On Coming to Terms with Our Arseholery

Wow, this piece just resonated so much with me. It is SO MUCH EASIER when the easily recognised racists are out there, but when i see him staring back at me when i am standing in front of the mirror… Wow! And yet so much of truth. How honest are we willing to be with ourselves?

#Contains slightly stronger language than i normally use, but get over yourselves…

The Disco Pants Blog

Nobody wants to think of themselves as being a bad person. Bad people are ISIS soldiers, child molesters, Shrien Dewani. They do bad things which are blatant and obvious and talked about in the media. But in the last few months I have found myself in spaces where I’ve had to take a long and careful look at who I am in the world, the attitudes that have formed me and how I conduct myself in certain situations. And to say that it’s been an uncomfortable awakening is an understatement. Because many of you who follow my blog know that I’m relatively outspoken about race issues in this country. I have strong feelings about the socio-economic disparities and the white attitudes that feed them, and while I sit behind my computer screen in my nice study on the Atlantic Seaboard it’s easy to wax lyrical about egalitarianism and the way…

View original post 1,168 more words

Some reasons i hate white people. [you know, because of all the hating white people i do!]

i hate white people!

i know, i know,  i could barely believe it myself when i found out, but having heard so many people suggest it on my blog the past week or two [some in comments i chose not to print due to their not-fit-to-be-read-by-other-humans content] it really must be true.

It started when i started suggesting that i don’t think white people are better than black people [if i had a dollar for every email pointing me towards either inventions or I.Q. test results as proof of why white people are clearly better, i’d have dollars – strangely they never cite the electric chair, nuclear bombs or Adolph Hitler in their ‘white people are better’ speeches]

It became more glaringly obvious when i suggested the phenomena of ‘White Privilege’ was an actual thing, because clearly nothing says, ‘I hate white people!’ than the suggestion that we might for the most part be at a bit of an advantage starting off in this country simply because we are white…

In case you don’t believe me, here are some of the thoughts of visitors that i have been able to publish from this last week as parts of comments on my blog:

Listen here dimwit. I am sick to death of being told that because I am white I am privileged, [Tony]

Do you sell drugs to earn a living? How do you afford tablets, TV, car travelling to the USA? Going to shows, cricket, and so on? Or are you a trustfund kid? Please do tell oh enlightened one how you can afford this lifestyle of lazing about, writing nonsense and hate speech against whites, watching cricket all day and generally living like a teenager at your parents house.[Melanie]

Who pays you for all this lazing about, talking about how bad whites are and how they must bend for blacks…? [Melanie]

Lets hope that if we do somehow survive this, that never ever ever again will we share this land, never ever ever again show any form of mercy to these savages, shoot all on the spot or if not we can simply repeat this exercise [Francois Du Toit]

Francois does have a bit of a point there. i really don’t believe that someone who refers to black people as ‘savages’ should ever be allowed to share land with them and the sooner you head off to another country on another continent, the better for us all, sir.

Well, i have a bit of a secret to share. i actually do like white people. Heck, some of my best friends are white.

i don’t want anyone to apologise for being white.

i don’t want anyone to be going on about how bad white people are.

i certainly do not encourage hate speech against white people.

However, at the same time, i have a bit of another secret to share. I kinda like black people. Heck, some of my best new friends in recent times have been black.

i don’t want anyone to apologise for being black.

i don’t want anyone to be going on about how bad black people are.

i certainly do not encourage hate speech against black people.

 A FRIENDLY SUGGESTION

This blog, among other things, is going to be a space where time and energy is given to seeing how we as people of different colours and cultures [and i include all of those who don’t merely fall into black or white here] can work together to create a unified, transformed society where the majority of people can live in freedom with balance in terms of the opportunities they have.

If you don’t like the idea of that, then my suggestion would be to you, to go somewhere else. This is my blog which means i get to choose what happens here and what doesn’t. You are under no obligation to spend any time here. i am certainly under no compulsion to give your racist and hateful words and ideas and airtime. If you don’t like what happens here, why do you keep on coming back?

