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Kind of Blue

Kind of Blue's Journal
Kind of Blue's Journal
October 29, 2015

In 60 seconds James Baldwin breaks race and racism ALL THE WAY DOWN.

Sorry, y'all. I'll stop posting today after this one.

October 28, 2015

"We must be humble about what we have become."

"I am a fierce, forever feminist. But I still have sexism and misogyny running through my veins. It takes a lifetime to clear these out. You can be one thing and your subconscious can be another thing.

How many images of black bodies being thrown to the ground have I ingested? How many news reports have I inhaled passively – how many images of jails filled with black bodies? How many casually racist jokes have I swallowed? Over the decades and centuries and days, we’ve breathed in countless images meant to convince us that black men are dangerous and that black women are dispensable and that all black bodies are worth less than white bodies. We have just been breathing.

Listen. We can be good, kind, justice loving, anti-racist people in our hearts and minds – but if we’re living here – we’re still canaries raised in a racist mine. We can be good, justice-loving people-but if we’re living here-we’re still canaries in a racist mine We’ve still been breathing the air- and we’ve been conditioned. So our knee jerk reaction to a black man approaching us might be fear. Our subconscious might kick in before our mind and heart can catch up. And we might pull that trigger faster than we would if the body approaching us was white. And that black girl not responding to our request to stand up – well we might take her down faster than we’d ever take down a white body. Because our subconscious has been trained to believe she’s belligerent, disrespectful, dangerous and dispensable.

We must be humble about what we have become."


"Why I’m Prejudiced & So Are You" http://momastery.com/blog/2015/10/28/why-prejudiced/

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