This message was self-deleted by its author

[Gravitycollapse]

38. Let me put it this way. In racial liberation movements, white persons are an auxiliary presence.

What does that mean? It means that we recognize our necessarily subordinate role and, rather than whining, step to the side or sit down and listen. That is our major function in such a movement. It isn't to grand stand and it isn't to enact yet another white dominant power structure. The only role in which we might take as leadership is in educating the white auxiliary as supplementary to the insight of the oppressed group's authority.


The history of white racism is chiefly an expression of incredible arrogance. We are not the most important persons in the room. We never have been. It's time to submit to that reality and show some humility. If an oppressed person tells you it's time to stop talking and time to listen, you shut your mouth and listen.

Do not be mistaken, this is not an equal power relationship. As members of the advantaged class, we do not suffer the same rhetorical annihilation by silencing ourselves in situations where we are necessarily less informed or less powerful. Being told to shut up as a white person on matters of race is not the same as being told to shut up as a black person on matters of race.