How Can White Americans Be Free?

[poet]

How can white Americans be free? - Salon.com




Excerpt:

"The beginning.

In the beginning there was Whiteness. This is the glittering starting point. This is The Default. This is what we measure everything else against.

It’s clear that we as Black and Brown Americans, are still recovering from the racist indoctrinations of the past 500 years. Though laughable it sounds, white Americans, too, have suffered from this crime. As our country began and brown races were systematically denied the right to be human and so internalized the role of the savage, white consciousness bullied its way into objectivity. The white mind became the unbiased mind that objectively observed all the rest. This is called The Default: The belief that the white experience is a neutral and objective experience and white consciousness is the standard consciousness unless otherwise specified. White culture, and American culture as a whole, suffers from the tragedy of whiteness as the default setting.

Being The Default keeps white Americans from being liberated because it denies them a specific identity by absorbing them into neutral blankness. This creates a lonely detachment from the rest of the world. Being The Default is the largest privilege granted to white Americans, yet it is so deeply entrenched it is the most invisible (we cannot see the edges of the atmosphere, but it exists). Whites benefit from being The Default by having inherent legitimacy in a way that’s denied to people of color. Their experience of life is “normal.” Whites are free from the constant awareness (and subsequent constant paranoia) of existing in another person’s world. Because The Default has so successfully dominated our subconscious, because our egos have been shaped by it from the moment of birth, we perpetuate it in micro ways while fighting inequality with more obvious actions. The silent poison continues to poison. Whiteness as The Default keeps brown people in subjugation by convincing them that every part of their being, physical, spiritual and emotional, exists within a white narrative. When you are made to exist within something you are forced to be smaller than that which contains you. This is precisely the basis of racist thought. Brown existence, brown consciousness is smaller.


Owning Whiteness

White people frequently ask me what my ethnicity is. I like to ask them back and they preface their answer with a sheepish expression, “Oh, I’m just regular white” they say, or “Oh, just plain boring white.” They don’t believe they have an ethnicity because The Default has erased European ethnicity to absorb people of European descent (and a few lucky Middle Easterners) into Whiteness.

My best friend of 12 years is from an Italian-American family. When I discussed The Default with her recently, she talked about never feeling comfortable with checking off “white” as a race and wanting to write in “Italian”:

What is being asked for is a statement of your identity, and there is a discord between how I feel about myself (“Italian”) and how the world boxes me in (“white”). I don’t think I deserve a medal for being Italian, or second generation, or for having inherited issues that I think are not necessarily definitive of all the immigrant experience but certainly are related, but I think my family story is one that has not yet ended, that is still being worked through in my generation, and so to say simply I am white is not only wrong, but it erases the idea that any of that other stuff exists.

How can white people be ethnic without annoying everybody by appearing to deny their white privilege? How can white people be free to suffer without appearing to forget the violent injustices of the country and the enormous burden that the myth of Whiteness places on the black and brown consciousness. How does a white Jewish woman share her genuine pain over her large nose and her curly hair without being punched in the face by a black woman? How do white people fight for freedom for their spiritual selves and legitimacy for their external experience when the world is still so racist and they benefit from their whiteness?

I ask you, again, not to laugh.

In order for white suffering to have a voice, white people must realize the largest and most invisible way in which they benefit from their white privilege, and it’s the same thing that’s causing their frustration being The Default. If Person A is actively supporting and benefiting from a system that oppresses Person B, it is very hard for Person B to hear Person A say, “But I’m hurt too!” However, if Person A is actively working to dismantle the system they benefit from but which oppresses Person B, then Person B is finally seen — and Person A’s pain can be embraced. In order to see a person you must see the truth of their pain. If you deny their pain, you refuse to see them. This is what makes black people invisible. And black invisibility is what makes white pain invisible to black people.

And so we live our lives never seeing each other.

When White Americans see Black and Brown Americans in this way, Brown and Black Americans will accept their pain. It is a cycle that begins with destroying The Default.

The fight against inequality, the fight against The Default, is a fight for white spiritual and emotional freedom, not just the freedom of people of color, women, or gays and lesbians. It is only by seeing white specificity that we can awaken to the fallacy of the idea that humans are separate. Perhaps if whites see their own psychic freedom at risk, a new racial awareness will arise naturally......."

