BudandBlessings

Female MC Hall of Fame

The Source Magazine (October, 1997)

Solidarity is the idea that we as people of color all stand united against a common enemy and a common struggle. But that in and of itself is a lie because we do not all live under the same structures or system of oppression to the same degree.

White supremacy is hierarchal. White people are at the top and even amongst white people there are variations due to things like xenophobia. And black people are at the bottom. This leaves non black people of color dispersed throughout this hierarchy above and below each other but all above black people.

Non-black people of color both benefit from anti-black racism and benefit from the progress that we make as a black community. And therefore non-black people of color act as oppressor and actively uphold, participate in, and maintain anti-black racism within their community to secure their place in the white supremacist hierarchy. But at the same time they benefit off of our work as a community. And therefore they expect us to work to uplift them while maintaining our place beneath them.

I’m going to use black lives matter as an example. When black lives matter first became a rallying cry for the black community back in 2013, overwhelmingly non-black people of color did not support us. They were right there next to white people yelling for our public executions because we had the audacity to stop traffic. It was not until white people began to get on board with Black Lives Matter last year that non-black color could be seen en mass participating. They did not get involved until they have nothing to lose within the white supremacist hierarchy.

Now look at the recent stop Asian hate movement. This is only made possible because of the high productivity of the black lives matter movement. And we are not only expected, but chastised for not doing as much work as They think we should from the onset of this new movement. Overwhelmingly the Asian American community stood alongside white people to condemn the Black Lives Matter movement until they had nothing to lose in the white supremacist hierarchy but now that they are able to create their own on the back of our movement, the expectation is that we must not only assist but atone and grovel at the same time.

This is not to say that there are not individual acts of solidarity amongst non-black people of color. But when we say that solidarity is a myth what we mean is that there exists no solidarity between people of color as communities because non black people of color benefit from and perpetuate anti black racism.

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