Kinfolk Kollective wrote a searing piece that speaks to the difference between kind and nice; between one off and sustainable; between performative and sacrificial.
Read there; comment here. Be sure to read all of the comments too.
14 responses to “Wisdom From Kinfolk Kollective: Confront and Comment”
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I was particularly struck by some of the comments about aunts or other care givers who were not remotely NICE but when care was needed, they gave REAL (practical, necessary, valuable, comforting) care. That’s so convicting. Like others have said, for so many of us, nice is easy and makes us feel good – without any actual work or sacrifice. And you add in the layers of white savior condescension and we are feeling FINE! But what have I given of myself, of my time or my resources to truly care for another? How far am I willing to go to give actual care to another?
People don’t recognize me as safe or kind by my niceness.
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I was really struck by the comments on the Kinfolk Kollective post. So many stories of white people acting benevolent and friendly in temporary, easy, non-committal way, and then turning around and acting in harmful, hurtful ways to maintain priority over black people. And so many stories were about white people at work – it reminds me of Lace’s conclusion about white supremacy being economic at its core.
What I’m taking away from the post is:
– Self-conscious niceness from white people like myself, even if it’s meant to be compensating for the warped ways white people interact with black people, is transparent and unpleasant for the people on the receiving end.
– Niceness is not enough, when it allows white people like myself to maintain our privileges and safety at the expense of black people. I need to try harder to develop the habits and actions of a true ally, following the lead of the people with lived experience of white supremacy.
– I really need to be a better ally at work. It seems to be a place where a lot of repression and harm is enacted on black people.
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Wow, Kathy, your comments really hit me. Niceness as a mask, away to protect our illusions of our own benevolence – I see that clearly, how self-serving it is.
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Noted, and I’m impressed!
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I appreciate your comments about “white benevolence,” Julie. I have definitely been guilty of feeling benevolent for being nice. Even kindness, I think, can be condescending when coming from white people and directed toward black people.
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“Nice” is baseline for me and other white people on how we should treat Black people. (i.e. smiling, saying hi, telling a white person something they’re saying is racist). It’s 101 on being a decent human being. But also, nice hides things, like you and Kinkfolk Kollective said. I can be “nice” all day but if I’m not being kind then I’m not doing my work. I will slip and fall, but the point is to get back up and learn, and apologize.
Nice can also be poison with a false sense of being the “good white woman”.
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I don’t… actually find nice all that easy. I have trouble making eye contact with humans in general. I have been told many times, though, when I smiled at a stranger, how much it meant to them. So I do try harder to do that as I walk to work. I try to make eye contact and smile at the people I pass outside the missions, who are so many of them, TOO many of them black people.
It’s part of my praxis, to try to connect with them, even in passing and casually, as people. Because I think it helps keep me honest about those connections and that humanity when my default mode is to withdraw and stay inside myself. I try to be nice, and it’s work for me. And I want it to be genuine, not performative, but there’s some amount of fake it til I make it going on.
But that is not by any means the end of or even most of what I work on living daily. Reading that post and all the comments was… not surprising to me, but motivating and discouraging. I’m discouraged at how little niceness means, because of how shallow it runs in white society. I was raised to be nice, polite, and respectful, and only that last bit really had any genuine depth. Even then, I can ACT respectful without BEING it.
So I want to BE respectful, and to do want to act nice as much as I can, rather than acting unnice. But I want to BE kind, deeply kind. I want to be part of turning white society into something less crocodile tears and shark smiles.
I’m committed to voting, especially for black women. I’m committed to redistributing what I don’t need to live on, which can still be pared down. And I’m committed to staying at least partially out of my shell so that when I ACT nice, it’s because I AM kind. And when I’m not nice, I’m STILL kind. Through meaningful action. But also in smaller gestures.
