Right to Comfort part 4
You and I are racist.
You and I are sexist.
You and I were taught how to maintain and uphold they system that maintains oppression (racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, and more).
Our country was founded with these (white and male) superiority ideas and beliefs. This country embedded these concepts into the laws of this land. Our education system rarely speaks directly to these facts. So it’s not a surprise to me that I had learn about this history well after I went to k-12 educational institutions. It’s not a surprise to me that when I talk about these concepts with people in person, it is often met with resistance, skepticism, and other forms of denial. Many times people just freeze like I am speaking a different language and they are trying to figure out what I’m saying. Most of the time I’m wondering if maintaining this notion of American exceptionalism and the moral identity of not being racist is what holds people back from fully understand and acting on recognizing just how embedded white supremacy is to our many systems in America. Furthermore, I wonder if this is why after hundreds of years we have a hard time coming to grips that we need to dismantle our systems and build new ones that are truly free of oppression. We can’t use the tools of oppression to create an anti-oppressive system.
To help understand how embedded these concepts are I am linking to a talk by Jacqueline Battalora called Birth of a White Nation. I implore you to listen to this whole piece and consider how you would answer her question at the end.
I hope you are reading this part after you took the time to watch that video. If not, make the time to watch the video. It may be comfortable to think of spending 38 minutes to watch a video. To me I think of it as 38 minutes to enrich myself and understand history in order to enhance my work in this world. You are worth investing the time to watch a video.
Back to the right to comfort and our relationship with history. History to me is not simply looking at a point in time in the past, but an exercise of understand the influences of the systems I’m reacting to and dealing with today. History is an exercise in current events and future planning. I’ve spent the month thinking and looking in a mirror when it comes to the right to comfort and I keep coming back to history. I keep thinking that the sooner I can accept the influence of history and the ways I’ve been taught to maintain oppression, the sooner I will let go of my right to comfort and seek deep equity and systems change.
