@Fatalprose posted a response (on TikTok) to a white person who wrote, ‘I feel like anything I try to add to a conversation about race is wrong. I see so many BIPOC people get mad at white women for trying to add their perspective.’
His response was to use an analogy of misogyny to offer strategies in de-centering whiteness. What follows are @fatalprose’s words with ‘white or race’ replacing his analogy of ‘male or gender’.
- Learn how to decenter myself.
- How to not just blurt out the first thing I’m feeling based on my own personal experience.
- Learn how to listen through the eyes of another person, and how to affirm and validate their experiences.
- Relearn a lot of history, because we were taught from a white perspective, and there’s so much we still don’t know because of the biased way we were brought up.
- Enter a discussion about racism assuming we don’t know.
- Make sure I’m not being in denial, deflecting, or presenting myself as a distraction, but actually adding value to the discussion that’s already taking place.
- And even then, understanding that some conversations are for black people only.
One commenter added:
Does it need to be said?
Does it need to be said by me?
Does it need to be said by me right now?
kathystoneware 