gothhabiba:

I’ve seen a couple of posts like this directed at men but none for white people so I’m going to make one

if you’re talking to a person of colour, about anything but especially about something personal or something regarding race in any way, you need to be asking yourself: “am I making them uncomfortable? do they want to be talking about this, here, now, and with me? am I being voyeuristic? am I being invasive? am I demanding information that they’re not volunteering? am I asking them to dredge up things they don’t want to dredge up?

am I asking them to perform emotional or intellectual labour for me (aka confessing things to them that might cause them emotional hurt & giving them the responsibility of absolving or forgiving me, or asking them to do my thinking for me or to be my personal moral compass, respectively)? would I ask this question of a white person? am I invading their personal space, emotionally or physically? am I disrespecting their boundaries? am I making it awkward or impossible for them to change the subject / end the conversation / leave the room? am I doing a good job of policing myself in this interaction so that they don’t have to?”

edit: white people in the notes have reacted to this as if it is an impossible litany of questions or an unreasonable gauntlet to run or something that would make interacting with people of colour untenable and unduly stressful. if you find yourself thinking this way, ask yourself why it is so hard to gather the central thread of all of this, namely “am I respecting the full humanity of the person I’m speaking to rather than treating them as an emotionless curiosity or thinking of them only in terms of their benefit to me?” ask yourself why being deliberate about treating people of colour like human beings would strain your relationships and conversations with them. understand that all of this is based on historical relationships of people of colour to whiteness as a structure and on personal experience, and is in no way arbitrary or frivolous.