If, however, you want to disagree with me [or ideas being shared here] and challenge what is being spoken about, or share a different opinion and have the means to be able to do that respectfully to all involved then be my absolute guest. This is a wrestling ground where we will search for truth, life and hope together. i certainly don’t know all the answers and feel like i’m fumbling my way towards them at the best of times. We need to see a whole lot more people engaging here and trying to work out the next step forward with us. So bring your friends. Be chatting about these things over dinner tables. Be inspiring and hope-giving and full of life.

Tony, Melanie, Francois, Jacques and others who have visited here and posted words that have felt mean, unhelpful and at times hate-filled… this door will always be open to you – the stage won’t be and until you can change your tone you won’t be getting as much access to the mic. as some others might. But we would love for you to invest and engage and be open to ideas outside of your own, to leave the fear at the door and start listening to some stories from people who are different to you. And consider the possibility of joining hands with them to help create a united future for us all.

[For those who would like to hear more about first steps in moving forwards in this country, click here]

[For a simple but helpful visual illustration of what is meant by the term ‘white privielege’, click here]

The Wisdom of Others in talking about Race

i am almost overwhelmed by the amount of posts i have been discovering or people have been linking me to when it comes to race. What has been amazing has been so many of  them have been so incredibly good. i imagine there are a lot of people who see ‘Anothe ace post by Brett Fish’ and roll their eyes or reach for the unsubscribe. But i am confident that there are enough people following and contributing to this conversation that it is worth continuing it.

There is still so much i need to learn and hear. Thank you to everyone who has been sharing their unearthed gems with me.

This post is simply to highlight some of the more recent posts i have been reading from Americaland and here, where there is a surprising amount of mirroring, echo and comparison that can be made despite our countries having some significant differences in present context [one being that in Americaland white people are the majority, whereas in South Africa we were in the minority]

There is work to be done:

# Dear White Brothers and Sisters: Why #BlackLivesMatter Matters to you – This post, by Natasha Sistrunk Robinson on Amy Julia Becker’s blog i one of the best pieces i have read in terms of explaining the hashtags, the importance of #BlackLivesMatter vs #AllLivesMatter and giving some positive actions steps as to how you can be part of the solution.

The Washington Post recently published an article revealing that “for every 91 white friends a white American has, they have only one black friend.” Additionally, “the study found that 75 percent of whites have entirely white social networks without any minority presence.” The lack of intimate connection to diverse communities, and sociological research demonstrates, that white people need better cultural tools to process racial concerns.

Some people have pushed back on #BlackLivesMatter with an#AllLivesMatter. Generalizing this important statement is simply a way of silencing the wilderness experiences of black folks and those who are lamenting the senseless loss of black lives. Of course, all lives and all children matter, but all are not being killed by cops. When I say #BlackLivesMatter, I am saying that black people need the same protections as white people from the police and their communities. Now is the time to hold powerful and political structures accountable.

# Thoughts from a Recovering Racist is an article with one of the most helpful stories that drives home the message of what ‘White Privilege’ is all about – Josh Throneburg tells his story and then doesn’t go as far as saying the words, but the point of the story is ‘This would not have played out the same way if i was black.’ And i think he is right – i received the same kind of get-out-of-jail-free card encounter when we lived in Oakland where the police officers would routinely stop drivers simply because they were black and i, being someone who deserved to be punished, was tossed a lifeline.

So read his story and take some time to focus on the helpful hints he gives at the bottom of his piece:

If your whole world is pretty much white people, like what I described above, watch what you say.  I shouldn’t tell a woman not to yell and scream during childbirth, and you shouldn’t tell the black community that they are overreacting, or missing the point, or biased.  We have no idea how they feel or how deeply this hurts.  These last two weeks have inflicted serious injury, so please keep quiet and don’t aggravate their pain.

