By any means necessary

[yeloson]

Between listening to the Yuri Kochiyama cut and reading Ta Nehisi Coates on Malcolm X, I'm reminded how much white folks freak out about the phrase, "By any means necessary" and ignore the fact that, you know, the means could be as simple as "Hey stop that." "Ok" and what level of investment white society had in oppression that made discussion a non-functional tactic without further action.

And, you know, the levels of cognitive dissonance necessary in the face of firebombings, assassinations, rape and lynchings to believe that the problem was it was black people who weren't being peaceful enough.

Comments

[daedala]

There's a negotiation game played in several of my classes. You count off into pairs, and then the game goes like this:

One person closes their hand into a fist.

The other person's goal is to get them to open their fist.

That's all.

Lots of people try prying, tickling, etc. It's amazing how few just ask, Would you please open your fist? That works about 100% of the time...

[bossymarmalade]

And this shit starts on such a small, individual level -- I had to spend my morning having this conversation with my Nicest White Lady co-worker:

NWL: -- did you ever see that special where Oprah and Gayle went to Yellowstone? I didn't know that Gayle was so funny! She always seemed like such an angry person to me.
Me: I didn't get that impression of her.
NWL: Really? She always seems so ANGRY. Maybe because she was going through a divorce?
Me: I guess the things she was angry about, I tend to agree with.
NWL: Oh, well of *course*, the issues, yes, she's right to be angry about those, but I mean that PERSONALLY, within herself, she always seemed so ANGRY.

No matter what, black people are just terrifyingly ANGRY for reasons that white people can't understand but feel free to speculate about. They are *never* peaceful enough, because they're angry "within themselves".

[yeloson]

Servants are always expected to smile.