Post #1433284

Some writing from earlier today, about how unlearning bigotry works, with a personal example. -=- The phrase that changed my thinking was a direct challenge from a Black friend: "Oh, yeah? Well, what have you done TODAY that honoured Black bodies?" It won't be for everyone, of course, but this brought home to me that the work is not a seminar that you attend, and you get your Black Ally badge for your Scouting sash. It's work, like most other large tasks, that you do every day, consciously, by expending effort in that way. It's hard, unrelenting work to root out beliefs you absorbed like the oxygen which powers your ability to read this. It will take years, and you will not get it all out. But you keep working, because your fellow humans deserve no less an effort. That pretty nicely sums up the process as I have experienced it. That friend challenged me in high school, by the way, which ended for me in the mid-80s. That's how much it affected me: it is still part of my daily practice. 40 years later. Has it made me An Ally yet? I hope so, but that's not up to me. I just keep plugging away, making my efforts, joining many others in trying to undo the centuries of harm my ancestors caused the children of Africa. By far the majority of African-descended people will never know my name. No reason they should. I do it because it is the just thing to do, and my autistic commitment to justice is unrelenting. I do it because a lot of my trans siblings - by far the majority of whom are not white - are people without the effects of centuries of colonisation, racism, and exploitation bolstering their privilege. To the contrary, my existence is owed to their oppression. Not doing something about that is unconscionable to me. Yes. An atheist with a strict and voluntary moral code. I don't need to be terrified into conforming to a faith leader's often-flexible definition of justice. I hold to my moral code so I have a metric to assess my behaviour. Have a good day.