Explaining racism gently is a waste of time.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ส.ค. 2022
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"Whiteness is a hatred of ancestry that doesn't know itself as such.
Sometimes it appears overtly in the white person committed to social justice who, the more they learn about their ancestry, the more they hate it. "I come from that?" they think to themselves. "How could anything good have come from that?" This kind of self hatred is obvious.
Sometimes it appears more covertly in the realms of white nationalism and white surpremacy.
How could the love and valourization of whiteness be self hatred? They are saying, "I'm white! White people have created Western Civilzation! White people are geniuses. White people are the dominant race!" etc.
I know it sounds like self love. I am suggesting that it is, in fact, self-loathing.
When white people point to all that white people have done for the world in terms of civilization and technology, let's be clear that they are talking about Empire. They are talking about that loose path from Greece to Rome to England to North America. They are talking about the victors. They are talking about the elite.
They aren't talking about the European peasantry. They aren't talking about those European Indigenous ones crushed under the heel of the boot of progress. They are talking about that historical 1% whose Empires flourished on the subjugation of others. Empires have always been built on the mass use of slavery (i.e. Rome and Greece were built using slave labour, America was built on the enslavement of people of colour) and the theft of land (e.g. North America being built on native American land).
So, do the math.
Most of our ancestors as white people were not the elite. Most of our ancestors, unless you come from Royal blood, were the peasants. Most of our ancestors were the historical 99%. And there are those in Europe, like the Sami pictured above, who still live in an indigenous way, close to the land and are actively engaged in the struggle to maintain their culture and language in the face of the still existing Empire. Indigenous Europeans are still here. They exist, present tense. And that which has been deeply disturbed, as the Gaelic culture in the Highlands of Scotland has been, there are still many working to preserve the culture in these harrowing modern times.
And white nationalism disavows these ancestors and cousins entirely. White nationalists tell themselves the story that their peasant ancestors were happy to embrace their Roman conquerors. That Empire was where it was all inevitably going anyway.
And so, white nationalists hate their own people - past and present. They love the concept of whiteness but they hate their actual ancestors. They hate their own kin.
They look at indigenous people today and feel a revulsion of them being backwards and resisting progress and being 'in the way' but what they are really feeling, utterly unbeknownst even to themselves, is a hatred of their own old timers and any of those who still live in a more traditional way. It's a deep wishing that we didn't come from what we actually came from or a deep unwillingness to learn the truth of it.
Dave Chappelle created a sketch on his show about a fellow named Clayton Bigsby who was a black white supremacist. He was blind and didn't know he was black and so, not knowing who he was, hated black people deeply and, with his Klan hood on, would speak to Klan rallies.
It's not that far off the mark from the reality of white people who are deeply in love with Empire and don't realize that 99% of their ancestors (and frankly, perhaps 100%) come from those people who resisted and were eventually defeated by Empire and became colonized into it at the point of a sword and forced conversion where you chose between Christ or burning.
Whiteness creates a fictional, glorious past and erases the real one. Whiteness erases the existence of people like the Sami who would not understand themselves as 'white'. Most white people I've met have never heard of a people like the Sami in Europe. White Nationalism keeps shouting that all of that is in the past.
Whiteness, a construct that began in earnest, in North America in the 1670's, is projected backwards in time (be clear that the English did not always consider themselves White and the Greeks and Romans never did and, again, the Sami don't either).
White Nationalism often appears as a self aggrandizement, a puffing up of the chest that occurs in order to cover the deep, spiritual emptiness and cultural poverty that Empire created and that whiteness exists to hide." - Tad Hargrave
So...I"m just gonna steal all of this.
Thaaaaaanks.
So here’s the thing all that you stated is what makes racism so appealing to the average white person. Basically racism took the root of royalism or elitism and made it based on race that way regardless of where a white personal is on the class scale he can always feel royal based on his race. That is why there are so many willingly white participants because of the benefits because it makes even the poorest destitute white person feel some type of royalty. It was a way that all white people can participate in the old as time royal elite blood status structure.
You’ve given me much to think on. Thank you.
