I stopped talking to white people about race. Here’s what I learned – Reni Eddo-Lodge

I think the reality is more complex than Eddo-Lodge given intra- and inter-minority dynamics as well as the interplay with other identities and scripts:

Yet amongst the liberal left, in the context of global politics, walls are not good things at all. They signal a kind of tribalism – arbitrary borders, insularity and parochialism, maybe even small-mindedness. Walls invoke segregation, and segregation is out of the question. We want to be citizens of the world. Free movement, free ideas, free speech. And I agree with all of this. But for me, having boundaries was not about being closed-minded, but instead about withdrawing to recharge. In setting my boundary, I hoped that those it was aimed at would question the conditions that had let me draw that conclusion in the first place.

Despite this talk of tribes, I didn’t willingly choose to pick a side. I didn’t defiantly and proudly assert myself as black in order to distinguish myself from the norm. Instead, I chose to unpack a category that has already been moulded for me by racism, one that has already created scripts about what kind of person I am, and what I am expected to achieve. The script is created by historical discrimination, set deep into the psyche of what it means to be human. If we don’t actively resist it, we passively endorse it.

Since writing, I’ve thought a lot about why erasing difference was the prevailing narrative on race among the liberal left for so long. I finally understand why. This misguided, compulsory assimilation was a well meaning rejection of walls. There have been real efforts to reject identity markers in recent years. So keen to reject the notion of signing up to a “tribe,” we’ve defined ourselves as without religion or without any allegiance to left or right in an effort to come across as sensible, moderate and reasonable. There is an inference that any acknowledgment of difference, or considering oneself part of a group, leads to fanaticism. These moderate rejections of obvious “tribes” in order to keep the peace have exposed a fundamental flaw, a kind of faux objectivity, masked in a passive-aggressive reasonableness. The most spirited opposition I’ve had to my anti-racist work is from those who consider themselves to the arbiters of reason, who assert that my work is based on hysterics. Those who have benefited from an abject lack of inclusion deny there is any power in their position at all – and sometimes try to redefine themselves as victims.

Pointing out the differences between us is not the problem. The problem is the power that lies behind those differences, and how the status quo has relied on marginalization. To be responsible citizens we must reckon with this. It’s not just about the newspapers you read or the campaigns you donate to. It’s about your actions. Bringing down these walls means a fundamental restructuring of the society we live in. It means disrupting comfort, including your own. There can be no poor without the rich. Bringing down this wall means that – if you recognize yourself as a beneficiary – you’re in the trenches with those losing out from it. If there was ever a time in your life to pick a side, it’s now.

Source: I stopped talking to white people about race. Here’s what I learned – The Globe and Mail