‘Dear White People’: The Three Words That Divide
Fomenting division through clicks
The following is an excerpt from my latest article posted to Growing up Alienated. Check out the full article here.
Everyone has an opinion. And when it comes to social justice issues, anything goes. Or rather, anything goes if the white person is on the receiving end of the blame. Condemning the white monolith is so in vogue that you won’t be cancelled or criticized by espousing hate and condemnation of an entire swath of people on the basis of their whiteness. If anything, you will be lauded for helping white people seek penance for their sins. All you have to do is write a scathing piece tearing down all white people. There’s no nuance, no class-based analysis, no acknowledgment of ethnic differences, and so on. Nope. All white people are either doing too much or not doing enough; they’re too vocal or not vocal enough; too guilty, or not guilty enough. Forgive me Lord for I have sinned.
I don’t expect to see much compassion or attempt at nuance in a ‘Dear White People’ article because that’s not the point of these articles — most of us know it, yet we still read them. Guilty as charged. It’s a strategic move done on the basis of what will get the most clicks, not on sincerely inviting discourse. There’s no consequence for writing such an article…
