Have you ever asked yourself, ‘How can I interrupt whiteness?’.
I used a simple method this morning that you can do from your couch. As I scrolled through TikTok, I came upon an older white man’s video where he noted that: sometimes it’s better to keep the peace than argue your opinion about race. It struck me that this is the position to which white people have been acculturated, in order to avoid conflict in confronting the racism around them. We use silence to protect our white comfort.
I just shook my head. Here we go again, the silence of racism acculturation, disguised as peacemaking, but ultimately protecting white comfort. In the video’s comments, all sorts of white folks were agreeing with his position, supporting the silence, protecting their comfort.
I decided to interrupt this whiteness, by commenting that the silence of white people, in the face of racism, empowers and perpetuates racism. Silence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
I expect to get my white comfort interrupted.