When 4 Da Culture, Ain’t 4 The Culture
First let me say, I offer these thoughts in love. The colloquialism of ‘for da culture’ is for sure grounded in AAVE (African American Vernacular English) but I am using this in regards to referencing being ‘woke’ or what people are now looking at as progressive, left-leaning or liberal. Everything we (as a society, not individually) claim to do to dismantle dominant culture, decolonize and create inclusive spaces, uplift and amplify marginalized identities is not being done to really disrupt and dismantle spaces. Painting the streets with #BlackLivesMatter and inviting our barista to wear a BLM shirt, are not exactly what we the people had in mind. And you know I am going to share a few reasons why.
We asked for reparations and instead got…
One of the campaign promises the Biden Harris ticket offered was the cancellation or negotiation of canceling student loan debts. It was not only discovered by discussed early on that middle class American citizens were mostly indebted to secondary education via school loans and unable to attain the middle class wealth many previous generations had, some strategist even said by canceling student loan debt, it would not quite be reparations but it would drastically reduce the racial wealth gap. However, as of the date I am writing this, we have yet to see any movement forward politically from either party in delivering a partisan or bipartisan effort towards reparations. Instead we got Juneteenth as a national holiday (and rightfully so) and our beloved ancestor Maya Angelou printed on a quarter.
Again, these in theory are not inherently wrong but is this this what we asked for? One of the ways dominant culture is able to justify their lack of progression (whether intentionally or not) is to give a false or powerless action to demonstrate their care or commitment to marginalized identities instead of actually listening to what we are and have asked for. Cough, cough reparations. This is an effort dominant culture uses regardless of political party but rather helps them to maintain their power and privilege.
Stock images with a single person of color OR the one or two people with marginalized identities.
False advertising, half attempted marketing for marginalized identities. If you didn’t know, I am the only Black yoga studio owner in Charleston, SC and have seen my fair share of ‘othering’ in yoga and wellness spaces. When I and my studio began to name the racism and ways it shows up in yoga and wellness spaces suddenly every studio began to not only follow us, but they reached deep in their archives to find a picture, ANY picture of a person of color who had shown up in their space- ever. These images were used and plastered all over during hot summer (2020) as people nationally were being called out for their racism. Again, to appear in a better light or not as ‘one of those people’ studios suddenly had pictures, YTTs, workshops and scholarships for BIPOC. These offerings were not genuinely to serve the greater marginalized community but rather to comfort the shame of their biases. In their efforts they demonstrated how people of other marginalized identities were afterthoughts and marketing plans because there was not a relationship with those they were seeking nor was there any leveraging of power. Black teachers were not being given director roles or expert positions, unless they were temporary AND specifically talked about race and coddled the interest of the month.
Lists of (insert marginalized identity) to support.
Hot summer exposed a lot but also seemed to be “Year of The Lists”. Across social media platforms, email marketing, websites, podcasts and the like businesses and organizations began to share these curated lists of “BIPOC to follow”, “Black Businesses to Support Now”, “(Queer/LGBTQ+) Organizer to listen to” and again #1 Who asked for this? Not only that, who benefits MOST from posting and sharing lists of people to support. Dominant culture folks because it provides a false sense of being down with the cause or community, of being in relationship with the people enough to know they exist and could tag them, while growing in social capital.
Amplifying women’s voices while still centering white women.
While I am at it, add to this one instead of addressing the topic altogether of race- centering and renaming ‘humans’. Opportunities like “This is open to all humans”. Well, thanks but this only further demonstrates how dominant culture becomes uncomfortable with naming their biases and prejudices enough to open things up to humans. Now the statement itself, it is not wrong BUT it demonstrates or backhandedly points out how people living marginalized identities are not seen as humans by those belonging to dominant culture. See, because any person living a marginalized identity knows they are human. I doubt we have pets, plants, books signing up for wellness offerings and coaching.
The other aspect of this is also let us speak truthfully, our alabaster womxn identifying siblings are still considered minorities. So when speaking up for women or empowering women or women’s rights many of these concerns are really masking the centering if not blatantly exposing the centering of themselves. Think of after Hillary lost the election, the protests and women’s marches specifically naming women’s rights but those same women missing when Black mother’s, wives, sisters and daughters are crying out for justice for our kin? Don’t worry, we will wait.
Supporting one marginalized identity over another that feels more comfortable to support or discuss.
See #4 and also reference the centering of white identities that experience oppression, the Trans or Queer white person or the youth and children, after all these were the ways in which QAnon were able to appear woke and for the people but NOT. Listen Black and Indigenous people are not fighting to win the oppression olympics or claim we have been harmed worst than someone else. We are just asking for people to SEE our humanity, to SEE our color, to SEE us as relatives. Again, the fact dominant culture and its members would rather uplift another marginalized identity that also includes white identifying people is how dominant culture again participates in performance activism.
BONUS: Co-opting the language of organizers and activist to appear woke without relationship and accountability to the community.
From brave space to shared space, land acknowledgements and language co-opting there are a lot of people and organizations out here utilizing movement language but not in actual relationship with the practice or implementation of the language they are using and what is worst, in the effort to use the language and demonstrate performative action, those they claim to be for or model their saviorism for continue to be harmed at their hands. In some activist and organizing spaces many of the marginalized folks know the biggest threat is not the loud mouth outwardly racist, it is the performative silent progressive liberal. From my experience the people I have witnessed engaging in this behavior have not paid organizers and activists for their labor, have offered opportunities masked as exposure and have not even credited those they co-opted this language from.
We can do better than this because it is going to take all of us to actually put in the work and embody what we talk about for us to actually get to liberation. We won’t get there any other way. I know these are just a few examples, but these are prime examples of when people want to be for the culture (in social justice spaces) and still are NOT for the culture. What experiences have you had when you showed up and realized things were not what they said they were in social justice and wellness spaces?