Cream: Is saying that your skin color and gender is just as unimportant as mine problematic? That I don't give a shit what color you are? I don't care who you fuck and what parts you have? Or is that bad.
No. Not really. I’d love it if skin color and gender was truly as unimportant as you say. But unfortunately that is not the world we are in
I’m sorry man. You’re literally saying to me “ignore reality. Stop caring that you’re black and LGBT and just live your life! Realize how it absolutely does NOT matter at all that you are black and LGBT and it has NO effect on ANYTHING. Why can’t you be like me and ignore reality?”
I'm not saying ignore the reality of your lived experience. I'm saying I won't judge you merely by your skin color and you won't judge me. Being white doesn't intrinsically make me a bad person just as your skin color doesn't make you a bad person. It's how we live our lives that defines who we are more than the immutable qualities. See what I'm saying?
The fact that you think “being white doesn’t automatically make me a bad person” is what I need to hear shows me that you really don’t understand my perspective at all, man. I love a lot of white people! My very best friends are white. (Lol)
There are many ways white supremacy manifests itself. It is near-universal to western culture and almost completely inescapable. There are many who intentionally buy into it, and many more unintentionally.
So help me understand your perspective.
I’ll give the most obvious example I can think of.
“You’re very articulate.” I’ve heard this a lot. As a black person, when you speak very well, that’s notable to a lot of people. When you hear it enough times, you start to realize quickly that, not every time, but frequently, the implicit idea is that “It is uncommon for a black person to speak so well.” Is that true? Honestly, yeah, maybe? But to say something so patronizing to me, like if someone said “you’re cute for a black person”, which I’ve also heard blatantly. It’s annoying. Am I gonna call anyone stupid or a bad person for that specifically? No. But I think it’s a problematic thing to say to a black person.
Maybe you could make the argument and get me to admit that the nature and atmosphere of Era makes me more low tolerance for this kind of ignorance, and I express that in too confrontational a way. But it’s displayed on a GRAND scale, in many different ways. And getting the same exact questions from the same exact people over and over and over again and they just keep slapping you over the face saying I don’t actually care about your answers and I just want to question you despite having no frame of reference or perspective for anything you’re talking about I still feel that my opinion about this is as valid as yours. It just gets grating.
The truth is simply that there are many more things I believe to be problematic and indicative of white supremacy than you do. Maybe I need to get better about not immediately calling anyone that is ignorant about this reality a bad person. But I would like you to understand that I will never stop pointing out this reality.
And if the first thing you want to say in reply to this post is pointing out to me that the articulate thing isn’t racist at all and I’m being totally paranoid then you’re just proving my point.