And a bonus for my Christ-following friends:

Finally, if you are someone that reads the Bible, then you may know Paul’s verse in Romans that says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind”.  This verse assumes that there are patterns of thought informed by this world, and that those are old ways of thought that must be made new. 

# We aren’t playing the Race Card, we are analyzing the Racialised Deck – This is a helpful post, by Drew Hart, highlighting the need to look at the bigger picture of systemic injustice as opposed to the ease with which we can dismiss individual incidents separated from context:

Merely speaking about this incident and mentioning racism resulted in the common backlash accusation of playing this mythical item. It is used over and over again by some white people instead of engaging in dialogue through sharing and listening, the choice is made to stigmatize and scapegoat those that disagree that America is mostly a colorblind post-racial nation. There are certain scripts that the white majority learns and rehearses through subtle socialization in dominant culture. Rather than doing the hard work of careful in-depth investigation of the matter, quick cliché dismissals are used to uphold the status quo.

A different definition of racism which includes the following:

Racism is about one group having enough power to organize society by its categories (legally or by voluntary choices) in such a way that it advantages most of the dominant groups members at the expense of another group’s welfare. Backing up and looking at racial patterns (historical and sociological) a bigger entity than personal prejudice comes into view. Suddenly, through historical and sociological study, we can see that America is a highly racialized society that is dominated and controlled by the white majority.

And THIS is where it starts to get real:

These patterns also begin to reveal what it means to live on the underside of our racialized society. Though white and black youth are using drugs at comparable rate (research suggests close to equal with white youth using slightly more than black youth), black men are disproportionately arrested for nonviolent drug offenses. 1 out of 3 African Americans will go through the system because the War on Drugs has focused on urban black and brown neighborhoods rather than the vanilla suburbs.

We have to ask deeper questions. We must talk less, be slower to jump in with defence or argument and simply listen more. Try and hear. Attempt to understand. What others are thinking and feeling and meaning when they say what they say.

What articles, posts, videos have you found helpful in terms of this conversation in the last week or so? Please leave us a link in the comments. Also let us know what was the one eye-opening thing for you in any of these articles that you read?

[For more thoughts from a variety of sources on this idea of White Privilege, click here]

Dear Bloggers of Undetermined Colour

So this past week all the bloggers of colour have been writing to all the other bloggers of other colour but since they do not know each other personally [maybe the main problem?] they are simply sticking them on their blog for mostly people of their own colour to read and cheer and like and comment on… although every now and then a person of the other colour stumbles upon it and makes themselves known…

ALL THE WHITE PEOPLES

It started with this piece by Ntsiki Mazwai titled Dear White South Africans where the word ‘dear’ was clearly chosen only for its letter-beginning properties. If you have not read it yet then please go and do so before continuing [and if you want perhaps greater insight, take some time reading the comments and be very sure that this is not only one person’s opinion]. The gist of it is a response to all the white South Africans changing the idea of Heritage Day to Braai Day and begins with this very all-inclusive broad-swept statement:

Owing to this concept of Braai Day, I am forced to have this honest and somewhat uncomfortable conversation with you. I had hoped that since you have grown white people, they would teach you better…but they have not.

If the opening sentence is not directive enough of where this piece might go, the next paragraph throws off the gloves completely and no holds are barred as we are reminded that as white people we are descendants of such fun folks as Hitler and friends:

Let’s start at the beginning……my dear white people, you are not descendants of this land called Afrika. Afrika has its own children that it has birthed and nurtures.

It is written in the history books (which your people wrote) that you came from Holland, France, Britain, Spain…..all these are European countries.

The moral of the story is….You are descendants of Europe.

You are the children of Elizabeth, Hitler, Bismarck and others that built their legacy on stealing lands and making people slaves.

