Why Race Neutrality Isn’t the Answer
Slide One: Why Race Neutrality Isn’t The Answer
You cannot eradicate racism by pretending it doesn’t exist
Slide Two: Why Does Everything Have To Be About Race?
Because white supremacy made it this way. The moment a race law was created to differentiate the enslaver from the enslaved, everything became about race.
You cannot build an entire country on the foundation of a racial hierarchy and then pretend like it never existed. You cannot oppress a group of people due to hatred and fear of their skin color and expect to get off with a “whoops.”
Slide Three: But That’s Exactly What America Wants
America wants to “pray their mistakes away,” and chalk it up to an “imperfect past,” that everyone should have “moved on from.”
That is not how it works to right a wrong. Especially when the repercussions of that wrong are still running rampant within the community that was harmed.
Slide Four: “Colorblindness,” Is Harmful. Period.
Choosing “colorblindness” is not the answer. It is harmful for many reasons:
- It’s offensive. BIPOC folks do not want our color to be erased. Our skin color is part of our identity and our culture. We are not ashamed of it and we never have been. It is the creation of the racial hierarchy with the sole purpose of upholding white supremacy that attempted to cause shame about our race.
Slide Five:
- It doesn’t address the disparities caused by systemic racism. It ignores the fact that there is no equality without equity.
- Its ignorance. It erases and silences the communities that need to be given a megaphone by those that have been responsible for the silencing.
- It’s privileged. People of Color do not have the option to not see our own color, so non-BIPOC should not have that option either.
Slide Six: We Didn’t Oppress Ourselves.
Yes, this is the attitude most non-BIPOC have about BIPOC. Especially Black folks, right? We brought our welfare, our disparities, and other “achievement gaps,” upon ourselves. So it should be up to US to fix, right?
This belief gives guilt-free permission for white dominance. This belief is what allows white supremacy to prevail.
Slide Seven: None Of Us Are Free Until The Most Marginalized Person Is Free
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-Your Friends at Undoing Racism
