Anastasia Kanjere's article; Defending race privilege on the Internet: how whiteness uses innocence discourse online, the discussion focuses on the frequent backlash of white voices in online spaces to the attempts of BIPOC people, especially BIPOC women contributing to conversations and building their own narratives. Kanjere cites the frequent displays of the fragility of the white ego, and how white people, even those who claim to support racial solidarity, have often constructed spaces of social progress to that they may optically make themselves look good, without the risk of racially minoritized people making any real progress that would be a threat to existing systems of white supremacy. Kanjere challenges the attitudes of innocence of white voices online, who claim to want solidarity and cooperation with racially marginalized groups, but frequently science their voices and hinder their attempts to create spaces for themselves. I personally think that the deep and often uncomfortable connection between racial identity and ego is one of the most ingrained problems within our society today. I myself am far from innocent of it, as I often find writing about race and racial topics to be difficult, and I have to struggle against the urge to refrain from saying anything that would hurt my ego. I think that this is because many white people have grown up in a system of binary morality. Even if we are able to move past the fact that there are not "good people" and "bad people" and recognize that every person does both harm and good with every action they take, there is still a protective instinct to protect oneself from perceived moral judgements. I think it is common for white people to see BIPOC people to progress outside the constructs of whiteness and expose the underlying racism which has benefited all people deemed white, whether they recognize it not, and then view it as "if you participate in a racist society, you are a bad person." This is why Kanjere discusses the innocence discourse, if white people do not have to reconcile what their racial privilege and benefit in a racist system means, they don't have to feel guilty for it, but how white people feel about their own racial status doesn't mean anything to those actually marginalized unless white people are willing to be the kind of allies that BIPOC people actually need. I think as Kanjere's article illustrates, one of the hardest concepts for apparent white allies to wrap their heads around is supporting marginalized groups without always being able to influence the conversation or feel important.
Kanjere, Anastasia. "Defending race privilege on the Internet: how whiteness uses innocence discourse online." Information, Communication & Society. Routledge. pp 2156-2170. 2019.
I really enjoy the points you brought up, and how difficult it can be to be an ally and challenge your ego as a white person. It's definitely a difficult thing to approach, as we always want to perceive ourselves as good and not as the problem, but we can be causing harm or committing microaggressions that we hadn't even realized until we were educated on why it was a microaggression. I especially love how you brought up that the hardest concept white allies to wrap their heads around is that we don't always need to feel important. Personally I grapple with that issue of feeling that I'm not "doing enough" when sometimes support can be enough - and that we don't need to co-opt entire movements to be allies.
ReplyDeleteHi Morgan, I thought your post was incredibly insightful. In another one of my classes we had a guest-speaker come in who would identify as a BIPOC women and she had brought up this very problem here. She further developed the idea by discussing the solidarity across minorities, or lackthereof, for instance an individual who is white, but identifies in a minority/opressed demographic may have more priviledge than that of someone who is a bipoc and within a similar demographic. I feel like, as it stands, this is an issue that is becoming more pronounced because we, as allies, oftentimes think of ourselves differently than the stereotypical "white" person who doesn't ally themselves with oppressed communities. Overall, I think it's extremely important we continue to be aware and educate eachother on this topic. Great job!
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