And so on, with lots of mention of ‘You white people’ [as in all of us, of course] and the fact that it was only black people who were responsible for the end of apartheid [really interesting when you take a look at her ‘Dear ANC Open Letter’ where she makes it clear that ‘There were many political parties who liberated us…a fact you like to blatantly ignore.’ in fact, i really enjoyed that post of hers much more than this one so give it a read]

While there may be a lot of truth in some of the things Ntsiki writes, she loses a lot of integrity by her continual blatant use of sweeping generalisation:

When you white people speak to a group of black people why do you speak ‘stupid’ English? That thing where you talk down to black workers makes you look stupid.

So absolutely, when that happens it is an abomination of racism and should be stopped. But it is not all white people and if she had given her piece a more balanced tone, i think it would have carried greater weight.

Possibly the strongest part of her piece for me was when she signed off with the words, Your rainbow nations counterparts, especially when i googled the word for full definition and saw adjectives like ‘equivalent’, ‘complement, ‘coequal’ and ‘fellow brother or sister’ as the descriptors.

There is definitely value in reading what she says and understanding this is how she feels and in going through the comments and knowing she is not alone in voicing it. We need to be aware of these voices and not just toss them aside because we disagree with everything they are saying or how it might come across.

A RESPONSE 

Next up i read this blog by someone who calls himself Paul ‘or Juby or Jubez or Jubalizer or Jabualani or whatever you prefer.’ [i suspect that the ‘whatever you prefer’ bit is why he keeps having so many names!] titled ‘A response to “Dear White South Africans”‘ which surprisingly ended up being a response to the above blog post [who would’ve thought with such a deceptive title?]. Again, if you have not read this piece, do yourself a favour and go read the whole thing – this is just a summary of some parts that stood out to me:

Paul addresses Ntsiki directly by starting off with a description or explanation of who he is:

I have read your post and given it much consideration. I should perhaps start by saying that I am a white male who was born and raised in Durban. My heritage is non-Afrikaans, but I am not sure that that makes me ‘English’. I am however English speaking. There are a few issues raised that I would like to share my view on.

It is true that that I am of European descent. My ancestors (mostly in 1820) arrived in South Africa and committed atrocities against black people; enslavement, Apartheid, etc. I was born in the early 1990’s into a privileged life. I will never be able to understand fully what the people of this country went through, the oppression and the humiliation. You will always have my sympathies for what happened.

And then goes on to address specific points she has made. What i liked about Paul’s piece is that it felt quite gracious and humilitous [it’s a word!] in its response where it could quite easily have come across as knee-jerk responsive as Ntsiki’s did to me. And he describes his identity in a way which i really strongly identify with myself:

I would like to talk about identity. I believe that I am African. I might not be black by my family has lived here for 200 years. I have been to Europe and certainly do not consider myself European. African identity is not a matter of race, it’s a matter of culture.  I am a South African because my culture exists nowhere else. It is what makes me who I am. It is my home.

A clever look back into the past extending the argument of why white South Africans should be referred to as ‘European’ into one looking at where the Zulu and Xhosa tribes moved in from, leads him to this witty and apt conclusion: Calling me one of the children of Hitler is like calling you a child of Charles Taylor, this is simply wrong. I could go on endlessly with such arguments. Ultimately, we are South African as our culture exists nowhere else.

Paul gives an understanding of how he sees Heritage day from the point of view of being more inclusive for each person to be able to celebrate their heritage. He also invites the idea of Heritage day being a day of sharing cultures and celebrating the differences in each other.

And Paul’s ending is also a really strong one: My fellow South African

Maybe we should just be focusing on the last lines of these posts and work from there…

ALL THE BLACK PEOPLES

Over on ‘To Muse and Abuse’, Matthew de Klerk responded with his piece titled, ‘Dear Black Bloggers [A Response to Dear White South Africans]’ which i would also highly recommend that you read.

i have to assume the title is a typo as his post seems to be a direct response to Ntsiki and i don’t think he is doing the same thing of generalising that all black bloggers need to hear this stuff, but maybe he opened it up as a response to the many people that were commenting on her blog in agreement as well?

