When I was first started my journey of understanding how race plays a part in my life I was very close to someone who showed white exceptionalism and white shame. I distinctly remember whenever they would get on social media they were always looking for a fight with someone especially republicans. They thrived off of aggressively arguing with others and would just completely run the name of the person they were talking to on social media through the mud on public comments and verbally to everyone in earshot. I also remember them saying to people of color "I hate white people. White people are the worst." even though they themself were white. I remember how uncomfortable I felt with their approach both over social media and when they dealt with things in person. I would try to talk to them about it and ultimately I was told " I say that to people of color to let them know I'm one of the good ones and that they can trust me. As for the social media stuff, you fight them or you're just as bad as they are". Since I have a more gentle approach and prefer to have conversations with people to talk about their reasonings and their life experience to help them better understand why what they say or do is problematic I was often told I was part of the problem. I really struggled for a long time feeling like the effort that I put into educating myself and what I did to combat racism wasn't enough because I wasn't overly abrasive about it. Now that I have sat through the first part of this module I now see how important balance is when working towards being an ally and being anti-racest. It also really made me stop and check-in with myself what my intentions were and what language I used when sharing information on social media. I now ask myself does this come across as toxic white guilt? Or am I overstepping my boundaries/ talking over the voices of the people in that community? I think finding this balance between speaking out and sitting back to just listen might be one area I will continue to struggle in. I know that working on being anti-racest is something that I will be doing for the rest of my life, but I really hope at some point I do find that balance of speaking and listening to be a lot easier.
