Perhaps the following wordsound, written by a white Rasta, will be easier to swallow, coming from a fellow European. In this, she is addressing a next white Idren Ras Adam.
It would behoove ALL WHITE RASTAS to read this and Iditate deeply upon this CRUCIAL TRUTHS.
WHITE RASTAS AND UNCONSCIOUS RACISM - By Rootsie
June 19, 2004
So here we have a pretty well-known and ostensibly serious and committed white Rasta giving his casual 'gee-whiz' prescription for the end of racism. Because whites do not acknowledge their privilege, they also do not acknowledge their power to do anything about it. Thus, racism is seen as one of those unfortunate problems that will always be with us, like the common cold. Maybe in a few hundred years it will be a little better...He is speaking here about color prejudice anyway, and not institutional racism, although he insists he understands the difference.
Privilege is about power solely, and white Rastas, in their desire to fit in, pretend, to themselves first of all, that they are powerless. They seem to think they can put on black oppression like they put on dreadlocks. While blacks suffer from their actual oppression, whites actually revel in their imagined oppression.
"I...won't apologize for voicing out against racial descrimination, racial bigotry, segregation, etc in the rastafari movement or anywhere else in the globe"
And where does Ras Adam voice out to? To blacks. Here is a statement that denies Rastafari as a black movement, that adheres to some naïve 'love sees no color' nonsense, and more, that suggests that the problem with the 'rastafari movement' is those darned blacks! Is it racist to accuse blacks of racial bigotry who get no consolation out of the idea of one big beautiful raceless world? As I and others here have said, there is no skipping steps. History must be acknowledged and accounted for, and then and only then can it be reconciled. It is a racist move to suggest that the only thing standing in the way of a perfect world is the stubborn insistence of blacks that whites face reality.
"Rasta doesnt deal with racism or any other ism" -- ras adam.
WELL YES that's the problem. Most White Rastas refuse to truly deal with the fact of race, let alone with racism.
These posts by Adam show the difficulties of whites aligning with Rasta.
While whites can't argue (unless they are fools) that Rasta is NOT a black movement about black liberation, they have a really hard time, because of the privilege they have and don't examine, dealing with the fact that all blacks are not going to be falling all over themselves to embrace them. Privileged whites are used to going where they go and doing what they do and saying what they say, assuming their presence and their voices are appropriate anywhere. When blacks take issue with this, whites who you think would know better, feeling to identify with Rasta, come back crying 'racist.' They are just not used to ANYBODY telling them they don't have a rightful claim to ANYTHING they feel like. They are deeply insulted, as we see here all the time.
This is the result of UNCONSCIOUS PRIVILEGE.
While some whites in Rasta find it completely okay to come to blacks talking about race-mixing, they never seem to take this issue OR ANY ISSUES OF RACE AND PRIVILEGE to other whites. They choose instead to use their privilege to be cool with blacks. What a waste, and what hypocrisy for white Rastas, who say they care so much about truth and rights and an end to racism, to deliberately marginalize themselves with all the outer shows of Rasta and FAILING to engage the fact that their countries are centers of White Supremacy and the source of most people's suffering in the whole world.
But this is privilege you see. We can play with ideas and be in some illusory one love with each other because we are NOT the victims, but live in the Babylon camp and benefit a million ways from that. So we don't HAVE to sacrifice or struggle; these issues are NOT life or death to us.
If we don't like being in the Babylon camp, the way out is NOT to affiliate with a black movement and think that's that. If we are truly trying to align with Rasta, we would be working hard among our own to bring this Babylon down. But that wouldn't be as much fun as doing Rasta things and feeling like we're making a profound statement to other whites with our dreads and black companions and counterculture lifestyle. It comes as a shock to white Rastas that some blacks find all of this highly insulting, an appropriation of the outward aspects of a culture with no true appreciation or understanding of it. How could whites understand? They are not black. If whites could accept this fact, they would be able to stand in solidarity with blacks and assume their proper role in relation to black movements. Because of the religious aspect of Rasta, whites who embrace it think to take very peculiar liberties with black culture. But that is for another article.
It is APPROPRIATE that white voices not be the primary voices in a black movement. Whites thinking to make their name as Rastas are not only pathetic and insecure, they SUPPORT the continuation of white supremacy.
As I said, Adam does what I see whites do all the time when black people speak their truth, which is to accuse blacks of race prejudice. It is disturbing because he portrays himself as one of the 'good whites' and clearly believes it. Adam takes it a step further however by again and again using loaded language in which he accuses blacks of hate speech, and compares them with Hitler and the Klan!
Perhaps a more self-reflective individual would wonder at the violence of his own reaction, rather than projecting 'racial bigotry' onto blacks. But this is the reaction of privilege to any challenge to it, and this attitude is so deeply ingrained that the individual does not realize he is speaking out of a set of unconscious assumptions which have entwined themselves around his personality like a poisonous vine. Adam mocks 'some conspiracy theory of a master plan to lighten the white race.' The theory of evolution and Einstein's theory of relativity are theories too. I sincerely hope he is not a history teacher. It reminds me of Ashcroft implying that the ones accusing the U.S. of a coup against Aristide were just a bunch of crazy black folks.
Ras Adam goes further here to accuse blacks of supremacist views if they don't agree that 'race-mixing' is a good thing. I think that in the end statements like this speak to the insecurity of whites, and in particular white Rastas, who seem to believe that it should be enough for blacks that they embrace an African messiah, and they should be welcomed unquestioningly into the fold. They are highly insulted if what they see as their unlimited right to express themselves in any way they feel like is challenged. Again, privilege. Whites will continue to feel insecure as long as they fail to gain insight into the role that privilege plays in so many of their assumptions.
If a white person is 'conscious' enough to declare him or herself a Rasta, he or she should have the personal integrity to understand that this dictates a lifelong effort to combat white supremacy, and that the work is not going to be done in a Nyahbinghi drum circle, but among other whites. Instead on these boards we see White Rastas who operate to a large degree out of white supremacy and their white privilege, and apparently feel no obligation to engage in any serious self-examination.
It is not surprising that Adam or any other white holds racist views, and speaking from experience I know that it takes a lifetime to root them out. Having embraced Rasta from an early age myself, I learned as a white to address my racism, and white supremacy as an institution. Observing the behavior of white Rastas, I see that most bring their unexamined privilege in with them, and proceed to scuffle with blacks about their right not only to be there, but to be spokesmen. It is educating to see that white Rastas are just as unwilling as other whites to deal in an honest and courageous manner with racism, and disgusting that they use the rhetoric and trappings of Rasta to differentiate themselves from other whites, while putting out none of the effort that would make this be so. As so many times in history, we see on display the deep-seated assumption that blacks should exists merely to serve whites' comfort.
http://www.rootsie.com/articles/2004/1906.html
|
|
