en

Reni Eddo-Lodge

  • Nahelhas quoted2 years ago
    I have to tread incredibly carefully, because if I express frustration, anger or exasperation at their refusal to understand, they will tap into their pre-subscribed racist tropes about angry black people who are a threat to them and their safety. It’s very likely that they’ll then paint me as a bully or an abuser. It’s also likely that their white friends will rally round them, rewrite history and make the lies the truth. Trying to engage with them and navigate their racism is not worth that.
  • Nahelhas quoted2 years ago
    I don’t have a huge amount of power to change the way the world works, but I can set boundaries.
  • Nahelhas quoted2 years ago
    Their intent is often not to listen or learn, but to exert their power, to prove me wrong, to emotionally drain me, and to rebalance the status quo.
  • Nahelhas quoted2 years ago
    And I didn’t expect white readers to do the Internet equivalent of standing outside my bedroom window with a boom box and a bunch of flowers, confessing their flaws and mistakes, begging me not to leave.
  • Nahelhas quoted2 years ago
    In culture particularly, the positive affirmations of whiteness are so widespread that the average white person doesn’t even notice them. Instead, these affirmations are placidly consumed. To be white is to be human; to be white is universal. I only know this because I am not.
  • Nahelhas quoted2 years ago
    Thinking about power made me realise that racism was about so much more than personal prejudice. It was about being in the position to negatively affect other people’s life chances.
  • Nahelhas quoted2 years ago
    The records kept were not dissimilar to the accounts of a modern-day business, as they documented profit and loss, and itemised lists of black people purchased and sold.
  • lucindagarzazhas quoted5 months ago
    just can’t engage with the bewilderment and the defensiveness as they try to grapple with the fact that not everyone experiences the world in the way that they do. They’ve never had to think about what it means, in power terms, to be white, so any time they’re vaguely reminded of this fact, they interpret it as an affront
  • lucindagarzazhas quoted5 months ago
    The journey towards understanding structural racism still requires people of colour to prioritise white feelings. Even if they can hear you, they’re not really listening
  • lucindagarzazhas quoted5 months ago
    So I can’t talk to white people about race any more because of the consequent denials, awkward cartwheels and mental acrobatics that they display when this is brought to their attention. Who really wants to be alerted to a structural system that benefits them at the expense of others
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