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How Not To Be A Doofus When Accused Of Racism (A Guide For White People)
On the term "people of colour."
How to suppress discussions of racism.
White people cannot know how it feels to be a person of colour.
Don’t make it about you. Usually the thing to do is apologize for what you said and move on. Especially if you’re in a meeting or something, resist your desire to turn the meeting into a seminar on How Against Racism You Are. The subject of the conversation is probably not “your many close Black friends, and your sincere longstanding and deep abhorrence of racism.”
On the term "people of colour."
'People of colour' is a collective label for people oppressed by racism. This is how I use it. Insofar as my racial identity has mostly been shaped by racism in a western context, I identify strongly with it. I think it's important to have an empowering self-definition. It allows me to exercise my agency about my own racialisation, by working together with other people of colour to transform our lives and the world around us. If I didn't identify as a person of colour, I'd be subject to a whole lot of disempowering, bureaucratic classifications of who I am, that depoliticise and naturalise the ways that I'm oppressed. I use the term people of colour to politicise and denormalise racism.
Yes, the term suggests that all people who are not white have something in common. For some people, it may be tenuous, but I think what we have in common is an interest in eliminating racism. It represents our best aspirations towards solidarity, coalition, and mutual respect. (...)
I also call bullshit on the "you're oppressing yourself!" criticism of the term 'people of colour'. No, acknowledging power relations doesn't oppress you, oppression oppresses you. So does denial about it and pretending that racism doesn't serialise people in such a way as they have something in common with each other.
How to suppress discussions of racism.
Our goal is to show you a few simple techniques you can use to suppress the discussion of racism. As you read, keep in mind that your goal is not to learn or to educate, to listen or be listened to, to increase your understanding of difficult issues, or to exchange opinions and communicate with other people. Your goal is to make discussions of race so difficult and unrewarding that not only your opponent but any witnesses to your argument will never want to discuss race in public again.
Let's get started!
White people cannot know how it feels to be a person of colour.
Sometimes a white person may declare that she knows how it feels to be a person of colour, because she has spent a lot of time amongst people of colour. Other people of colour may then declare that she does not know how it feels, because she is white. The white person may then think that she is being discriminated against because of the colour of her skin, that those who accuse her of not empathizing are just making assumptions based on stereotypes about white people.
