I'm prepared to be piled on a bit here, but is it ok if I find that kinda offensive? The idea that "blacks will look after their own", that being of a different colour (regardless of which) invalidates an opinion being spoken? an opinion? Fuck it, I dont get this. I thought the idea of enlightenment was to remove stupid barriers like skin colour not to embrace and enhance them.
This feels like the Irish people who still claim to hate the english for all those years of oppression (yet they will support english football teams like it was their own blood). I'm not saying we can just wave a wand and forget the past nor should we, but identity politics for want of a better term just feels like tribalism. One of the key things a decent human can display is empathy but now its not if you are not the same skin colour, gender, whatever?
On a side note on this, Jimmy Kimmel did one of his "mean tweets" featuring the Avengers cast. 2 of the tweets were:
"Scarlett Johansson has the emotional range of a fucking celery. I hate white people"
" I bet Tom Holland is one of these whities who clap when the plan lands"
I get the point of the segment and all but I kinda feel that jokes on this thing shouldnt be done so lightly. There is no way if those tweets were about a Muslim or Blacks that they would have been read. And rightly so.
Anyway, feel free to enlighten me or pile on or whatever.
We've done this before. There's a reason why taking the piss out of White people isn't really the same as taking the piss out of Muslim people, or Black people. You might not agree with it, but there's a historical precedent to why it's really not a huge issue especially given the incredibly recent history of persecution, and the ongoing balance of power skewing massively towards white people in America. Slavery is over, but you only have to read Coates essay on Trump to see why you couldn't wave a magic wand the size of the planet in an attempt to fix this shit.
I think I said the same thing months ago, but blackness is a complex, non-homogeneous thing. I don't particularly agree with the whole of that Medium post, but she doesn't speak for everyone. Still, the idea of listening and seeing how a community deals with something without needing to stick the oar in is a completely legitimate stance to take.
I don’t really take issue with the central points despite not getting on with the writing style.
The point is more that in a structurally racist society those in the stronger position should be careful about how they criticise those in the weaker position in case those criticisms are taken by others as justification for racism.