Maygra's Musings

I don't disagree, although the bugger of it is that people who are willing to talk about it and aren't really the problem. The problem arises when people who aren't willing to talk about it use their privilege to be able to ignore or obsfucate, in order not to address it because it is their right and privilege to do so even while denying they have either the right or the privilege.

I'm one of them. Racial issues are very much like a thorn under my skin, that I keep scratching but refusing to remove, mostly because while I like to think I'm smart enough and good enough to rise above it, I fear that's not true. I fear I use my own white privilege far more often than I'm aware of because I can and because it's easier than wandering back into what I perceive as an unattractive and intimidating briar patch.

Sorry, Shay, I'm not meaning to dump all over you. But in even making this post I've had to confront the fact that I don't denounce racist attitudes (intentional or otherwise) nearly as often as I encounter them, and do in fact ignore them, more often than I address them. I'd like to think I'm a better person than that, that the POC's I know I respect and adore for themselves as opposed to in spite of their skin color.

But sometimes, I'm not sure if I'm lying to myself or them.