I keep wanting to write a long post about how I treat my whiteness as an addiction. By that I mean I am impacted by something beyond my control (systemic racism) and I have lived in denial for most of my life — even as an anti-racism activist. I was sick and suffering but I didn’t realize it until I started recovering.Read More →
Have you seen Childish Gambino’s “This Is America?” I’m not sure of the video’s rating, but it contains both graphic violence and violent concepts. Still, I think all adults (and probably most kids, with adult supervision) might benefit from watching it.
It’s brilliant (thought I won’t try to articulate why that’s how I see it). It’s art. It also feels a lot like it’s none of my business.Read More →
I want to tell you more, readers who are identify as white. I wrote on Black Girl in Maine’s blog about the awkwardness some of us get when we’re with Black people and I want to write a bit more.
The process of recognizing my own racism has been a long, long process. I want to tell you that when I got to the point, just a few years ago, where I really — and I mean really — recognized just how deep my own biases ran, it was painful and confusing. It played a part in what I can only describe as an identity crisis. Who am I, if I can be this ignorant? Looking back at my life, why did I only know a few people of color beyond the level of polite chit-chat? Why did most of my friends and family, progressives every one, also have only white friends? What did I really, really, really think about Black people?Read More →
Mostly, I’m going to keep my mouth shut in public about Black Panther. I want to leave the public opinion sharing to Black people. But, I do want to invite my white readers/peers/friends to see the movie and I want to tell you why I think you should (even if you, like me, don’t really enjoy action movies):Read More →
Hello! This post continues to have many visitors every day. I’m not sure how you’ve found it, but I’m very curious. If you feel like it, please leave a comment about how you got here? Thank you! —serenebabe
Listening to solid news coverage about the struggles of immigrants and refugees, I was struck today about how disheartening, depressing, and even traumatizing it might be for Black people (and, now that I’ve been thinking about it, for Indigenous people in the US) to have excellent passionate and committed activism and news coverage about the current issues facing immigrants and refugees. Even if Black and/or Indigenous people fully support the rights and causes of immigrants and refugees, I can’t help but wonder (and I suspect google would bear this out) if Black and Indigenous people might feel once again as if they don’t count or are invisible to the “allies.”Read More →