While similiar in content to Paul’s piece, Matthew’s piece does tend to head to more emotional extremes as can be evidenced in his opening:

Emotion can be a dangerous thing. Sure, anger can lend to our words and actions a passionate intensity that enables a vociferous, unbidden expression of what we’re feeling at the time, but it also brings with it a dangerous cloud of obscurity to our thoughts, a choking fog that surmounts clarity and seeps in at the cracks of our rhetoric and renders it illogical, irrational.

Which is why when I read a Facebook-furore piece yesterday entitled “Dear White South Africans” , I was unsurprised to see what can only be described as dangerous, illogical generalisations at play in the form of that ever-emotional issue, race.

There are differences though, as Matthew agrees with Ntsiki that the concept of ‘Braai Day’ which he refers to as ‘a capitalist, consumerist and shallow hijacking of a public holiday’ is not something he is a fan of and has actually written other posts against.

i found this post quite interesting as there is the misdirection of this teaser:

Now then, to the issue at hand: it would be easy to call Mazwai’s blog post a baseless, moronic, stereotyping, hate-mongering mess of oversimplified sweeping generalisations and unfounded accusations, but in lieu of an ad hominem attack, I feel it is better to debunk the article on its own merits and bases.

Followed by a direct dealing and picking apart of Ntsiki’s various points with regards to points like ‘original heritages and countries of origin’ and ‘stealing lands and making people slaves’ by panning the camera out a little and showing how if you take a far enough back look, you will find that everyone is pretty much guilty of the same kind of  thing.

i really liked the  thinking behind this paragraph on ‘multiple contrasting heritages’:

The idea of having multiple contrasting heritages is also not made on logical ground. Yes, technically white people may or may not come from countries where they were the “children” (not literally, obviously) of “Elizabeth, Hitler, Bismarck”, but what of those living in the diaspora, those who were born in countries outside their so-called “homes”? I am ineligible for citizenship in my “homelands” Scotland, France and Britain (so much for being the son of Napoleon and Louis XI, right?), was born in Zimbabwe but have South African citizenship – how then, does my belonging here be erased because a bunch of unrelated humans came before me? In the same light, there are many aspects of these ‘bad’ legacies that can be celebrated: Nazis pioneered rocket engines, Uganda wants to kill gays, and the industrial revolution was thanks mostly to the Scottish people. Any Heritage comes with good and bad: if you chose to celebrate Shaka Zulu’s legacy, you would also have to accept his dark, violent, warmongering side instead of just sanitising his historical image as a faultless black Jesus.

Who tells the story and how we tell it generally has the hugest affect and persuasion on exactly what kind of story is being told. As opposed to necessarily what actually happened.

Matthew makes some strong points debunking ‘facts’ and ‘claims’ that Ntsiki makes, demonstrating them to rather be ‘opinions’, but sadly this is where his emotion starts to take over and what might be well thought-out arguments loses some credibility and likely audience, through the use of descriptors such as ‘weasel-wording-y’ and ‘a magnitude of imbecility that defies description’. Point made, audience lost perhaps. Especially those who already approached the post from an antagonistic stance.

 So, some really good points to be made and read and understood, but also some emotional language to avoid so as not to lose all the good. Matthew might have led us to believe that he was going to debunk the article on its own merits and bases, which he does a lot of, but he can’t resists flinging a final piece of emotionalism to close off his piece.

In short conclusion, this article is nothing but a condescending, patronising, baseless bunch of unfounded opinions and childish assumptions that lead up to grotesque mess of hatemongering drivel. The author should, in future, not be so clinically myopic or as viciously race-hate hungry.

