When writing about Stephen Green's examples for Do. Do More. Do Better, I chose the social media example because it tracked with something I had wanted to do, but got stuck on.
I was very aware of the importance of listening to Black women, based on the perspective that they get from facing racism, sexism, and anti-Blackness (this combination can be referred to as misogynoir), as well as their voting patterns historically and their tendency to identify bad actors early because the abuse is often tested out on them. There are so many reasons we should be listening.
I also know that most of the people I know through school, work, and church don't follow a lot of Black women. Society is segregated in general, and it is a real issue in the Portland area. Despite how nice and liberal many people are, they are also not engaging with structural racism or recognizing its impact on them.
(One sign that most of my white liberal friends were not listening to Black women? How many of them kept quoting and referring to Shaun King.)
I followed so many wonderful Black women on Twitter, that I thought I could highlight some, and encourage others to follow them. I had already done the Do of following people of color on social media, so amplifying those voices and encouraging other people to follow them would be in tune with the Do more and Do better.
(So yes, I think those steps are very logical and reasonable.)
Then I could not do it.
It was not just hesitation about the step; the national election was pending and required its own posts, and also I had thrown myself back into blogging too quickly and was having trouble focusing. I took a two-month break from blogging, and when I restarted it was much more personal than political (though it is established that the two are related).
Mainly, I was worried about making things worse.
There can be many concerns that get in our way. Me acting like an authority on whom to follow was a concern; who was I to tell others? I did have some worry about that. I also had some concerns about focusing on Black women so specifically, because I follow people from many marginalizations, and so leaving out this Latina woman who was really great, or various Black men may have been a slight concern.
Still, my biggest concern was that I was going to make life worse for these women. Black women get a lot of abuse on the internet, even from... well, they don't call themselves nice liberals so much as progressives or leftists now, but it happens. There was one notable case just this week. Even people who might not be abusive might still ask a lot of thoughtless questions or keep interjecting "Not all white people!" in the interests of fairness.
I did not want to be responsible for any of that.
I tried to mitigate that in three posts, which I will link to. (This was on the main blog.)
I also decided to only focus on women with a higher follower count, as they may have better resources, or at least more experience in dealing with trolls and such.
But I still worried, and there was still the question of whether we could get rid of Trump and regain (barely) control of the Senate, and I wasn't in the best state. Together, that meant the post never happened.
I am going to try again, next week, but I want to go through the process of dealing with those concerns.
First of all for that fear of making things worse for people, if I were aware that I had anyone following me who would deliberately be abusive, I would block that person. I might not know there was someone, but if I were to find out, it's an easy decision to block.
In the past I have been more reluctant to do that, but I don't see a lot of evidence that there is any good influence happening by staying connected to the aggressive racists, so that's a block.
Sticking with people with higher follower counts is probably still a good idea. Where I do most of my following on Twitter, if they have blogs or web sites or Instagram accounts where they post content, that might be a better source. (Though, harassment can happen that way too.)
It can be great to ask someone if they have a preference, or if they would rather not be promoted.
One thing that you learn as you become more aware of structural racism is that it causes a lot of harm; it is always reasonable to be looking for ways to mitigate and prevent harm.
That leads to another one of the problems, that is kind of more complicated; I was trying to do things that I was not in a state to do.
Being anti-racist means learning about horrible things that can take an emotional toll, something that life does anyway. Burnout is real, and where my burnout came more from the care giving, poverty, and job seeking, it was still there, and I was still in denial about my abilities.
There are times when we need to push ourselves, and times when that is destructive. Knowing the difference is not always easy, but try. I assume that will get easier at some point.
The other problem is much simpler, when you look at it right.
That concern about it being arrogant of me to highlight other people... you can have reasonable thoughts about whether you are centering yourself or others, and which would be appropriate, and work on that. Sometimes, you may get it wrong, and actually you might get other things wrong. Maybe you are reading this and feel vaguely wrong about recently quoting Shaun King.
There are going to be things that feel awkward. There will be things that feel uncomfortable. We are so used to the racist underpinnings, and the tacit agreement to that talking about some things is rude, and then you find it is necessary.
Welcome the discomfort. It will take a long time before we can be comfortable with our legacy of racism, but once you are aware, you should not be comfortable with silence either.
Try not to harm. If there needs to be a choice made, choose the oppressed over the oppressors.
I'm not saying it's fun, but it is right and necessary.
Related posts:
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2020/10/why-we-should-listen-to-black-women.html
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2020/10/listening-to-black-women-101.html
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2020/10/listening-to-black-women-pre-requisites.html
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