Facebook Publication Date: 12/1/2018 13:12

M. Boe Flores and I are participating in a thread on a woman’s personal page, the one we directed you all to earlier today. She wrote a response, and I responded under her. We will post in the thread from earlier, but we think it’s important to discuss on its own. Be gracious about the formatting; I have a photo shoot soon, so I am doing this on the fly! (The photo shoot is part of some really big news!!)

Comments strongly encouraged. Here you are:

M. Boe Flores:

Again, I see us as white people doing a couple of things when we run away, stay and listen, or speak up. We still keep waiting for other people to take action, and we still keep consuming black voices without giving back resources to sustain them. I appreciate some of the things you noticed here. You noticed the privilege in being able to disengage from frustration, and you realized the absence of black voices in your life once social media was gone. You specifically called out the people who influenced your change. Be the mountain literal or figurative, it speaks to an important ingredient in change…. relationship. The beginning of your post suggests you know who you were wanting/looking to respond. You know the people in your life you wish would engage more. As Didi says above, call them in. I’ve made general posts myself and been frustrated at the lack of response. Still, that lack is mostly on me. Unless I am doing the work to reach out and ask someone on a journey up a mountain so they can jump up and down and shout “not racist” without harming someone, and begin their journey, my posts and engagement will always fall flat. We notice the lack but hesitate to expend yet another resource (time) to solve that lack.

Lace on Race:

just to piggyback, i think it’s important to recognize that what white people tend to do–this gathering (aka consuming) of voices and perspectives is, while, crucial, totally insufficient.

The implication, that knowing more and more is enough, and even engaging in what is often one sided relationship is fodder for approbation, is what so many do.

This is why doing internal work is so important, which is another place white women drop the ball.

I am not talking about navel gazing and self absorption, but doing the hard work of determining where you are now, what you are and are not willing to do, and interrogating that, looking at the double mind that all white women have, their (at least somewhat) authentic call for real work and real change–but without some things that white women have never really had to cultivate: reliability, resiliency, steadfastness and thick skin–because their proximity to power, and the double edged sword of white womanhood have allowed them to evade responsibility and ‘grow up’ . And because they have been taught that this work is provisional, ancillary, and optional, they have never been encouraged to actually do work that has deep relevance and staying power. Their complicity in the world they are ostensibly fighting against needs to be confronted, and hard. It has not been.

That needs to change. Like the saying that women don’t dress for men, but rather for each other, so it is with white women ‘doing stuff’ of racial, and other justice work. They do it not for the people they say that they stand with, but rather for each other. Look no further than this thread.

Not one word about how, or even whether, whatever is done, either offline or online by white women positively affects women of color, who, frankly, should be your North Star, and the only question white women should be asking themselves.

Not only should they ask, they should follow. Humble queries as to what and how much–not leaving it to themselves because it will always be inadequate (throwing 50 dollars is something to interrogate–that’s *your* comfort level, not necessarily what, again, those you say you stand with actually need.)

This work is not an artfully tied scarf. It is not dangly earrings, nor is it in any way a spa day. It requires,and deserves, primacy. And what white woman do you know–question for all of you–truly do this work at this level of interior integrity and outward authentic praxis?

Permalink: https://www.facebook.com/laceonrace/posts/pfbid0rC1tQJdoVWzacLQcvHjvbcPPgDxkdJNyoeMA7CjYfVxbt1DPhBmSKZpwS2L5f8Bql

Post Type: Text

Caption Type: N/A

Is Cross Post: 0

Is Share: 0

Impressions: 4

Reach: 3

Reactions: 3

Comments: 10

Shares: 0