Whiteness does many terrible things. One of the things, among the many terrible things, and not necessarily the most pressing but definitely still a real thing that it does, is that it assimilates, hollows out, and ultimately destroys the culture of the people subsumed into it. The culture of the marginal and the conquered, as Tad Hargrave notes in the above quote, but also the culture of the periphery elite that does not conform to whiteness (eg. whiteness in America also subsumes within itself and transforms the national identities of European immigrants). It's loss of culture many times over. First your Gallic tribe lost its identity to the Roman way, then your post-Roman people lost their identity to the Frankish way. Then they became French. Then finally you also lose Frenchness as you step foot into the U.S. and are conscripted into whiteness.
Anyone interested in this process, I would encourage you to read "How the Irish Became White" if you get the time and inclination.
It's always a weird moment when people realize that the concept of "white" was created to subject even it's own people into following the orders of the dominant class. My family is of Irish descent in Canada and we have always labeled ourselves as Irish, not white, and oddly because of that label the community is always much more willing to align itself with social justice issues rather than argue that we were something different from anyone else. "whiteness" is a lie used to create a collaition of ethnic groups so that they can serve the dominant powers.
People still cry about "wokeness" when we explain it gently anyways...
Tell me about it! 😅
Which is why I give it how it is. If that's too intense for them then they can walk away. It's not my job to sugar coat a brutal and extremely harmful reality.
They really think they know what the word woke means but the true meaning is and will always be lost on them.
Because it’s woke racist bullshit
You just have to be positive to any marginalized group to be labeled as woke now.
I explain on days where I have the mental energy to. Some days it's like "ok, so this is why racism is not just the overt burning cross imagery you see in your textbook" and other days (mostly) I'm like, "ok, so no amount of explaining will get you to think critically about your beliefs, so have a good one." It's just a "pick your battles" kind of thing.
For me, it's not my beliefs, it's the ignorance and actually changing something I get stuck on. But, I can empathize a little with the going around in circles/ not changing things. Sometimes you do gotta pick your battles
If someone says something stupid or weird about race i just tell em upfront theyre being stupid/weird.
If people gettin defensive im just like "alright but you heard it here first". like you have been told x group or y group is going to register what you sayin as prejudice. I dont get paid to explain to you "why isnt there a white history month" is a goofy comment.
@@PaintedHoundie because i'm half vietnamese and didn't learn anything about my people in school, that's why. seems weird, no?
You're allowed to pick and choose. I.e. genuinely talking to someone about race means that you trust them, and trust that they will take seriously what you're saying, even if they might have some misgivings. I try to tell white people that you don't have to "keep it light" or just be passive--you can disagree, so long as you're seriously engaging with the conversation than its fine.
But most importantly--they need to realize that it's not about them. I think this is a big thing. A lot of white people grow up seeing themselves as not part of a wider culture, they are individuals. Never mind that, like everyone else, they are products of their environment. And like everyone else, they consume and normalize problematic behavior--we all do. It's understanding that you are part of something bigger than yourself. But because white people don't see it that way, they immediately think that any topic of racism is about calling "them" racist. So they get defensive and kill any conversation that can be had.
It’s funny how some can understand vigilance for something like maintaining gun rights (despite ALL the access we have to guns) yet are confused when others are vigilant about racism.
I remember really irritating my Film and Ethics professor during the week we did Hotel Rwanda and Shooting Dogs because he only wanted to talk on the ethics WITHIN the films about genocide (like, what ethical issues? it's genocide, its one of the most clear cut ethical wrongs there is!) and I kept dragging him back to "ok, but surely its an ethical problem that Shooting Dogs, like so many of these films, is mediated through white protagonists rather than focusing on the black people actually suffering" (this was the same year that film about the Boxing Day Tsunami came out and was all about the american family who got caught up in it) and "isn't it an ethical problem that these films are only made years, if not decades, after the event because it means that people can feel good about feeling sad about it but then console themselves that these problems were a long time ago and there's nothing I can do about it now, when a lot of these problems are in fact still present in the current day."
I think one off the main criteria in this regard for diagnosing liberal (oscar) bait when it comes to films about race is, does it have a historical setting? Cus if so, it's probably not going to ask the audience to engage with the issue beyond "feels bad, man."
I was in a book club run by a white English major and it was so frustrating. She only wanted to talk about race in the book and would kinda shut it down when a black person talked about the book in the context of her life it was so weird. Why be a film teacher or English major if you dont like thinking about books or films?
