Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race

by Reni Eddo-Lodge

I don’t think giving up is a sign of weakness. Sometimes it’s about self-preservation.

Colour-blindness does not accept the legitimacy of structural racism or a history of white racial dominance.

But white privilege is the fact that if you’re white, your race will almost certainly positively impact your life’s trajectory in some way. And you probably won’t even notice it.

academics Alana Lentin and Gavin Titley call ‘white victimhood’:6 an effort by the powers that be to divert conversations about the effects of structural racism in order to shield whiteness from much-needed rigorous criticism.

the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”

It looked like he just wanted silence, the kind of strained peace that simmers with resentment, the kind that requires some to suffer so that others are comfortable.

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean the right to say what you want without rebuttal, and racist speech and ideas need to be healthily challenged in the public sphere. White fear tries to stop this conversation from happening.

White people are so used to seeing a reflection of themselves in all representations of humanity at all times, that they only notice it when it’s taken away from them.

Every woman who has ever been a teenage girl could tell you a tale about an encounter with a predatory man, men who smell youth and vulnerability, and seek only to dominate.

I have no desire to be equal. I want to deconstruct the structural power of a system that marked me out as different.

Equality is fine as a transitional demand, but it’s dishonest not to recognise it for what it is – the easy route. There is a difference between saying ‘we want to be included’ and saying ‘we want to reconstruct your exclusive system’. The former is more readily accepted into the mainstream.

There is such stigma attached to speaking up and being a woman, let alone speaking up, being a woman, and being black.

To believe in emasculation, you have to believe that masculinity is about power, and strength, and dominance. These traits are supposed to be great in men, but they’re very unattractive in women. Especially angry black ones. Women in general aren’t supposed to be angry. Women are expected to smile, swallow our feelings and be self-sacrificial. Bossy is ugly, and of course, the worst thing a woman could ever be is ugly.

There is no point in keeping quiet because you want to be liked. Often, there will be no one fighting your corner but yourself. It was black feminist poet Audre Lorde who said: ‘your silence will not protect you.’ Who wins when we don’t speak? Not us.

‘working class of the mind’.

The answer to ending British people living in poverty and precarious housing will not be found in ending immigration. There isn’t any evidence to suggest that if ‘my kind’ all ‘go back to where we came from’ life would get any better or easier for poor white people. The same systems and practices that lead to class hierarchy would still stand.

Solidarity is nothing but self-satisfying if it is solely performative.

rather than deeming the current situation an absolute tragedy, we should seize it as an opportunity to move towards a collective responsibility for a better society, taking account of the internal hierarchies and intersections along the way.

In the white nationalist revolution, a woman’s place is barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.