Thread by @innodim

There’s a tweet making its rounds that’s truly annoying as it illustrates the stubborn inability/refusal of nice liberal white folks” to be critically self aware, particularly of their own white body privilege & positionality.
See screenshot.
(Choosing not to RT)

So, a 🧵

1/

👉🏿There’s no such thing as being “apolitical”. Politics is life. Everything about our lives & living is informed by politics & we inform the dynamics of said politics by our participation or lack thereof.

2/

The notion that one is “apolitical” is intentionally ignorant, arrogantly, & usually a cop-out from being held accountable for one’s decisions or lack thereof. It is often the position of a person who holds privilege or body advantage in an unjust & unequal society or …

3/

…an ostrich who’d rather bury one’s head in the sand than deal with life on life’s terms, hoping magic & pixie dust with abracadabra everything back to a normal that is comfortable & convenient for them.

4/

👉🏿Any language that insinuates that people should be polite & “civil” when fighting for their lives & human rights is just plain evil. I can’t even mess with the dictionary on this one. I have no synonyms.

It’s Evil.

5/

👉🏿While there’s no such thing as being “apolitical”, there’s very much such a thing as ahistorical & acontextual. As in believing that at any given time in the past, political discourse was “civil” & friendly.

And that it’s somehow worse now.

6/

In an inherently unjust & unequal society, specifically a white supremacist, patriarchal, ableist, capitalist society, WHO was engaging in discourse with each other?
WHO was excluded from discourse?
WHAT were the topics that were on the political table to be discussed?

7/

Today, WHO is being forced to engage more with historically & ongoingly excluded, marginalized, & dehumanized communities as a result of
the laws they fought for from the knock down drag out fights where blood was spilled & lives lost?

8/

WHO is the one throwing most of the tantrums when they don’t get their way?

This country literally went to war, America’s bloodiest conflict, because they couldn’t agree that Black people are human & not property.

9/

Going back further, the very founding of this country was only realized because the only way the colonies would stop fighting themselves & come together was to stand against England who was seeking to end slavery in the colonies. Then they in unison said, “Oh, hellll nah!”

10/

Congratulations - there’s your Declaration of Independence. Other than that, your great grand parents couldn’t stand each other & almost ended the American colonial project. To put it plainly - outside of slavery, this country has never had a reason to get along. Ever.

11/

Outside of an “enemy” against which white men, & white women by proxy, could organize, America is like a confused teenager: narcissistic with a raging inferiority complex, hopped up on too much Adderall, given the keys to a Ferrari, but no driver’s license.

With a gun.

12/

So, when, when, when, was there a time of “polite civil discourse” that was inclusive of all Americans?

👉🏿Speaking of fantasy…

13/

Judging whole ass complex adult engagement by the yardstick of undergraduate discourse is…naive, at best. Particularly discourse with someone you’re knocking boots with. What the actual hell did we even know back then?

Oh, we THOUGHT, we knew some shit.

14/

But, now, while staring down the barrel of the consequences of what were mainly intellectual exercises to assess who could sound the most like our favorite philosopher or quote the most number of authors from 18th century thought - the game has changed.

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This is real life & real death. My life, my mother’s life, father’s life, brother, sister, husband, children, nieces, nephews, neighbor’s lives.

It is it merely intellectual masturbation or an academic orgy. It is also spiritual, emotional, & visceral.

It is existential.

16/

👉🏿So, when white folks think thoughts such as what was tweeted or just period, it is important to remind yourself of your own context, consider who you are & locate that thought historically & sociopolitically through the critical lens of a power & positionality analysis.

17/

Before expressing it as some opinionated universal truth on bird, giraffe, & mammoth app platforms. You are not in the world by yourself. Others are here too & their experiences & realities, matter & are super valid.

#Erasure

18/

Experiences & realities that are not only related to, but are impacted by your own current & historical positionality & the decisions you make or choose not to make.

All of which is very much indeed, political.

Happy Easter.

19/19

✌🏾