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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 9/9/15

Traitor to My Race --The Abolition of White Privilege: Part III - Personal Transformation

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Broaden your mainstream media options. The Guardian in Great Britain, the newspaper that collaborated with Snowden to break the story of NSA snooping, is a reasonably honest newspaper, not as heavily laden with the burdens imposed by the one-percenters'

corporate interests and the Federal Government's censorship.

Read the essays and books of literate, informed, even beloved writers who can give you a more nuanced account of white supremacism and its various manifestations. I remember reading, while still in college, James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time (1963), the beginning of my education regarding the pain of racism. To quote Baldwin from the book: "I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."

More recently, I've been reading Ta-Nehisi Coates, who caused a stir with his long essay published in the June, 2014, issue of The Atlantic, "The Case for Reparations." His article's brief abstract, published just below the title, reads as follows: "Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole." Don't rely on the rabid response that Fox News propagated among its viewers. Read the honest words of an informed and sincere young Black author who makes a strong case for his proposition. Inform yourself of a Black man's perspective. On my bookshelf, waiting to be read once I finish this article, is Mr. Coates's new book, Between the World and Me (2015), written as a letter to his adolescent son wherein he attempts to respond to questions about race he believes his son might even now be grappling with. No, my education isn't yet complete.

Many of you who are reading this might be familiar with much of what I've written. If so, you're members of the choir. You are also prospective successors to anti-racist white Americans who, in the 1990's, termed themselves "race traitors" and called for the abolition of white privilege. Accordingly, our collective responsibility is to expose white Americans who might be burdened with a self-defeating understanding of white privilege, persons who are your friends, family members and acquaintances, to the information and analysis detailed here. In exhortation to them and to you, let me quote the final words of Martin Luther King's 1967 speech at Riverside Church referenced by me above. He was speaking about the war in Viet Nam, but he was addressing the entire country and his words appear applicable here:

" " If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight--

To elaborate on the apocryphal words of the iconic Joe Hill, "Don't mourn, organize" and help build a movement to abolish a privilege that has brought shame and harm to us all.

References:

Allen, Reniqua, "For Black Men, A Permanent Recession, http://america.aljazeera.com/features/2014/10/for-black-men-a-permanentrecession.html, October 9, 2014

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Brief Bio.: Dr. Carney is a retired social worker with nearly 50 years of experience in social work, with thirty-five of those years spent in the public mental health system . He is an Alinsky-trained community organizer, Institute-trained in (more...)
 

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Traitor to My Race --The Abolition of White Privilege: Part III - Personal Transformation

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