MY THOUGHTS

As someone who has been living in Americaland for the last three years [and been paying careful attention to a lot of the goings on over there with cases like Trayvon Martin and the Ferguson shootings and more] i am pretty convinced that i am not the best person to be speaking into the race/reconciliation/diversity conversations that are so necessary in South Africa, which is why the majority of the posts in the ‘Race’ section of my Taboo Topics’ space on my blog have been written by other people so far, and why a lot of my thought on ‘White Privilege’ were informed by the situations around us in Americaland.

What i DO believe though is that these blog posts are important – all three of them – and maybe even more important is to read the comments and try and hear the heart and tone and conviction behind the comments [difficult online, i know] on each of these posts as that is often where you find the heartbeat of the people as opposed to one person’s ideas or thoughts. If 2000 people are liking and sharing Ntsiki’s post [i don’t know if that’s the number – might be more, might be less] then we can’t simply dismiss it as ‘one person’s opinion’ and if it is our friends who are the ones sharing it, then that seems like a great point of connection for good healthy conversation.

And that we REALLY need to be talking about this stuff. Apartheid as an official thing might be dead but its roots are very much alive and unless we keep on cutting them off when they appear, or doing the hard difficult, maybe even dangerous work of digging under the ground to remove them completely, things will not change.

I’m leave you with some thoughts and a response from my new friend Ambu Madilonga [well almost friends, he hasn’t accepted my request yet on Facebook] who posted this to Ntsiki on Facebook, which i think contains a lot of generous Truth:

Molo Sisi…

I’m a SOWETAN (born and raised, in the 80s), a son to political activists (one of them being a veteran in the ANC, SACP& SANCO) and am Venda/Tswana.

I have to say I shared your post on Facebook because it is thought provoking and would like people I’m friends with to engage with such thinking.
Your posts suggests,I think, that you are a great person who is very passionate about her South Afrika and her people. But it also suggests that you are upset with certain people and issues in our beloved country. Now, when you express issues from a place of anger, you need to be careful that you don’t overshadow the good points you are trying to put across with emotion filled statements.
Although I agree with certain things here, I must say that some points here were made without any research and make you seem very impulsive (don’t mean to judge, sorry if it comes across that way).
Yes, Some white South Africans still undermine Black South Africans.
Yes, Some white South Africans still think Black South Africans are dumb.
Yes, Some white South Africans still think they are superior to black South Africans.
Yes, Some white South Africans still don’t wanna engage/interact with Black South Africans.

Oh and yes we all must remember our heritage and not overshadow it with just braaing (Rev Tutu is going to kill me for saying this, because he was the spokesperson for National Braai Day in 2007)
And celebrating is going to be messy, I mean can imagine all cultures in SA celebrating their own heritage? But it would be a beautiful mess none the less.

But please..
NO, Let’s not kick anyone out of SA (unless they are here illegally and harming our people and land)
NO, Lets not remind anyone that they are the minority.
NO, Let’s not do what their forefathers did (Racism, Apartheid and Hate speech).
Rather…
Let’s teach them what their ForeFathers did not teach them, what we (black South Africans where taught by ours)
“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
“If the ANC does to you what the Apartheid government did to you, then you must do to the ANC what you did to the Apartheid government.” -Mandela

BLACK AND WHITE South Africans HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY
– To make friends with each other
– To respect each other
– To learn from each other
– To lead together
– To forget the Crappy past and embrace the present and work for a good future for all.

All of this starts with people like you and I who are in strategic places or have circles of influence.
For example, I’m friends with both whites and blacks and so I teach blacks that some whites are not bad and I also teach whites that some blacks are not bad. Practically, I invite my white friends to SOWETO and take them on long drives and visits to the beloved township. There I teach them our history briefly, feed them our food and show them our places. I very gently suggest that they atleast one of the Black african lingos (like a white South African in KZN, i tell them to try zulu). I do the same with my black friends and family. I bring them to the suburbs to hang out with the whites.

Of course its easy to say what’s in our heads when offended but we need to be careful to not go public with those before we have processed them first.

