All of us who are white have been made to...

“ All of us who are white have been made to participate in and benefit from systemic racism whether we have chosen it or not, and in such as way that it is not possible to extricate ourselves and choose to no longer be a racist. If you are white, I am suggesting that you are racist because you are part of a racial group in which everyone participates and benefits from white power and privilege. Your imprisonment is that you have no power to stop being a beneficiary of racism. Your imprisonment is that you have no power not to be a racist.

—

Joseph R. Barndt, Understanding and Dismantling Racism (via darkjez)

While I understand the sentiment, this is the type of activism that detracts from the implementation of justice because the ultimate consequence of calling White people racist even when they are aware and do their best to dismantle racism, is antagonize and consequently drive them away from hearing what you (the oppressed) has to say.

(via smilebrokenheart)

That’s a cop-out and you know it. If having to acknowledging one’s participation in upholding systemic white supremacist racism means you won’t help dismantle it, then you were never an anti-racist to begin with.

(via darkjez)

Indeed. Not all whites are automatically racist. It shouldn’t be difficult to say that you do benefit from a fractured racist system. The ability to recognize this will not make you less of a human being. The desire to change this, to shake up the convention will only make you a better human being. Digging your head in the sand and ignoring the system in it of itself may not strictly make you a racist, but it sure as hell makes you a lazy and passive being who has internalized the system so much so that you can’t even see the way out.

It is possible to extract oneself from a racist system. You simply have to choose to reject it. All the time. Every day. You have to call people out on things that they never even think about. You have to learn how to state clearly and with conviction WHY such things are racist and a contributing problem to society. You have to educate yourself. You have to be willing to exchange in a dialogue and you have to be willing to be wrong and to listen.

Instead of seeing a race dialogue as an attack on you personally, look at it as a comment on the greater society. This has nothing to do with you as an individual. If you can’t get mad at the system you will never fix it.

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