Make Up Your Damned Mind
Over the past week and a half, I’ve seen three separate bloggers that I follow as well as myself, be called “white.” Now, the interesting thing about this is that A) None of us are white but more importantly, B) “white” was being used as a derogatory BY WHITE PEOPLE.
I am not sure if it happened this way for all four of us but I do know that at least two people that were called “white” were called this by white people who were trying to say that BECAUSE the bloggers were white, they didn’t know what they were talking about when speaking on racial issues.
Here’s the thing though, that almost sounds like a reasonable argument doesn’t it? Except when I went a little deeper, it wasn’t someone who was saying this as in “You are white, you have no idea what PoC go through.” They were saying “This is a white person trying to act like they are one of THEM so they can pretend they are the voice of authority.” Even that, almost sounds like a semi-reasonable argument. Except…when you go to the blog of these people. Can you guess what I found? I bet you can. LOTS OF RACIST AND RACE BAITING POSTS!
So basically, they were saying that we were white because in their heads, that would discredit anything we said. Again, I suppose I shouldn’t say “We” because I am not sure if that was the case for myself or not. I heard it second hand so it may or may not have been said that way. It could have been a misunderstanding I suppose. Well ya know, except that I actually talk about my own race all the time. Anyway…
I found it interesting that a couple of their blogs were so “white is right” but then they were using “white” as proof that “This person is white so anything they say against me is bullshit because they don’t know anything about oppression.” Oh wait…no, one of them was saying that one of the bloggers was living on “white guilt” and didn’t like them because they didn’t think they should be guilty for being white.
Either way, I found it odd. The entire thing, odd.
Each person that was being accused of being white, was someone who like myself, talks about things they have gone through as being a part of a certain race. Why speak on who someone is based on their blog but not actually read their blog? No need to answer, we all know the answer, right?
