I have been thinking a lot about our discussion from class the other day in which Professor Kinyon was talking about how the white liberal is the most dangerous person in the fight against racism. It is sad because I can see the truth to that statement in a lot of individuals whom I personally know. Rather than being explicitly racist in their thoughts and actions, these individuals are apathetic to the injustice that is occurring because they do not see it as directly affecting them or as being something that is within their power or control to try to change. This passivity only breeds more disinterest and a lack of empathy, and it allows individuals to avoid thinking or caring about other people. If everyone felt this way – that they do not have to do anything because they are \u201cnot part of the problem\u201d – our society would lose any altruism that it can attempt to claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are called to care for others, even those who do not have anything in common with us, and to fight for others when we are put into a position of privilege. We should use this privilege to help and speak up for those who are being oppressed. Often, those who have privilege can speak to the oppressors in a way that the oppressed themselves cannot, and it is because of this, among other reasons, that the privileged individuals have the responsibility to fight against injustice. This frequently requires the privileged people to give space and opportunities for the oppressed to speak their truth and to listen empathetically when they do so. This concept of the passivity of the white liberal makes me think a lot about the difference between being \u201cnot racist\u201d and being \u201canti-racist.\u201d In order to fight against the racism that permeates every aspect of our society, it is not enough to just not be part of the problem; rather, anyone who wants to be a true ally needs to actively work to fix the problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have been thinking a lot about our discussion from class the other day in which Professor Kinyon was talking about how the white liberal is the most dangerous person in the fight against racism. It is sad because I can see the truth to that statement in a lot of individuals whom I personally … Continue reading The White Liberal<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3919,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[471414],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-native-son"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3919"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":686,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions\/686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}