- yes Archived Message
- WV, was wondering - Subhi December 26, 2018, 9:55 pm
Posted by west virginia
on December 26, 2018, 11:51 pm, in reply to "WV, was wondering "
I know Robin well.  I've read the others. White Privilege and White Fragility are important concepts, I think. I continue to learn about both, as I enter old age. I hope all is well with you. w v ...Thich Nhat Hanh...talks a lot about the resistance to the construction of false frontiers -- the idea that you make or construct someone as an enemy who you have to oppose, but who In fact may have more in common with you than you realize. However in this society its easier its easier for us to build our sense of 'community' around sameness so we cant imagine a gay-rights movement where 80 percent of the people might be non-gay. I was working from Martin Luther King's idea of the 'beloved community' and asking "Under what terms do we establish 'community' ? How do we conceptualize a 'beloved community'?" King's idea was a group of people who have overcome their racism, whereas I think more of communities of people who are not just interested in racism, but in the whole question of 'domination.' I think its more important to ask, "What does it mean to inhabit a space without a culture of domination defining how you live your life?" In Hanh's book The Raft is Not the Shore, he says "resistance at heart must mean more than just resistance against war. It must mean resistance against all things that are 'like' war." And then he talks about modern society ...how the way we live threatens our integrity of being and how people who feel threatened then construct 'false frontiers': I can only care about you if you're like me... ....if you can find yourself in 'the other' in such a way as to wipe out the 'otherness' , then you can live in harmony. But a 'grander' idea is "Why do we have to wipe out the 'otherness' in order to experience the notion of Oneness?" bell hooks “Because it benefits us not to do so, we have a very limited understanding of racism.” ― Robin DiAngelo, What Does It Mean to Be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy “The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americanas to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.” ― Tim Wise "...Mainstream dictionary definitions reduce racism to racial prejudice and the personal actions that result. But this definition does little to explain how racial hierarchies are consistently reproduced." Robin DiAngelo "...the language of violence that many whites use to describe anti-racist endeavors is not without significance, as it is another example of how white fragility distorts reality." Robin DiAngelo |
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