Hats off to you for your bravery and speaking out. You are one of the people that we need to help this country be what it can be for all.

Ndo Livhuwa nga maanda

Be blessed.
Ambu.

Ps. to you who commented on this in a less than childish way… SIES!

[For more Race-related conversations from a number of different perspectives, head over here]

 

it is time for GYHOOYA to become a hashtag

i don’t particularly like using the word ‘ass’ – in fact i tend to avoid it.

but there is one time when it feels completely appropriate and it is linked to an acronym i came up with a few years ago when i was still in Stellenbosch

it is the acronym GYHOOYA and it stands for ‘Get Your Head Out Of Your Ass’ as so beautifully illustrated by the creepy pic at the top

i know, i know, the older generation and the more polite and elegant and self-righteous tut their tuts and shake their heads and make you-should-know-better noises at me…

but i REALLY like it, almost as much as i like the word CRAP. and for the very same reason.

it just says exactly what is sometimes needing to be said. you can say something is ‘rubbish’ or ‘junk’ or anything like that, but the word ‘crap’ actually much more perfectly describes the thing.

and you can rarely face-to-face or even on social media tell someone to get their head out of their ass, but you can quietly say, “GYHOOYA” [pronounced Gie-Who-Yah] and smile knowingly to yourself.

HASHTAGTIVISM

although i think the world is about ready for it, so maybe you can join with me in finding the times and place and people where a directed GYHOOYA would be the appropriate thing to say.

# people [especially men] who don’t understand what ‘Rape Culture’ is or who refuse to engage in healthy conversations around it.

# people [especially white people] who don’t understand what ‘White Privilege’ really means and refuse to engage with it and learn from those who are speaking about it.

# people who think being the church is only about attending a meeting at a specific place on a specific day

# Westboro Baptist ‘Church’ and anyone else who calls themselves Christian and refuses to act in love

# people who start sentences with the words, “I’m not racist/sexist/homophobic but…”

And more i’m sure – just every now and then something happens and someone responds in the most ridiculous of ways and deserves their very own GYHOOYA.

What about you? Who would you add to the list of people who need to receive a GYHOOYA? 

 

 

Privilegaholics Anonymous [aka Where have all the White Men gone?]

“Hi there. My name is Brett Fish Anderson and I benefit from White Privilege.”

“Hi Brett!”

i mean that’s how i thought it would go, when i wandered into the room, very much late to the party.

Only thing is, the room seems surprisingly empty.

“As a black person I am really shocked that there are white ppl who think like this.” [Brian Maila]

“Like Brian, I also didn’t realise that there were white people who actually realised that “white privilege” is real. Thank you so much for this.” [Khaniyisa]

And those were not the only comments as a response to me, a white male, writing some thoughts on White Privilege, suggesting that it is a thing and that we have to own it and then work together to counteract it or hope for complete transformation over time.

I am also not the only one noticing this. Sarah Bessey, an amazing bloggerist from Canada, held back from writing her piece, while the Ferguson incident [the shooting and killing of a young black man repeatedly by a white police officer] was happening [she is Canadian] to give the Americans a chance to process and write their own story. But eventually, as the majority of the white bloggers seemed to be silent on it, she had to speak up over here.

But these past four days in Ferguson have broken through my usual resolve: this is absolutely a justice issue. I have waited patiently for more white Christian bloggers to speak up, particularly the Americans, trying to give them precedent to respond, but I have been disheartened by minimal response there. I want to come alongside the African American voices already writing and advocating, even in this small way.

i spent a LOT of time reading a LOT of posts in relation to Ferguson and White Privilege and Race over this last week and link after link was either African American people [both men and women] and then white women writing on the topic. I must have read well over 20 posts [in fact, i must have linked to close to 20 posts over here and here which means there were probably more] and i can’t remember any of them being written by white males [there might possibly have been one or two, but no white male faces stand out].

