It's Gotta Be Mutual

Tim Wise on Facebook:

The task is to empathize with the very real class pain of working class white folks, beaten up by global capitalism, while NOT pandering to their racialized sense of specialness, and actively confronting and condemning their bullshit diagnosis for that pain. But it MUST be reciprocal. If working class white folks want sympathy for their very real struggles they MUST empathize with folks of color who have always struggled under white supremacy. And if they are not willing to do this, I believe in steamrolling them, without sentimentality. I do not believe POC owe white people ANYTHING, including sympathy, until and unless those white folks are prepared to relinquish their/our addiction to white normativity and relative privilege. And to disagree with this is to prioritize the needs and concerns of white people, which is to reinforce white supremacy by definition...I will have none of it...white working class folks have benefitted more from white supremacy than POC have benefited from the class system, so the former must make the first move in terms of empathy and outreach...not the other way around...

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