You'd think in a class called "Film and Ethics", the professor would expand beyond the literal text. The complexity of these issues can and should be unpacked in a university setting because the narrative film structure can only convey so much - hence "feels bad man"
@@HT-pl8du actually talking about race can lead to absolute shut down in uncomfortable white people. I’ve been that uncomfortable white man having to answer for how a black woman was treated in my part of a training program. Fuck was that uncomfortable. Even when my end was “You were a late addition so NO I can’t accommodate your extensive list of time you want off on this on-call list. I’m not treating you bad cause your black, I’m treating you bad because being a first year resident is always bad”. But actually having to interrogate if that was truth with a black chief resident made it a little better. A little.
A big case in point for me about this thing is films like Dances with Wolves and Avatar which are all bemoaning the plight of indigenous people but have the white guy who coopts, er...I mean "adopts" their culture saving them in defiance of all history. They're so prevalent that everyone of all political points is sick of them. While there are essentially no Oscar movies that focus on issues in Native American communities today, i.e. continuing alcoholism, poverty, rampant sex abuse of indigenous women largely by white dudes. Because that would involve action instead of performativity.
#OscarsSoRacismPorn
I remember seeing 12 Years a Slave in the theater. Within the first 15-20 min, the white woman next to me was like “oh my gosh” and crying. And I’m looking at her like 😑 what did you think this was going to be? I hope you didn’t think this movie on slavery was going to be subtle like The Help.
I'm going though these comments dying; I am not as blunt as I thought I was xD
That movie sucked too lol
Shouldve been like...now imagine 120 years
@@TheLily97232 The events of that movie actually happened to a real slave. And I think they thought the movie was “standout” cuz he wasn’t actually born a slave.
I went to see "The Help" at the theater and though I forget what scene it was, I heard nearby sniffling and looked over to see some non black lady wiping tears from her eyes. Me and the person I was with (both of us are black) were like 😐...😒...😂 which I know it seems kind of messed up to laugh but you would have thought we were watching Rosewood or something.
This is why white people championing the Daryl Davis dude who “converts” KKK members never sat right with me. Just cause he has the patience and headspace to be able to supersede any sort of racial tension in his mind doesn’t mean all of us do or even desire to
Not trying to say you can't feel this way, but how is his action ever make it seems like you need to follow him? I myself am not the type that go out and fight, the most I do is click 'like' when some feminists throw disparaging remarks to pro birthers. Other people's activism and their dedication to it has not in any way a reflection of me as a woman. I'm a lazy HUMAN not a lazy woman.
And the fact they try to act like the fact that it’s not our role or possibly even within our capability they act like you’re the problem.
“He’s doing the work to convert people, why can’t you? You’re driving people away? They’ll go back to their old ways if you’re not holding their hand all the time. Stop getting mad at them”
That interview with that Daryl character still doesn’t sit right with me. The way he was trying to get on some BLM activists’ case over the fact that they “weren’t nice to KKK members and white supremacists” and that they basically weren’t him. Goofy sh*t.
If I’m gonna give grace to any racist it’s gotta be in a very controlled environment. I don’t seek them out. The setting requires them to actually consider what’s being said. And I’m not ever gonna debate the humanity of people like me or otherwise. Sometimes it’s hard to not want to do it for individuals you happen to care about, but “pick your battles” is the most fitting thing here
@@aesyamazeli8804 It's not his actions that make it seem like he needs to be followed, but the people CHAMPIONING the dude-- THOSE people are putting pressure on people and basically going "well you're just X/Y/Z, look at this dude he can put all this aside and be the better man and help".
Not a good look, using someone as a prop to put others down.
A lot of people fail to understand they do that when they go from admiring someone ("I wish we had more people like him", which is valid, or "I'll strive to be like him" which is even more so) to idolizing and WEAPONIZING someone they put on a pedestal and then use to measure others' worth and inevitably coming up short AND failing to empathize with these non-paragons and their frustrations.
He's used the same way as MLK is used: to tell PoC to stop being so angry, to protest and to do so quietly, and (more importantly) to dissuade potential actions of political violence in which white people would likely be the recipients.
I always thought dude was weird. I dont think he doing damage or anything but people using his story as the ideal hopeful way to combat racism or intolerance i never really related to it. it was just a good story but in the grand scheme of things it wasnt all that heartwarming. probably cause im just thinkin of how weird itd be to have a friend circle full of former klansmen.
