Why do I lack the ability to trust white people who claim to be progressive or leftist?
When a person of color, especially if they're black like me, affirms their support for causes such as queer liberation, feminism, animal rights, or socialism, I immediately feel that I can believe, with minimal doubt, that they're truly convicted and principled in what they're advocating for.
However, when a white person claims to support leftism, until my skepticism is proven wrong, I immediately assume they're a dishonest and performative libshit. I then proceed to interact with them with hefty amounts of caution. If my assumptions are proven true, I'm never shocked.
I’ve had this guy’s book on my shelf for awhile now. He concludes this piece with:
We have our work cut out for us, but fortunately we aren’t starting from scratch: there’s a rich history to draw from. In the 1960s, feminists held regular group meetings, in houses and apartments, to discuss gender injustice in ways that would have been taboo in mixed company. A set of such “consciousness raising” guidelines by Barbara Smith and fellow activists Tia Cross, Freada Klein, and Beverly Smith provides an example of identity politics work as the Combahee River Collective envisioned it. The exercise starts by asking participants to examine their own shortcomings (“When did you first notice yourself treating people of color in a different way?”), but ends by asking how they can use an element of shared oppression as a bridge to unite people across difference (“In what ways can shared lesbian oppression be used to build connections between white women and women of color?”). Because, in the end, we’re in it together—and, from the point of view of identity politics, that is the whole point.
Seems like it might have some answers. I like leftist spaces because it’s like one of the only places where you can say “read a book” and people will go out and do homework. It’s rad.