Now watch, as the naysayers and deniers of the reality, rush to judgment to deny the reality and are quick to call this "racism", because "telling the truth" about them (whites, "in general"), actually is "blaming "whitey", for all of the ills of black and brown peoples, everywhere. No responsibility. No acknowledgment of their part. Just more and more "black racism" and "whining" coming from the left, and minorities "brainwashed" and "shackled" by the Democratic Party, no?

 

[Mr. H.]

The Biology of Skin Color: Black and White

The evolution of race was as simple as the politics of race is complex

Evolution: Library: The Biology of Skin Color: Black and White

 

[yidnar]

How can white Americans be free? - Salon.com




Excerpt:

"The beginning.

In the beginning there was Whiteness. This is the glittering starting point. This is The Default. This is what we measure everything else against.

It’s clear that we as Black and Brown Americans, are still recovering from the racist indoctrinations of the past 500 years. Though laughable it sounds, white Americans, too, have suffered from this crime. As our country began and brown races were systematically denied the right to be human and so internalized the role of the savage, white consciousness bullied its way into objectivity. The white mind became the unbiased mind that objectively observed all the rest. This is called The Default: The belief that the white experience is a neutral and objective experience and white consciousness is the standard consciousness unless otherwise specified. White culture, and American culture as a whole, suffers from the tragedy of whiteness as the default setting.

Being The Default keeps white Americans from being liberated because it denies them a specific identity by absorbing them into neutral blankness. This creates a lonely detachment from the rest of the world. Being The Default is the largest privilege granted to white Americans, yet it is so deeply entrenched it is the most invisible (we cannot see the edges of the atmosphere, but it exists). Whites benefit from being The Default by having inherent legitimacy in a way that’s denied to people of color. Their experience of life is “normal.” Whites are free from the constant awareness (and subsequent constant paranoia) of existing in another person’s world. Because The Default has so successfully dominated our subconscious, because our egos have been shaped by it from the moment of birth, we perpetuate it in micro ways while fighting inequality with more obvious actions. The silent poison continues to poison. Whiteness as The Default keeps brown people in subjugation by convincing them that every part of their being, physical, spiritual and emotional, exists within a white narrative. When you are made to exist within something you are forced to be smaller than that which contains you. This is precisely the basis of racist thought. Brown existence, brown consciousness is smaller.


Owning Whiteness

White people frequently ask me what my ethnicity is. I like to ask them back and they preface their answer with a sheepish expression, “Oh, I’m just regular white” they say, or “Oh, just plain boring white.” They don’t believe they have an ethnicity because The Default has erased European ethnicity to absorb people of European descent (and a few lucky Middle Easterners) into Whiteness.

My best friend of 12 years is from an Italian-American family. When I discussed The Default with her recently, she talked about never feeling comfortable with checking off “white” as a race and wanting to write in “Italian”:

What is being asked for is a statement of your identity, and there is a discord between how I feel about myself (“Italian”) and how the world boxes me in (“white”). I don’t think I deserve a medal for being Italian, or second generation, or for having inherited issues that I think are not necessarily definitive of all the immigrant experience but certainly are related, but I think my family story is one that has not yet ended, that is still being worked through in my generation, and so to say simply I am white is not only wrong, but it erases the idea that any of that other stuff exists.

How can white people be ethnic without annoying everybody by appearing to deny their white privilege? How can white people be free to suffer without appearing to forget the violent injustices of the country and the enormous burden that the myth of Whiteness places on the black and brown consciousness. How does a white Jewish woman share her genuine pain over her large nose and her curly hair without being punched in the face by a black woman? How do white people fight for freedom for their spiritual selves and legitimacy for their external experience when the world is still so racist and they benefit from their whiteness?

I ask you, again, not to laugh.

In order for white suffering to have a voice, white people must realize the largest and most invisible way in which they benefit from their white privilege, and it’s the same thing that’s causing their frustration being The Default. If Person A is actively supporting and benefiting from a system that oppresses Person B, it is very hard for Person B to hear Person A say, “But I’m hurt too!” However, if Person A is actively working to dismantle the system they benefit from but which oppresses Person B, then Person B is finally seen — and Person A’s pain can be embraced. In order to see a person you must see the truth of their pain. If you deny their pain, you refuse to see them. This is what makes black people invisible. And black invisibility is what makes white pain invisible to black people.

And so we live our lives never seeing each other.