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Ive’ been guilty of perfunctory niceness. When it cost me nothing (really) in terms of time or treasure, and certainly I didn’t need to dig deep to get there. I used to think of common courtesy something greater when I was exercising it for people of color. And it was just like turning off an alarm clock… “I’m good, I did xyz, so stop getting after me, conscience.” There is no action I can take, no nice words, that will “let me off the hook.” That isn’t possible. Even working for systemic change shouldn’t turn off the alarm clock. It’s always on, now, or at least I try to make it be. Cutting myself slack here is just me being a lazy thinker and making my comfort come first. Screw that.
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One comment I read there was something to the effect of the following: the word handing out the candy are doing it to make themselves feel better, and boy, did that feel true. They can reassure themselves that they are nice, and feel like they’ve done a thing. And looking at the cute little costumed Black kids condescendingly (because this is a very comfortable way to encounter Black people, with us in the role of benefactor). Much more comfortable than in the day-to-day when Black people are asking for things that matter (basic justice, for example).
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You ARE a boss, Lace. Thank you so much for this beautiful new space.
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I was thinking about the concept of “niceness” during a session of our local group convening weekly to process daily work on Layla Saad’s 28-day Me & White Supremacy curriculum. We came up against some of our own “white benevolence” (aka BS) regarding how some of us feel like “good people” when we smile at Black, Indigenous or other people of color in the supermarket, for example. Nothing anyone wanted to admit to, for sure, but we’re deep in within this group, trying to tackle all of the conscious and semi-conscious messages about race that arise in our daily journeys. It’s frikkin’ easy as hell to be “nice” and we white people act like we deserve cookies and medals and who knows what else for that. And frankly, it’s not even that hard to show up at the polling place and vote for candidates and initiatives that will dismantle white supremacy. What’s harder is to do the work to get others to show up — to galvanize a critical mass. What’s harder is actually showing UP for Black and other people of color in situations where it counts. Paying the people we learn from, AND making reparations to people whose misery is predicated on white peoples’ “success.” Doing the work — learning, reading, thinking, acting differently. Making honest and earnest apologies; reflecting on how to take what we’ve learned into every interaction. Going out of the house to the march, to the demonstration, talking to police in what look like “dicey” situations where POC are involved, being willing to be arrested for civil disobedience. Being willing to put our bodies on the line when necessary. Speaking up and back to “friends,” family members, strangers in the street or in the store or on the train when racism and white supremacy arise, as they surely will and inevitably do. Being willing and in fact happy to ruin Thanksgiving. Figuring out all the levels of giving up privilege and using privilege to help and support and do GOOD, not just to “do nice.” Living an anti-racist life.
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Way to go!!!! Congratulations, Lace! Thanks Marlise!!!
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Niceness is a mask–especially when offered up this way one night of the year. A way we, wp, protect our innocence. A way we deceive even ourselves that we ‘aren’t that bad.’ A way we balance our unspoken, strong internalized racism by handing out candy to Black kids, ,unbegudgingly, so we don’t have to face our not-nice-at-all-ness squarely. ANd I wonder how many wp talk about and congratulate themeselves for welcoming Black people into their communities on Halloween as if its a great thing even though the same people will call the police or grab their guns, protect their castles and stand their ground in a heartbeat any other night of the year because the mere presence of Black/non-Black people of color is suspicious, arouses fear in us.
And this, this dynamic makes me more aware of how POC go through every single day without any clear indication of which white people with them most reliably and whice do not, and even when a white person has proven themselves ‘safe’ in some settings, there is also the knowledge that in any moment we might betray you, and that in many moments we betray you behind your back in how we vote, in how we respond to inequities at work, church, school; at how we respond in real time to assaults on Black people by LE and private citizens; by our silence or complicity with the many and varied racist policies and practices around us every day.
Being ‘nice’, even being ‘kind’ to individual Black/non-black People of Color, isn’t doing the work; addressing the sources of harm in white systems and structures is.
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Marlise’s hard work on me and vast stores of patience and silent screams as she teaches me stuff is paying off. I am getting the hang of this! Did you see me embed *like a Boss*??
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