Facebook Publication Date: 11/18/2021 21:11

*REQUIRED READING; NORMS APPLY*

From Richelle Dickerson :

‘Boy, is this relevant in the moment.

People, clear people in particular, love to debate and “both sides” and have “robust” discussions Because then they don’t have to do anything that isn’t performative – that takes courage & being uncomfortable.

We entertain debates about things that aren’t debatable and set a narrative that there is some question.

But I’m not having these discussions anymore.’

Nor am I.

In the last couple Welcome videos, I talked about what I called ‘The Foundational’; elements of racial justice that are, or should be, irrefutable–but which so often are.

Refuted, that is.

Here at Lace on Race, we also talk (a lot) about this: that it is important to think, and think hard, about how words land on others, particularly how these words land on marginalized populations, and most particularly when the so-called debate, which is actually so often gaslighting, are about topics that are hypothetical or ancillary to white lives, but are literally life and death to Black and brown lives.

As we welcome new people into the space of LoR we want to ensure that these foundational Concepts are heard and internalized. This is why we have an insistence upon reading the pinned posts and the starter menu; this is why it’s important to believe what I tell you, particularly at the early stages, at the pre-primer level, which, if you are new here, or you’ve been here a while and are still a lurker or spectator, it’s where you are here at the take out window.

This piece, for a lot of you, is hard to swallow. I know.

Black and brown people know more than you about racial Justice.

Quietly, so do I.

That’s where we go back to how some words
land.

Where denial and or minimizing of experience, not just ‘lived experience’ as white people like to say so often, but *also* intellectual and academic experience.

A (very) large element of walking a racial justice practice of heft and substance involves *believing us*.

And, crucially, in this space, believing me.

In the welcome videos earlier this week I talked about white people setting the terms of how racial justice is ‘done’. I said that Dynamic needs to be interrogated, and ultimately it needs to be stopped.

I stand by this.

_____

Queries:

How have you (and you definitely have) denied, minimized, blunted, ‘contextualized’, or have in other ways disbelieved Black and brown people as regards to race?

Have you observed our faces, nonverbal cues, *and very spirits* when you have done so? (Don’t hide behind the fact that, these days, a lot of discourse is virtual and otherwise online. Use your fictive imaginations.)

Has it created relational rifts in your relationship with said person (or group)?

If the answer is ‘no’ only because you don’t have significant relationships with Black and brown people, do you have reflections on this point?

How has all this impacted your racial justice practice?



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