this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
41 points (100.0% liked)
effort
7477 readers
1 users here now
Welcome to c/effort, the home of effort posts! This is a space where you can write on an topic, as long as it reflects real time and effort to put together.
Rules
Posts are text-only. No images or videos.
2.While the topic can be on anything, posts still require “effort”. While there isn’t a minimum word limit or anything, generally this means it’s longer than most other posts and there’s also that the expectation that your posts required real effort to write up.
“Master” posts that have a lot of links are welcomed.
No copypastas
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Honestly if you're worried about it, maybe it's worth pursuing the white fragility stuff. We criticize it because it's ineffective at solving systemic racism, but it does exist specifically to address the internalized racism of people who otherwise see themselves as not racist. Since you're posting here, you already have enough background knowledge to avoid some of the silly conclusions that liberals get to when they engage with those materials without political theory.
I might be completely wrong, but I always thought that the white fragility stuff came from a non-Marxist, liberal, corporate training perspective. Or at least this is how Robin DiAngelo strikes me. I feel like the theory is fine, but it lacks any sorta deeper structural analysis, and this is what lets her work in academia and the corporate world. The annoying thing is that after the BLM protests were smashed, middle-of-the-road voices like here were quashed.
I'm big on Settlers. I feel like Frantz Fanon or Racecraft would be helpful. Revolutionary Suicide was a very readable book about the experience of black people in the US. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is a bit outside the topic of racism, but it's also very readable.
I'm not a theory guy, so I'm sure that others have more valuable insights.
You took the words out of my mouth. Reading books by Black Marxists can be helpful, while I strongly suspect that White Fragility is completely useless. I would add Assata Shakur’s autobiography and memoirs like Black Bolshevik, Black Boy, and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Novels by Black communists (Kindred and Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, A Tempest by Aimé Césaire) are also a must. Gerald Horne’s youtube channel has the best geopolitical analysis I’ve encountered anywhere.
I'm assuming you mean this one by Richard Wright?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Boy
W.E.B. Dubois and Baldwin are still extremely relevant, I like some of bell hooks' stuff even if she was a landlord.
Most of the good parts of White Fragility are references to Racism without Racists by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
I'd be careful with the Rodney, he essentializes the nation-state, hiding some liberatory avenues for post-colonial political orders