Facebook Publication Date: 6/19/2020 21:06
ABSOLUTELY NO REACTS.
COMMENTS REQUIRED.
Ok.
Something very disturbing happened with the guy who actually wrote this.
For now, I’m going to leave it, and leave this place holder for a longer commentary.
Meanwhile, be sure to check the comment threads you’ll see one with about a million responses to one comment by a woman named Kate.
There are some queries there and some real lessons and examples of a textbook cautionary tale, so I invite you to check it out.
For these purposes right now though, the first lesson I want you to learn, even before you read Jim Golden’s post is this: that people can write good things but their Praxis may not match their prose.
Your job is to be sure you never ever are that person.
I’m going to add more to this perhaps, but the real lessons are embedded in the comments.
So read the history lesson, take what you can from it, but never forget the person who wrote it. In fact, I encourage you to read Jim Golden’s history lesson, read the subthread where he reveals his character, and re read this holding that information. Does anything change for you? And don’t forget, he’s a racial equity educator.
Because at the end of the day who you are is *always* more important than what you write.
Edited to add what I wrote at the top of the share to my personal feed:
Ok. So there is this doc that is going around of some pretty good information, actually. I shared it on Lace on Race. A woman decided that this anon doc, which came across my feed with no name attached, she decided that it needed to have attribution to the author, who she happened to know.
All hell broke loose, as you will be able to see in the comments section. The man, Jim Golden, started off ok; nice stuff on his website, we even talked briefly about collaboration.
Um, not so much. It devolved quickly, first having him near tears because he thought I wasn’t being nice enough to Kate, his friend, then going hard on me, both on the subthread and in private message.
I think it is very important that people know what they are sharing. The man has had over 30k shares on this, and is being lauded as an uber ally. That falls to pieces when you see his behavior toward me here. BIPOC are sharing this.
I understand that there is often a bit of daylight between a person’s facebook presence and his actual self.
But this man, who was using Malcolm X as his avatar until i called him on his digital blackface, with this man there is a wide gulf.
My takeaway? That words mean nothing when attached to a heinous man. And that praxis beats prose anyday. There are screenshots in the comments. Kate wanted to insure he got attribution. Let’s make sure he does.
White people–your holistic self matters. You can’t compartmentalize–or you can, but then you will be like Kate and Jim.
Don’t be like Kate and Jim. Whatever you do. Just, don’t.
In answer to queries, YES. I do want this shared. Early and often. I want this to go absolutely viral. He got 40k hits with this. It cannot stand.
______
It’s no accident that:
You learned about Helen Keller instead of W.E.B. DuBois.
You learned about the Watts and L.A. Riots, but not Tulsa or Wilmington.
You learned that George Washington’s dentures were made from wood, rather than the teeth from slaves.
You learned about black ghettos, but not about Black Wall Street.
You learned about the New Deal, but not “red lining.”
You learned about Tommie Smith’s fist in the air at the 1968 Olympics, but not that he was sent home the next day and stripped of his medals.
You learned about “black crime,” but white criminals were never lumped together and discussed in terms of their race.
You learned about “states rights” as the cause of the Civil War, but not that slavery was mentioned 80 times in the articles of secession.
Privilege is having history rewritten so that you don’t have to acknowledge uncomfortable facts.
Racism is perpetuated by people who refuse to learn or acknowledge this reality.
~Jim Golden
You have a choice.
Happy Juneteenth!
Copy/paste
#jointheconversation #strongertogether
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