Thread by @indivisiblefrr

White ppl alone get to exist in a world that is free from collective accountability for the bad things other ppl who are white do.

We get it be Individuals.

Whatever stereotypes we suffer, they never impact our wealth or safety.

That is white supremacy.

US infrastructure (schools, prisons, voting, housing, lending) is systemically soaked in racism and calling that out means white people have to grapple with knowing that they benefit.

White fragility is what happens when white people begin to feel collective accountability.

Pushing past white fragility to see things as they really stand is empowering.

Possessing the great gift of individuality means that we as white people often look at racism as an individual choice, a matter of the heart, a problem of specific upbringing.

Person-to-person racism is real. But the reason that it persists is because our larger systems work in racist ways. And we as white people benefit. Not all of us, all the time, but collectively—we don’t get accused by proxy for white male terrorism for instance.

We get to pass on generational wealth because we never endured massive, total loss of identity through 400 years of slavery. We were never systematically denied loans and housing, jobs or education after that.

Racism is about not hating others based on the color of their skin, yes, but that definition is incomplete. It’s about hate backed up by powerful institutions that believe YOU by default, as a white person. And it’s about white-default narratives about who’s good, who’s deserving

Knowing all this is empowering for white people, or it should be. White people don’t have many anti-racist heroes.

But we need to start making more. Knowing what we should know, the only option forward is to dismantle systems that oppress and remove individuality from others.

Recommended podcast series that covers systemic racism: sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/