to a black woman on a campus where black women often went dateless, because the majority white male population was indifferent to us and the small “of color” male population often was, too. She was speaking to me–a woman who had come of age in the 70s and 80s rarely seeing people who look like me in magazines, on television and film, etc. She was speaking at a time when dark skin and big lips and broad noses and nappy hair were regularly mentioned as insults in school yard fights. She was speaking in a town where there was not one salon that did African American hair and no drug store that carried beauty products geared toward black women. Had I offered that she was “cute for a white girl,” it would have been plenty offensive, but would have different context and far less weight. She had racial privilege; I did not. The fact is that black people face microaggressions regularly. (And not just in tiny backwaters and Southern towns.) To ask that we not speak about them, or that we focus on “something more important,” is to erase our lived experiences and to ignore the ways the accumulation of little things can add to the weight of racism.
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Not Everyone’s Laughing At “Shit White Girls Say To Black Girls (via thetart)
“To ask that we not speak about them, or that we focus on “something more important,” is to erase our lived experiences and to ignore the ways the accumulation of little things can add to the weight of racism.”
Can I just highlight that one section for a bit? I cannot tell you how many times a day I see this argument from white liberals. Whenever I mention something like the usage of racial slurs in urls, white people using racial slurs, or white people dressing up in blackface for Halloween this argument inevitably comes up. “Little things” like that are just as racist as someone being bullied for being black or being denied a job for being black. We cannot ignore those small racist statements and actions an expect anything to get better.
White liberals, every time you say something to that effect, you’re showing your privilege. You’re also showing your unwillingness to check your privilege. If you want to know why POC stay away from you and events, rallies, or protests you organize? There is your answer. Take the time to listen and maybe, just maybe, you’ll learn something.
(via ladyatheist)
