JOURNAL
Window is a journal Maria Amidu started in January 2015, it is a repository for her random musings on significant and insignificant things
Explainers
So, my brilliant friend and lockdown angel Akila Richards and I have been talking a lot about how to manage the bombardment of questions and demands of us now that everyone has finally woken up to the fact that our lives matter and that we have been robbed of so much because a significant portion of the global population deemed themselves better than us. Below is what we have - our new, practical strategy, always easily accessible on our phones, graded based on the attitude of/relationship to the person doing the asking:
One, two or three, pick one:
1. the bird
2. “I don’t got the time, I’m on my trampoline, this is my time” Amanda Seales
3. “Between stimulus and response there is a space” Viktor Frankl
competence
unconsciously incompetent, the old normal, we are done with this now, no excuses
consciously incompetent, we've been here for way too long
consciously competent, this is gonna take a lot of hard work for years and years
unconsciously competent, the new future normal
Scott Woods
“The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate, when racism is bigger than that. Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of whites at other people’s expense, whether whites know/like it or not. Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a white person who likes black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you. Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another. And so on. So while I agree with people who say no one is born racist, it remains a powerful system that we’re immediately born into. It’s like being born into air: you take it in as soon as you breathe. It’s not a cold that you can get over. There is no anti-racist certification class. It’s a set of socioeconomic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it. I know it’s hard work, but it’s the price you pay for owning everything.”
telling the truth
"They are lucky black people are looking for equality and not revenge" Kimberley Jones, author
joined up thinking
ever seen these words together in a sentence: black + fragility, white + minority ethnic... EXACTLY, that's how insidious this shit is
all lives matter...
...to the people who keep lingering at the back, this is precisely the point, all lives do matter, so why do us the melaninated keep getting treated as if our lives don't matter... Discuss.
we all know...
...from past experience that there is going to be a point when white people will start saying: 'why do you keep going on and on about being black' 'okay can you stop going on about being black now, you're making me feel uncomfortable'; and I can guarantee that all the organisations who took part in #blackouttuesday who didn't really pay attention before George Floyd got murdered in front of our eyes are saying: 'okay, so when will it be okay to start posting our stuff again' 'will tomorrow be too soon' and my answer to that question is this: actually, only when supremacism has been eradicated and us the melaninated are free to live the carefree, privileged and protected lives you do
changing the narrative
after watching Simon Frederick in conversation with Jay Blades on Instagram and Simon saying we need a new word for what people do to us (along the spectrum, see previous post) from saying "but you're lovely" (1) to kneeling on our necks and killing us in front of an audience (100), I have been thinking about this all night......maybe we need to swap racism for supremacism: an ideology which holds that a certain class of people is superior to others, and that it should be or is entitled to dominate, control, subjugate, and/or eliminate others according to Wikipedia
I am not the explainer
for the people who ask what can I do, I know I am not a racist, this is the last thing I'll say: dig deep into the dark places of yourself (Jane Elliott and Brene Brown will help you) because what you do and say now is not necessarily what you did and said when you were 8 or 12 or 19, it might be guilt and shame you are concealing from yourself; this is very, very difficult work but if you believe in a completely anti-racist world this is the work that needs to be done to change society; you have also been gaslighted