I explain racism with all of its horrors. I often lead with Black babies being used as alligator bait. I’ve had White people try to make racism less horrific than it is, so now I just go all in early and often. They usually are horrified.
I need to go in and do this because people stay trying us, and acting like they wouldn't prefer for things to go back to how they were.
@juice box As a writer: Sometimes you gotta apply a Punch to get the audience's attention centered on what you want them to see!
May both you and fslayer1290 have a good day! (signed, a dude who had to get a metaphorical roundhouse kick to learn to STFU and STFD.)
Hey if you have the patience for that, that's your right. I can't do it anymore. I really can't. Last time I actually 'argued' about this shit, I was trying to debate with someone who was justifying tamir rice's murder (my state). I looked myself in the mirror and said never again girl, let them go to hell
But I wish you blessings always ❤️
Edit--this isn't supposed to be judging you, I just judge myself because I really don't have the emotional fortitude to do it anymore. I have too much stuff wrong with myself that I gotta focus on before I start getting yt ppl together lol
That's how it should be done pure facts, such as white kids looking AT the lynchings and lynchings pictures sent as postcards to family relatives...
@@fideletamo4292 my US history teacher in high school actually did show us postcards of lynchings and how they were seen as a public spectacle to take your kids to
My brother worked at an independent movie theater and would refer to films that did this as "white guilt" movies. People (esp those with money) show up, be shocked, maybe get misty eyed, talk about it in the lobby, and then do nothing with those words they spoke.
Helps them feel like a good person
@@TheLily97232 exactly I'm glad there's white people who see what black men like me have been saying for years
Kavernacle is another great white person who points out was FD is pointing out here
Tara Mookne is another good white TH-camr who does a great job actually acknowledging this too
@@thepubknight6144 Both of them being Irish definitely helps in the understanding department.
That's stupid! Movies tell a story especially when it comes to tragedy, storytelling is a part of who we are.
@@deborahminter6231 It can enable some white people to project their racism onto other white people so that they can avoid looking at themselves. It perpetuates self-delusion rather than self-examination and confirms their self image as good people. Racism is something those other unenlightened people do, not me.
I saw the trailer for the Emmett Till movie when my friend (also Black) and I went to see Nope. As soon as we saw the opening shot we looked at each other like "I know what this is 😕"
Needless to say we're not going to pay to watch a watered down movie on one of the most traumatic events in recent Black History
It’s the fact that they have a trailer for a movie capitalizing on a tragedy play before a movie commenting on capitalizing tragedy.
Truly disgusting stuff
SAME SHIT, I saw that with my gf and immediately was like - "I recognize this kid, is that Emmet?" - dude I hate when Hollywood does this shit, Emmet is literally the definition of "The streets will never forget" but I also feel like this movie is just Oscar bait
@@lancinekeita4823 I feel so validated, I saw the trailer here on yt but same. First opening shot I said ooooh I know what's going down. Once I had a black friend in college tell me she had to comfort a yt girl who cried for hours when she first realized how bad slavery was... I think this movie finna make a lot of ignorant yts cry lol. I'm not their therapist tho, so !
@@deanscordilis7280 The thought process was definitely "Black people are gonna watch Nope, so they're gonna love this" 🙄
As a white leftist who lives in the south when I try to explain racism to my non-political/conservative (even liberal) peers it can be incredibly frustrating and exhausting, but I'm white so I can't even begin to imagine the frustrating of explaining racism to someone whilst facing it everyday yourself. TH-cam actually recommended a great video to me for once. Good work.
Well said, thank you for being the best ally you can be
Right. I think this is why most of us blacks avoid these conversations in white presence esp on the internet. It’s all triggering and stressful for all parties. Someone is bound to misunderstand someone. Education is our best friend these days. Not arguments.
I’m glad you said “even liberal”, because racism can be at its most pernicious among those that think they are free of it. Some of the least self aware (wrt racism) people I have encountered have been somewhere on the left, especially the further you go. I’m supposed to set aside racial politics and support their revolution because socialism will somehow magically solve racism.
Pointing out liberal, progressive, or socialist racism hurts their self image, and their self image is always always the priority. Pointing it out hurts their cause or is a distraction or obstacle to be swept aside. Prioritizing class struggle lets them covertly prioritize their whiteness. Have you ever been told that class politics are real, but identity politics are not?
