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OxQQme

(2,550 posts)
Mon Aug 28, 2017, 01:26 PM Aug 2017

A Love Letter to White Kin

>"And now for the love letter...

For a brief stint, I was the executive director for an LGBT community foundation. One day I sat down with a donor, a gay white guy who I really liked. I was trying to figure out how to get this man and his friends to switch their giving so that it more directly benefited LGBT folks of color, paying particular attention to trans and gender nonconforming folks. This seemed easy to me. Basic democracy. Some folks had a lot extra and others didn’t have enough. We were all part of the same community.

He listened to me and then, at one point, he interrupted. “Susan,” he said, “I hear you. I really do. Everything you say makes rational sense but that isn’t what it feels like. I am listening to you say that I have more cash than some members of this community and my brain knows you are right but inside, all I feel like is the little boy who was bullied and beat up during school. I want to scream at you, I’ve only been resting for five minutes and now you’re telling me that I have too much and I have to share! Fuck you, just fuck you. Let me have mine for a minute and enjoy it!!”

To this day, I am so grateful for his words. As I listened to him, something in me clicked. Right, I thought. Generosity doesn’t happen when we don’t feel safe, when some part of us feels we have to hold on to our extra in case we run out. And generosity is a different thing when who we share our cash with doesn’t feel directly connected to our own survival and okay-ness in the world. This man, this white man with a big old paycheck and a nice house and a stable relationship, still doesn’t feel safe. Not really. It doesn’t matter that he actually is safe. His perception, his held history, tells him that he isn’t. And so, until he feels safe, until he settles and his need to hold on tight TIGHT is able to soften, he won’t be giving up his extra even though people close by don’t have enough."<


So much more:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/8/27/1692745/-A-love-letter-to-white-kin-grappling-with-white-supremacy?detail=emaildkre

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