talking about race

Hello, reader.  How are you?  Do you like talking about race?  I like talking about race for real.  Ming and I talk about race often–it’s a normal topic for our day. 

Many people get angry, defensive, scared, uncomfortable, annoyed, irritable, mean, and otherwise hard to be around, talking about race.  I know it can have to do with how we feel about the people we’re talking to, how secure we feel in ourselves, how much we know, guilt, and history of what’s happened to us.

I wish talking about race was an everyday thing, not shrouded in fear.  I’d love to make a world where gender, queerness, transness, race, money, class, and everything about power was discussed openly. 

Sometimes when I talk about power, people look at me as bizarrely inappropriate.  Like I broke the fourth wall.  We were supposed to pretend all that stuff wasn’t real. 

Well, mostly the aghast people are benefiting from the silence.  In most power situations, I’m at a disadvantage.  I don’t have much to lose.

I can pretend many things in play, for fun or some other purpose.  But when it comes to systems and situations of intense violence, I’m not playing.  I hope we can communicate about reality head on.

playlist

I made a youtube playlist called talking about race for real.  I collect videos there–stand up comedy, songs, and informative videos that matter to me, about race.  Please see if you would like to view anything there.  The first one is for learning a phrase, for water protectors.

family

Race can be part of our families of origin.  So it’s tied up with deepest emotions, from when we were kids.

Race relates to power and money–how much we earn is based on how the world sees us.  There’s violence where people with more power can harm us based on race–like the police, but anyone.

Feelings can be so vivid.  In that sense, I understand why race is a huge scary thing to talk about.  But also, it’s everywhere.