We live in world of symbolic gestures. Substance is the periphery. Specificity becomes irrelevant. What matters is the appeatance of progressiveness. Even when the opposite of that is evident. In short, I enjoyed reading your piece. Keep it up.
Absolutely agree. Also the term community is so wooly as to be almost meaningless. I am on my local community council, what we share is a geographical space. That is the only feature relevant. We may tend to have some socio economic similarities but there’s a huge variety of different people here, from those very engaged with keeping the area a good place to live, to others who are only concerned with their own lives and could not care less about others.
Thanks for sharing! I appreciate your perspective. I hear the word community a lot in relation to councils and it’s as you said very wooly and meaningless- it’s often forced teaming, a wankery that we use to sound nice or inclusive.
Funnily the thing you have with people going "us blacks", happens to me online with American white supremacists they will go "us whites", and are confused when I go "What do you mean us whites?", I do not care about race, my enemy are people of different ethnicity across the border as white as me. But this is a very American white supremacist thing in my experience, they solely look at the world through race.
I have a question, has the treatment of blacks in Australia always been like this or is this a more recent (last few decades?) cultural import from US?
I relate, specifically when people say: “us white people” or “us Australians” or “us Westerners” - like why are you speaking for me especially when you’re self deprecating about how racist and evil we are.
I wouldn’t say this is the treatment of all black people in Aus- just my experience (I don’t speak for others, see how easy it is you guys?!) - but I’d say this shit really kicked off in 2020. When a family friend reached out to me after George Floyd was killed to see if I was okay it was all down hill from there. The pandemic did a number on people in terms of politics: race, gender ideology, disability, polarity - everything.
I am curious how much of the referring to your blackness only occurs in circles with what you would consider familiar strangers or weak acquaintances, a.k.a. when somebody knows you does your skin colour become less of a point versus ,those when they don’t know you and are making assumptions about your ethnicity or race?
Thank you🇫🇷 and thank you for your thoughtful question.
It happens online and in person with acquaintances and some friends and even some family members. Regardless, I don’t like it happening. I find it aggravating. It’s weird when an acquaintance does it because I don’t know em’ like that and it’s even worse when it’s someone I know like family or friends because they should know me by now and they should damn well know better. But I will say that I forgive the stranger a little more because they’re tryna be careful and don’t want to risk upsetting offending someone who has a “marginalised identity/skin colour” so it’s an awkward misstep done out of care and fear. Ya feel?
We live in world of symbolic gestures. Substance is the periphery. Specificity becomes irrelevant. What matters is the appeatance of progressiveness. Even when the opposite of that is evident. In short, I enjoyed reading your piece. Keep it up.
Thank you for your kind and thoughtful comment🥰
Absolutely agree. Also the term community is so wooly as to be almost meaningless. I am on my local community council, what we share is a geographical space. That is the only feature relevant. We may tend to have some socio economic similarities but there’s a huge variety of different people here, from those very engaged with keeping the area a good place to live, to others who are only concerned with their own lives and could not care less about others.
Thanks for sharing! I appreciate your perspective. I hear the word community a lot in relation to councils and it’s as you said very wooly and meaningless- it’s often forced teaming, a wankery that we use to sound nice or inclusive.
Funnily the thing you have with people going "us blacks", happens to me online with American white supremacists they will go "us whites", and are confused when I go "What do you mean us whites?", I do not care about race, my enemy are people of different ethnicity across the border as white as me. But this is a very American white supremacist thing in my experience, they solely look at the world through race.
I have a question, has the treatment of blacks in Australia always been like this or is this a more recent (last few decades?) cultural import from US?
I relate, specifically when people say: “us white people” or “us Australians” or “us Westerners” - like why are you speaking for me especially when you’re self deprecating about how racist and evil we are.
I wouldn’t say this is the treatment of all black people in Aus- just my experience (I don’t speak for others, see how easy it is you guys?!) - but I’d say this shit really kicked off in 2020. When a family friend reached out to me after George Floyd was killed to see if I was okay it was all down hill from there. The pandemic did a number on people in terms of politics: race, gender ideology, disability, polarity - everything.
Thanks for answering.
Hi WSES ,
Happy bastille day!
I am curious how much of the referring to your blackness only occurs in circles with what you would consider familiar strangers or weak acquaintances, a.k.a. when somebody knows you does your skin colour become less of a point versus ,those when they don’t know you and are making assumptions about your ethnicity or race?
Thank you🇫🇷 and thank you for your thoughtful question.
It happens online and in person with acquaintances and some friends and even some family members. Regardless, I don’t like it happening. I find it aggravating. It’s weird when an acquaintance does it because I don’t know em’ like that and it’s even worse when it’s someone I know like family or friends because they should know me by now and they should damn well know better. But I will say that I forgive the stranger a little more because they’re tryna be careful and don’t want to risk upsetting offending someone who has a “marginalised identity/skin colour” so it’s an awkward misstep done out of care and fear. Ya feel?