Journal
Window is a journal Maria Amidu started in January 2016, it is a repository for her random musings on significant and insignificant things
majorities...
Whenever I listen to BBC Radio 4 someone always says something that just grates, so today it was something about 'minorities', I swear this word is going to cause me to do something I'll regret, why the hell are some white people, quite a lot of them actually, defining themselves (in word and or deed) as the majority with such ease, what do you call yourselves if you're in a room full of the 'minority'? Maybe this has never happened to these people, maybe that's where the assuredness and assumption comes from... Try it, try that out, see how that works out for you... As a wise, wise friend said yesterday: “this, all this is "high level fuckery!"
Young British & Black
These headlines read like my life in my 20s, why is this all still going on....?!
the middling sort
I wonder about the arrogance of some of the middle class thinking they've got living right whilst covertly and sometimes overtly mocking/pitying/lamenting everyone else, there are many ways to be a good human on the planet and the 'western' have stuff/own stuff is not the only way
in it together
who put white men in charge of humanity....oh yeah, they did, like I said consciously incompetent, we've been here for way too long
Explainers
So, my brilliant friend and lockdown angel Akila Richards and I have been talking a lot about how to manage the bombardment of questions and demands of us now that everyone has finally woken up to the fact that our lives matter and that we have been robbed of so much because a significant portion of the global population deemed themselves better than us. Below is what we have - our new, practical strategy, always easily accessible on our phones, graded based on the attitude of/relationship to the person doing the asking:
One, two or three, pick one:
1. the bird
2. “I don’t got the time, I’m on my trampoline, this is my time” Amanda Seales
3. “Between stimulus and response there is a space” Viktor Frankl
competence
unconsciously incompetent, the old normal, we are done with this now, no excuses
consciously incompetent, we've been here for way too long
consciously competent, this is gonna take a lot of hard work for years and years
unconsciously competent, the new future normal
Scott Woods
“The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate, when racism is bigger than that. Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of whites at other people’s expense, whether whites know/like it or not. Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a white person who likes black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you. Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another. And so on. So while I agree with people who say no one is born racist, it remains a powerful system that we’re immediately born into. It’s like being born into air: you take it in as soon as you breathe. It’s not a cold that you can get over. There is no anti-racist certification class. It’s a set of socioeconomic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it. I know it’s hard work, but it’s the price you pay for owning everything.”