Quick 🧵: Now that the anecdotes and the sciences have aligned to confirm that #WhiteSupremacy is ✨in fact✨ an #embodied experience,
I’ve been revisiting my own hesitancies around blindly trusting all-White, all-cisgendered male leadership teams of humanitarian organizations.
I’ve been revisiting my own hesitancies around blindly trusting all-White, all-cisgendered male leadership teams of humanitarian organizations.
2/5 I’m reminded that it takes muscle memory— not mere thinking— to see issues of inequity when they pop up in systems.
When you’ve lived in a body that’s so rarely minoritized/ marginalized (i.e., White and cisgendered male), it’s easy and common for you to overlook inequity.
When you’ve lived in a body that’s so rarely minoritized/ marginalized (i.e., White and cisgendered male), it’s easy and common for you to overlook inequity.
3/5 This is uncomfortable to hear, but it’s true.
We’re learning more and more that #WhiteSupremacy is not— at its core— a matter of ideas.
It’s a matter of the patterned responses to the “Other” that are embodied in folks’ core beliefs, emotions and knee-jerk social reactions.
We’re learning more and more that #WhiteSupremacy is not— at its core— a matter of ideas.
It’s a matter of the patterned responses to the “Other” that are embodied in folks’ core beliefs, emotions and knee-jerk social reactions.
4/5 And so when I see no Black people, no people of color, no women, no Queer people with decision-making power at the “top” of a humanitarian organization,
I have pretty good reason to be suspicious of the “muscle-memory” making most of the decisions in that org.
I have pretty good reason to be suspicious of the “muscle-memory” making most of the decisions in that org.
5/5 You want your org to have #Equity and to be #antiracist?
You cannot do it if your org’s decision-making leadership is all cisgendered male and White.
The embodied muscle-memory making all the decisions will limit how equitable and antiracist you can be.
Period and Selah 🙏🏽
You cannot do it if your org’s decision-making leadership is all cisgendered male and White.
The embodied muscle-memory making all the decisions will limit how equitable and antiracist you can be.
Period and Selah 🙏🏽
.As always, I HIGHLY recommend
#MyGrandmothersHands by @ResmaaMenakem
to deepen understanding of the embodied quality of #WhiteSupremacy. Menakem’s work charts a CRUCIAL paradigm shift for understanding racism. We can’t afford to treat #racism like it’s “wrong thinking” alone.
#MyGrandmothersHands by @ResmaaMenakem
to deepen understanding of the embodied quality of #WhiteSupremacy. Menakem’s work charts a CRUCIAL paradigm shift for understanding racism. We can’t afford to treat #racism like it’s “wrong thinking” alone.
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