When White Americans see Black and Brown Americans in this way, Brown and Black Americans will accept their pain. It is a cycle that begins with destroying The Default.

The fight against inequality, the fight against The Default, is a fight for white spiritual and emotional freedom, not just the freedom of people of color, women, or gays and lesbians. It is only by seeing white specificity that we can awaken to the fallacy of the idea that humans are separate. Perhaps if whites see their own psychic freedom at risk, a new racial awareness will arise naturally......."

Now watch, as the naysayers and deniers of the reality, rush to judgment to deny the reality and are quick to call this "racism", because "telling the truth" about them (whites, "in general"), actually is "blaming "whitey", for all of the ills of black and brown peoples, everywhere. No responsibility. No acknowledgment of their part. Just more and more "black racism" and "whining" coming from the left, and minorities "brainwashed" and "shackled" by the Democratic Party, no?

I have no problem with my Identity or heritage ......I am an American .

 

[Toronado3800]

So it says white folks should realize they are white and not "generic". .......

It seems natural to think of oneself as generic when you are the majority. The gal wanted to click Italian or SOMETHING unique.

Heck, porn sites call latin american gals exotic. Nothing exotic about a pre tanned girl in my neighborhood....

So your article does not seem too radical. Did I miss anything from between the lines saying whites or blacks or tans or yellows are better than one another?

 

[S.J.]

Poet, set yourself free, and stop hating the white man for your failures. Only you are responsible for your life.

 

[Mr. H.]

Try being self-confident instead of self-conscious.

 

[Swagger]

It's actually not a bad article, to be fair. But seeing as white people aren't just going to hand-over the privilege they enjoy in the countries their ancestors built, the only solution as far as the article implies is that all people of colour that don't feel welcome or comfortable in Europe, N. America and elsewhere in the Anglosphere is to seek somewhere beyond the reach of white privilege to live.

 

[squeeze berry]

Author:

Kartina Richardson

another black person pretending to be an expert on white people.

There is a growing list.

Paul Mooney
Poet
Aristotle

 

[editec]

Yes, many of my fellow WHITE people believe they are free.

The very best slaves usually do think that, actually.

 

[Sunni Man]

Poet is still mentally enslaved on the liberal democratic plantation.

And doesn't realize he could escape and be free any time he wanted to. ..

 

[Colin]

Poet is still mentally enslaved on the liberal democratic plantation.

And doesn't realize he could escape and be free any time he wanted to. ..

It's because he's put himself on ignore!

 

[Anitabeme]

Poet is still mentally enslaved on the liberal democratic plantation.

And doesn't realize he could escape and be free any time he wanted to. ..

It's because he's put himself on ignore!

Somebody had to do it.

 

[Sunni Man]

Poet hasn't shown his face for quite awhile.

Maybe he put himself on ignore.

 

[Colin]

Poet hasn't shown his face for quite awhile.

Maybe he put himself on ignore.

Nah. Apparently he's painting the walls of his anal cavity brilliant white so he can see where he's going when he shoves his head up his arse.

 

[Truthmatters]

How can white Americans be free? - Salon.com




Excerpt:

"The beginning.

In the beginning there was Whiteness. This is the glittering starting point. This is The Default. This is what we measure everything else against.

It’s clear that we as Black and Brown Americans, are still recovering from the racist indoctrinations of the past 500 years. Though laughable it sounds, white Americans, too, have suffered from this crime. As our country began and brown races were systematically denied the right to be human and so internalized the role of the savage, white consciousness bullied its way into objectivity. The white mind became the unbiased mind that objectively observed all the rest. This is called The Default: The belief that the white experience is a neutral and objective experience and white consciousness is the standard consciousness unless otherwise specified. White culture, and American culture as a whole, suffers from the tragedy of whiteness as the default setting.

Being The Default keeps white Americans from being liberated because it denies them a specific identity by absorbing them into neutral blankness. This creates a lonely detachment from the rest of the world. Being The Default is the largest privilege granted to white Americans, yet it is so deeply entrenched it is the most invisible (we cannot see the edges of the atmosphere, but it exists). Whites benefit from being The Default by having inherent legitimacy in a way that’s denied to people of color. Their experience of life is “normal.” Whites are free from the constant awareness (and subsequent constant paranoia) of existing in another person’s world. Because The Default has so successfully dominated our subconscious, because our egos have been shaped by it from the moment of birth, we perpetuate it in micro ways while fighting inequality with more obvious actions. The silent poison continues to poison. Whiteness as The Default keeps brown people in subjugation by convincing them that every part of their being, physical, spiritual and emotional, exists within a white narrative. When you are made to exist within something you are forced to be smaller than that which contains you. This is precisely the basis of racist thought. Brown existence, brown consciousness is smaller.


