[twitter thread from Academic Foxhole | TrooperSJP @AcademicFoxhole posted 10th June 2020, consisting of 16 tweets:
Hi White People! I want to tell you something. Itās the second week since the explosion of this round of protests. The second week since George Floydās snuff film started being broadcast all over. I want to tell you something about my experience with white progressive backlash.
I once had a boss who wanted me to tell her about my personal feelings. How I was doing. In my experience, white people donāt *really* want to know how people of color are feeling. Or they do, but only if it doesnāt make them feel uncomfortable. Anyway, she kept pressuring me.
She said she was an ally. Against my better judgement I decided to tell her what was on my mind (always a dangerous thing for a marginalized person to do). I told her I was experiencing structural homophobia at the job and that was not making me feel great.
I was very careful not to implicate her in any way in this structural homophobia. That is an important survival skill marginalized folks learn. How did she respond?
She started off being outraged that I was experiencing homophobia and she said she was against homophobia. Thenā¦she started crying and talking about how upset it made her that there was homophobiaā¦so I had to spend the rest of that meeting consoling her.
But what happened the next week? Backlash. She decided that no, there wasnāt homophobia, the structure she worked for wasnāt homophobic. Maybe there were some incidents, but it wasnāt as widespread. And then I became the problem because I had said something and made her feel bad.
I was pushed out of that job, by the way. The only job where that has happened to me. Also the only job where I have told my boss my actual feelings. So often I have seen it. A white person realizing that racism is pervasive, that white privilege is a thing, or male privilegeā¦
They begin to see the enormity of it and they are upset and traumatized and vow to do somethingā¦thenā¦after a week or twoā¦theyā¦backlash and retrench. Maybe it is guilt. Maybe it is just too much to live in the world I live in everydayā¦but they thenā¦snap.
They decide it isnāt that bad and they blame us for having said something in the first place. They stop being Allies and we become the problem ones for speaking out. And then we get punished by our allies for making them feel uncomfortableā¦while they return to comfort.
It happened after Ferguson. Itās happened time and again. One of the reasons it is difficult to trust Allies in the majorityā¦is because this backlash happens all the time. You are pressured to share your pain, your pain becomes about them feeling pain, then youāre the villain.
Marginalized people are expected to do the work to show the injusticesā¦then punished for doing so because injustice is uncomfortable. Now, honestly, I probably shouldnāt post this Tweet thread either. But I figured well, life is short, right?
So, the question I wonder when I see all this outrage from white people about the injusticeā¦isā¦will the backlash come next? Will white Allies just get overwhelmed by seeing it allā¦and then go back into the Matrix and punish the most marginalized for having said something?
I hope you all donāt go back into the Matrix. I hope you all donāt decide it is easier to blame us for telling you about injustice and making you uncomfortable than it is to fight injustice. Or maybe rather than backlash, itāll just be silencing. Justā¦now you are tired of it.
You donāt want to hear or think about it anymore. Because it is too much and you will silently resent me for talking about it. Or not so silently. Ā You are my ally nowā¦but will you be next week? Next month? Next year?
Will I be punished because Iām oppressed and my oppression makes you feel guilt? And it is easier to ostracize me than it is to tackle structural inequality?
Also, I know that just saying this might trigger the backlash. And that is part of the reality of being marginalized while talking to people in the majority. We always have to be careful that speaking truth will cause us to be punished. Even with Allies.
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