Update March 2020 > Follow this link for the latest version of this CRUCIAL TOPIC : https://www.insightsoccur.com/rbs-blog//the-colorless-problem-of-race
Have you ever stated you are color blind, when discussing race?
Please, don’t ever do that again.
First, and most obviously people are not gray. Nor will we all intermingle into a gorgeous mocha-latte hue in the foreseeable future.
This is not because of prejudice. Or laws, or customs forbidding interracial love.
There will ALWAYS be a range of skin colors from pale & arctic to dark & equatorial simply because EVOLUTION decrees that the survival of the species requires a wide range of skin colors. This is so that if something happens between the relationship of the Earth and the Sun, we will already have some people around who can brave higher temperatures and more intense sunlight. And a percentage or two of folks, like me, who may be able to hibernate or live in caves because we require so little sunlight.
See?
Do you really see how bogus the concept of race as we experience it and ‘know’ it to be defined today is?
Skin color tells us nothing about someone’s interior consciousness or heart or soul.
Skin color does tell us the optimal latitude where someone would experience effortless wellbeing through the energy of sunlight absorbing through their skin.
Ever since Homo Sapiens first went on walk-about, our species has not let latitude stop us from evolving. Because our skin is adaptable and will change based on how much daily sunlight we have access to.
In 2019, the issues of race are seriously threatening to devolve us.
So I ask you to find a new way to respond, the next time you almost state out loud, “I don’t see skin color.”
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The basic quality of skin color sorted, let’s move on to an advanced topic.
Recently, a leader on the legal side of fighting racism in our society & government, Karen Fleshman, asked a crucial question: Who else is reading Dr. Ibram Kendi’s book? When was a time you realized you were assimilationist & causing harm?
My response >
Crucial and quite challenging question, Karen Fleshman, Esq. I realized over the last year or two that looking as I do, unless I am vocally and vehemently anti-racist, the 6-second opinion of me will be the opposite. No matter who is looking, I am not naturally associated with my decades of love and support for the African American community.
I came to terms with that back on my first watch of 'Do The Right Thing.' I reconciled quite easily that when push came to shove, no matter that I most likely would be a BK loyalist, no one throwing punches would give me a moment to express the way I always see color to celebrate it, and never use that dimension to judge.
But 1989 was a different time and I honor Heather Heyer as her death made me realize that any opportunity I do not take to make others confront the grievous wrongs of racial oppression or demonstrate how to be a better, more enlightened person with very pale skin, will lead to more violence perpetrated by the status quo. Which, obviously, does vast harm, every day, to People of Color.
I agree with Dr. Kendi.
Either a person is bluntly anti-racist or just a closeted bigot. That is the American reality of 2019.
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Now onto money - greed - being the root of all racism > This powerful essay by Ibram X. Kendi will enlighten you to the role of seafaring Portugal when it came to establishing racial categories to divide men apart, so that the slave traders could ease their conscience.
https://lithub.com/ibram-x-kendi-how-racism-relies-on-arbitrary-hierarchies/
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Next up, over on twitter #WakeUpToRacism is trending. I can show you how your privilege was installed somewhere around the age of 5. If your family was economically stable enough to get you a 48 or 64 crayon carton of Crayola’s.
Guess what? You never thought about that light peachy color being called ‘skin.’
The zeitgeist of the US set you up to be a racist, no matter how pure your own heart.
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This is a POWERFUL article that MUST BE READ by Loretta Ross. We are stopping progress by insisting on perfection. America in simply one HUGE HAZING culture.
“We’re a polarized country, divided by white supremacy, patriarchy, racism against immigrants and increasingly vitriolic ways to disrespect one another. Are we evolving or devolving in our ability to handle conflicts?”
“Calling-in is simply a call-out done with love.”
https://www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/opinion/sunday/cancel-culture-call-out.amp.html
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READING LIST >
Ibram X. Kendi:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/historical-significance-1619/596365/