Owning Whiteness

White people frequently ask me what my ethnicity is. I like to ask them back and they preface their answer with a sheepish expression, “Oh, I’m just regular white” they say, or “Oh, just plain boring white.” They don’t believe they have an ethnicity because The Default has erased European ethnicity to absorb people of European descent (and a few lucky Middle Easterners) into Whiteness.

My best friend of 12 years is from an Italian-American family. When I discussed The Default with her recently, she talked about never feeling comfortable with checking off “white” as a race and wanting to write in “Italian”:

What is being asked for is a statement of your identity, and there is a discord between how I feel about myself (“Italian”) and how the world boxes me in (“white”). I don’t think I deserve a medal for being Italian, or second generation, or for having inherited issues that I think are not necessarily definitive of all the immigrant experience but certainly are related, but I think my family story is one that has not yet ended, that is still being worked through in my generation, and so to say simply I am white is not only wrong, but it erases the idea that any of that other stuff exists.

How can white people be ethnic without annoying everybody by appearing to deny their white privilege? How can white people be free to suffer without appearing to forget the violent injustices of the country and the enormous burden that the myth of Whiteness places on the black and brown consciousness. How does a white Jewish woman share her genuine pain over her large nose and her curly hair without being punched in the face by a black woman? How do white people fight for freedom for their spiritual selves and legitimacy for their external experience when the world is still so racist and they benefit from their whiteness?

I ask you, again, not to laugh.

In order for white suffering to have a voice, white people must realize the largest and most invisible way in which they benefit from their white privilege, and it’s the same thing that’s causing their frustration being The Default. If Person A is actively supporting and benefiting from a system that oppresses Person B, it is very hard for Person B to hear Person A say, “But I’m hurt too!” However, if Person A is actively working to dismantle the system they benefit from but which oppresses Person B, then Person B is finally seen — and Person A’s pain can be embraced. In order to see a person you must see the truth of their pain. If you deny their pain, you refuse to see them. This is what makes black people invisible. And black invisibility is what makes white pain invisible to black people.

And so we live our lives never seeing each other.

When White Americans see Black and Brown Americans in this way, Brown and Black Americans will accept their pain. It is a cycle that begins with destroying The Default.

The fight against inequality, the fight against The Default, is a fight for white spiritual and emotional freedom, not just the freedom of people of color, women, or gays and lesbians. It is only by seeing white specificity that we can awaken to the fallacy of the idea that humans are separate. Perhaps if whites see their own psychic freedom at risk, a new racial awareness will arise naturally......."

Now watch, as the naysayers and deniers of the reality, rush to judgment to deny the reality and are quick to call this "racism", because "telling the truth" about them (whites, "in general"), actually is "blaming "whitey", for all of the ills of black and brown peoples, everywhere. No responsibility. No acknowledgment of their part. Just more and more "black racism" and "whining" coming from the left, and minorities "brainwashed" and "shackled" by the Democratic Party, no?

we all bear the scars.

both being wrong and being the wronged produce scars on our souls.

There is only one solution.

become the HUMAN race.

realizing NONE of us can be our best selves until we can all be our best selves

 

[Truthmatters]

wow what insightful posts from the right.


they not only dont want us to know our enemy they dont want us to know ourselves either?


Are they really that dead set on America failing?

 

[poet]

notice who gets defensive....and to what extent....the usual suspects.

 

[squeeze berry]

It's actually not a bad article, to be fair. But seeing as white people aren't just going to hand-over the privilege they enjoy in the countries their ancestors built, the only solution as far as the article implies is that all people of colour that don't feel welcome or comfortable in Europe, N. America and elsewhere in the Anglosphere is to seek somewhere beyond the reach of white privilege to live.

but how would the parasites survive without the largesse of white people?

 

[tjvh]

Everything is about skin color to the race card playing queen Ms. poit... Ms. poit will forever view the world through her race colored glasses because she simply cannot accept the fact that she wasn't born a cute little white girl, and it pains her deeply.