gothhabiba:

I think that this urge [to tell e.g. racialised people about your personal feelings and struggles regarding confronting racist thinking] comes out of the confessorial strain that ‘sj’ politics in a lot of spaces have. if you have a Bad Thought then you need to confess it to an ‘oppressed’ person who can absolve and forgive you for the Bad Thought. but like…. I don’t have anything to do with that, lmao!

we’ve all grown up in a racist society and we’ve all internalised its ideals and again I don’t begrudge white people (who are actually trying) having whatever feelings they’re going to have as they confront all of that. I’m sure it is uncomfortable as a white person to hear that you’re not inherently superior to everyone else by virtue of something made up if that’s what you’ve been allowed to believe all your life. I’m sure that it is uncomfortable to have to confront your stake in white supremacy and colonialism. whiteness is a main pillar on which white people as a whole base their ideas about themselves and being told that it needs to be gotten rid of is doubtless stressful. dealing with all of this is something that takes work.

but at the same time I’m allowed to be emotionally disturbed by those feelings? I’m allowed to not want to hear about them! I don’t need to know about how unpleasant this is for you or about this racist thing that you used to think in third grade and it’s frankly callous to tell me! living in this society has already forced me to learn (or made me work to figure out) how white people feel about a lot of things and I promise you that I’m already damaged & bored enough by all of that without adding more to it.

anyways this is what comes out of treating racism as an individual moral failing that reflects poorly on the individual white person involved (such that they care more about their reputation and self-image as good and open-minded people than they care about the actual wellbeing of actual people of colour–this is true of white liberals too) and treating marginalised people as confessors and vessels through which you can cleanse yourself of your transgressions with, again, no concern for their wellbeing