This post is mainly because I am listening to a song by Michael Jackson, covered by Beast in Black, and the music is incredibly powerful and re-awakened the emotions from my BPD I have when I think about the subject of inequality (to all races of human, we are all Children of Earth, we must not hate each other). Anyway, the lyrics of that song reminded me of some episodes I had when I was thinking about the root cause of opposition to rights movements like Black Lives Matter.
While the organisation does have flaws, and they are absolutely not helpful to its underlying cause (mainly by parroting hostile cultures like Soviet Socialism from the cold war), and there are many people who take it to the extreme with what equality actually means (hint: it works both ways, and white people can be prejudiced against, too, believe it or not), some people do oppose BLM when their activities are peaceful and symbolic. That was an area of study I was interested in, because if we identify why white people, on average, oppose 'Pro-black' movements, we can work together towards a society in where we're all equal, because right now; we're not, and that's bad.
The long and the short of it is; many white people (myself previously included) often misinterpret movements and messages (like taking the knee out of respect for George Floyd, and how he was murdered by police brutality - this is fact, it's not open for debate, the US courts confirmed it). The reason is that people see those messages as an attack on white people, they see 'Pro-black' as 'anti-white', and that is the issue here.
The issue is fear. It's not because white people are innately racist, it's because white people, like black people, and like all people; are human beings. And our history is a lot more humble than we like to admit. White people consider other white people to be their 'innate tribe' and this is also true of black people; I called it "Racial Majority Bias". In countries where a specific 'race' of people is dominant; it is often set up to favour that race. This is in part because people see their 'own race' as 'their tribe', and in white majority countries, black people are different and there is a subconscious bias against them (no, it's not caused by white people being the bogey man, as I said, it's human nature). And that is something we have to work to dismantle if we want to succeed as a species.
So the message I want to portray, is that movements and messages that push the rights of Black people to centre stage and highlight the inequalities in our society, these are not messages of anti-white, they are not attacks on white people, they are attacks on white-bias dominance, and that is something that a person has to think long and hard about internally, to understand for themselves. Part of the result of me becoming so self-aware about my Borderline Personality Disorder, was to acknowledge what 'White Privilege' actually is.
And I still prefer the term 'Racial Majority Bias', because implying the privilege is exclusive to white people and painting them as society's "bad" is not helpful to the cause of black rights and overall equality.
Pro-Black != Anti-White
Love you. <3
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