Stop Saying You are Not a Political Person
The last few weeks of national discourse around race, policing, and protest have been both heartbreaking and inspiring. If you are like me, you have seen many of your friends and relatives speaking out through social media platforms about needed reforms, the scourge of racism, and the incredible amounts of privilege enjoyed by so many in this country. You may also have seen posts that make you infuriated. I certainly have.
Now, I’m not talking about the people who are posting blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or fascist content, though they certainly exist and make me irate. Rather, I am talking about the friends you have who have posted some version of “Believe what you want to believe, let’s all get along” or “Let’s not see black or white, let’s see humans.” or “I’m just not a political person.” These statements often come from a desire to promote love while minimizing conflict, which sounds like it should be a good thing. But, in reality, sentiments like this do much more harm than good. Let’s talk about why.
One of the first things we’ve got to discuss is what exactly privilege means. Privilege isn’t a statement that everything in your life was easy or that you didn't have any obstacles to overcome. Rather, it is a statement that your race, gender, or class did not present an extra obstacle to you becoming successful. Read that sentence again. The keyword there is extra. Privilege means there are fewer (not no) obstacles to success.
Discussing what privilege means is important here—statements such as the ones about accepting all ideas and not being political are indications that you have the ability to “opt out” of conversations about the marginalization of other groups. It means that you have the ability to “take a break” from thinking about how some do not enjoy the same safety and rights as others. It shows that you have that ability because your rights and safety are not threatened on a daily basis. Having the ability to choose whether to engage in the work confronting racism is a privilege. Additionally, statements such as “Believe what you want to believe” imply, consciously or not, that the personhood, safety, and rights of others are something around which there is room to disagree. This is, quite simply and directly, not the case. The phrase “agree to disagree” should be reserved for things like whether you like mayonnaise, whether it is okay to mix gold and silver jewelry, or whether the Patriots are an overrated football team. You don’t want mayo on your sandwich and I do? Not a problem. You want to tell me that blacks aren’t subjected to racial discrimination in America? That is a problem. And choosing to opt out of doing the work to fix that? Well, opting out of the conversations is a privilege that many do not have and giving up that privilege and engaging in the work is an essential first step to making things better.
Maybe you are someone who doesn’t want to engage in these discussions. They make you uncomfortable or you think the issues are more complicated than others are letting on. Maybe you think that this work is important but you do not want to do it, either because of time or mental energy constraints. Maybe then what you ought to do is post nothing. But when you post things like, “Let’s all love each other and stop fighting” you are demeaning and attempting to silence the voices of those of us who are engaging in the work to make this country better. You aren’t promoting love, you are promoting silence. And silence favors the side of the status quo and, in this case, the side of oppression.
- Amy