Girl, Ebony

But is meant to serve as a view into why so many of us align with the “race + power = racism” perspective. Again, I’m not interested in debating this (not even a little bit!), but I want to place this here for anyone that might get something from it. Maybe you can sense that the formula makes sense but just can’t quite wrap your mind around it. Maybe you align with others who have this view yet still don’t get it. Here’s the best way I can break it down.

We have to remember that race itself is a social construct. Well, we have to be aware of it. If you weren’t aware of it before, then I just made you aware. [“If you don’t know, now you know.” -BIG].

So, accepting that race is a social construct, we then have to consider why it was constructed. What purpose does it serve? Did it ever serve? It categorizes groups of people and perpetuates the notion that one type is better than another. This is not done in one off interactions. One person saying “I don’t like crackers” is not the same as a group of people systematically declaring another group are actually property and not human. Because there was never a systematic means of categorizing white people as “honkies” (Someone should have Sherman Hemsley work on that though). And there was never a means of using that “honkey”/”cracker” category and enslaving white people.  One man saying he doesn’t want his daughter dating white guys is NOT on par with declaring folks 3/5 of a human being. No structure ever existed of “forbidding” white men from dating Black women because they aren’t a full 5/5. (I mean, really though)

If race itself is not real and was only created as a means for one group to assert power, privilege and control over others, then racism is just the extension of race as a design.

So POC cannot be racist because the notion of race is based on a social construct that exists to disempower us.

*drops the mic*