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Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Sunday, September 13, 2020

I didn't name that racism...

I’m so angry and disgusted with myself for not confronting racism when I witnessed it – shit, participated in it – today, only obliquely confronting it but failing to call it out as racism.

I was participating in a group discussion of white supremacy, not as a facilitator or convener but as a member. One of the white womyn criticized Toni Morrison for not having lesbian characters in any of her books. I was immediately incensed and just speechless almost. What flashed thru my mind but didn't voice was "that's right, Black womyn have to do everyfuckinthing - nothing enough to make them seen by whites as good enough."

But instead, I didn't ask her if she understands how racist that comment is but immediately huffed and asked her how many lesbian characters are in ANY book – not written by a lesbian or even written by a lesbian – and why would she think Toni Morrison should have?

The ONLY reason a white womon would make that racist statement is because she is white and in her book white womyn are, can be and believe we should be centered and central  – or in this case in demanding this of Toni Morrison’s book(s).

I didn’t jump up and ask her – and all of us – how come we’re not concerned nor talking about how many white womyn authors have ANY Black womon, lesbian or not, represented in their books??? Why are we sooooo comfortable knowing that Black and brown womyn are blatantly excluded from or are likely to appear as racist stereotypes - and the first to be murdered - in books authored by white womyn? And to not only accept that as ‘normal’, which it is, but then to turn our white privilege attention onto demanding that Toni Morrison include lesbians in her works.

As if Toni Morrison didn’t have enough on her plate, she needed to center white womyn’s demands as well.

And to make things even worse, no one else confronted that racism but allowed the discussion to continue to agree and bemoan the fact that lesbians were not represented in Toni Morrison’s work and admit that lesbians are likewise underrepresented in almost everyone’s work.

Furthermore, instead of expressing our deep appreciation of the incredibly intense, painful, powerful and empowering provision of a window into Black lives gifted to us by a fierce, courageous, brilliant womon – lives most white people not only knew nothing real about but did know tons of lies and stereotypes and demeaning racist portrayals of Black people in order to (re)enforce white supremacy – we then find this author lacking because she didn’t center what white womyn wanted her to center. Not considering what we would be lacking and severely bereft of had Toni Morrison not written exactly about what she wrote.

And I didn’t name that racism.