That doesn’t feel great and i am hoping that it is simply because i have not stumbled upon them. Although comments like Brian and Khanyisa’s make me feel like that might not be the case.

One of the women whose blog posts i read actually told me later she was scared when she saw my picture next to my Twitterer comment  [she had to close the comment sections on both her blog pieces as they got out of hand] because obviously this white guy will react in the same way every other white guy she has encountered will react [especially this one with dreads, right] and then just so surprised when i affirmed her post. I am hoping Danielle will guest post for me in a few weeks time.

So basically this post is a cry out to all my white blogger friends, especially the men. WHERE ARE YOU? Are you staying silent on such an important topic of conversation? Are you prepared to put your hand up and acknowledge White Privilege and then write a piece to get people thinking and talking?

It feels like this happened a little more naturally in Americaland as it was fueled by an incident [or lets be honest here, just one more incident in a long line] and so maybe that is what it will take in South Africa to get us all to the table [i hope not].

If you read this piece, then please issue a challenge to your white friends who blog [and even those who don’t – i can make space on my blog for more voices] and your white pastor friends and others in leadership or who have influence. Share this on their walls. Tweet this with their names in it. Let’s see some more white voices, and white male voices, speaking up about White Privilege.

If you have read any white male voices speaking out on this topic then please add the links in the comments section – it would be great to be able to give a page of links that are not just African American and female voices [which have been so powerful and gracious and insightful and kind]

My name is Brett Fish Anderson and i benefit from White Privilege. And i am wondering if there is anyone else out there? 

Found one! [Thankx John Scheepers] – Stephen Murray wrote this inspirational piece.

White Privilege: Other helpful posts to help you get it

While writing a piece on White Privilege for my blog, i  have been doing a lot of reading up on articles and posts relating to the whole Ferguson situation that has been playing out in Americaland and there have been a number of really helpful ones written and here are some of those:

I loved this piece which begins with an innocent ‘interaction’ in a coffee shop that opens up to the much more hectic conversation about Ferguson and the challenge for us to stop hiding:

http://culturemulching.com/2014/08/24/how-do-we-dance-after-ferguson-for-the-privileged-vacationer 

An excellent piece from a comparative perspective of ‘If this was a white kid it would not have played out this way’ which is White Privilege to the extreme:

http://blog.mattstauffer.org/182/first-they-came-for-the-black-people-and-i-did-not-speak-out

This is a very different perspective, shared by a mother of a six year old, Keesha Beckford, with some practical ideas on what we can do to make a difference:

http://www.bonbonbreak.com/dear-white-moms

This is the piece by Elizabeth Broadbent which i already referenced [under her alias of Manic Pixie Dream Mama] from the perspective of a white mother able to spot the difference:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-broadbent/a-mothers-white-privilege_b_5698263.html?utm_hp_ref=black-voices&ir=Black+Voices

A helpful piece using the analogy of bicycle riding in a world designed for cars, helps to bring the point across:

http://alittlemoresauce.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/what-my-bike-has-taught-me-about-white-privilege

This is a visiual of the difference in reporting language for white and black crimes that is heartbreakingly indicative of the fact of White Privilege:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/14/media-black-victims_n_5673291.html

Had to add this one which looks at 28 common racist attitudes and behaviours and while i don’t agree completely with all of them, i do see a lot of sad truth in most of them:

https://www.stcloudstate.edu/affirmativeaction/resources/insights/pdf/28ToolsChange.pdf

And i would love to hear from you – when it comes to ‘White Privilege’ and Race Conversations, what are the articles and blog posts that have influenced you or caused you to pay extra attention of late?

Finally, a reminder from pastor Martin Niemöller which was written about the Holocaust and a reminder why it is SO IMPORTANT for white people to be having these conversations and getting personally involved in action:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

[There were just too many good ones so click here for four of the best posts i read on Race/White Privilege]

 [For my original post on White Privilege, click here]