Race, Gender, Pretty Awkward, Quick Follow Up

We are really enjoying the conversations taking place on our post about race and gender. We look forward to having more of these conversations in the future.

I do want to point out a few things:

  • The post was not meant to be definitive, canonical, or in any way an all-encompassing final word on such a subject. That’s not at all possible. It was meant to begin a conversation, which it did.
  • We don’t have any answers.
  • I failed to acknowledge in my initial post that everyone holds some kind of privilege at least here in the US and I think it is important to know that.
  • Whenever the word “race” is mentioned, people seem to have a hard time reading the words which precede and follow.
  • There may not be a way to discuss issues of race, gender, class, sexuality, etc, without getting defensive.
  • Dicksizing when it comes to ways in which we are marginalized is not productive. Your experiences do not negate mine and vice versa.
  • The writing always always comes first, editorially speaking. We are confident that is reflected by the work we publish.

As I read many of the comments, I was reminded of writer and performance artist damali ayo, who (in 2007, I believe) disseminated a really useful, clever handbook on dealing with racism in which she explicitly addresses both white people and people of color. I offer that PDF here, without additional commentary.