My mind is like a garden that must be tended. The seeds of racism have been mixed into the soil of this garden, so part of the work is to pull out the weeds of racism. This is unpleasant work. It’s ongoing work. And I despair of those who go to great pains to conceal (from themselves and from others) the weeds of racism that grow in their minds. I guess no one likes being told they missed a spot.
When I was in 6th grade, I think this was 2009-2010, we were assigned to pick a black historical figure to write about. I had picked emitt till from the list they had given us. Writing the essay on him was kinda traumatizing for me. Especially be cause I didn’t know who he was, I only saw a friendly looking boy that looked like me. Not only that he was only a few years older than I was when he died which even disturbed me even more. I can not tell you what the faces of my classmates looked like as I read out his gruesome murder to the class. The saddest thing about shit like this is that we have so many martyrs from the black community through out our time in America, and their stories are being actively suppressed due to the fact the white Americans wanna hide the lengths of their brutality throughout history.
"Their" brutality?...
@@christopherbrown5409 yes their
@@christopherbrown5409 Out of curiosity, did you think it was supposed to be there or they’re? Their is correct.
@@Theendbeginsagain no; I asked that for an entirely different reason.
@@danielmontoya2494 and what do these living White people have to do with past atrocities?
Tony Morrison said it Oprah, if you’re always explaining yourself to affirm your existence to someone who actively doesn’t care. I’m paraphrasing, but it’s exhausting talking to someone who’s rebuttals are logical falsehoods.
Exactly. Add to that gaslighting, goal post-shifting, whataboutism and overall denial. Please anyone else, feel free to add to the list. I'm tired, too.
That's why I just cut off and move on. People sometimes just don't care at all
The sad reality is that many people are incapable of really listening to anyone they don't see as an authority figure, but they may not realize it. That means Black women often cannot educate anyone who isn't also a women of color- someone of similar station in our social hierarchy. Even as teachers, counselors, or even as parents, the question becomes does this person respect you as an authority? If not, you're probably just wasting precious energy.
@@jenniferw7928 that’s your problem right there Jennifer. You feel you are entitled to automatic respect and deference due to your station. The real question you should be asking is whether the person you are talking to addresses and fairly represents your argument in even the most heated debate. THAT is what respect looks like.
You don’t get to come at people from a default place of authority, you have to engage in the arena of ideas just like everyone else.
I always hear the "13% of the population commits 90% of all crime" argument from them all the time, it's their go to
When I saw this trailer, I was like "Why? Who is this for? It's not for black folk". I thought literally everything you said. Emmitt Till one of the most important stories from black history, and making a movie about it in 2022 is just hokey imo.
White folks need to Know about racism more...if a movie Can Do this then let it be...
💯 me and my wife was like “dude why”?
Wait. Wait. 2022?!
Okay this is not the thing I saw. I saw a short horror film beautifully composed by a black director. I remember telling him how people making things like his work was part of why I bothered going to film school in the first place- the way his film hit me spun me full around.
This was in like 2019.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S NOT THAT ONE. 😟
And the fascist far right are gonna hand wring about it everywhere .
It’s not even teach white people about racism. Just teach people the right way with critical thinking since people in general are seriously braindead on so many issues affecting people’s lives. So many racists weirdos are just so immature, self centered and just troll like toward everything.
I have mostly gone the “Google is free” route lately. I used to spend far too much time saying the same crap over and over again to people who had the ability to do the research themselves.
Quick devil's advocate thing: Google customizes your search results for what you've been looking for so just going "google it" can land people in worse holes than they already are in. "Go bother somebody else" might be better if you don't feel like wasting energy you can put to better use doing things you actually have fun with.
@@neoqwerty Not my problem
something that helped me is to have a paragraph to basically explain the concepts ready to
copy and passte in my notes app. So i dont waste time
explaining basic concepts but i also help direct them towards WHAT they should google exactly. idk how much it actually helps but its easier than wasting time writing paragraphs and paragraphs for nothing
It's always fun to throw "do your own research" back at the "do your own research" crowd
@@neoqwerty Knowledge is always there for those who seek it. Those who want to, will, and those who don't, won't. Some people are just lost and it's time we all stop wasting our time, beating our heads against the brick wall of other people's willful ignorance.
Oh boy. It's that time of year again to sell all my aunts and uncles a dose of black pain and trauma so they can brag at Thanksgiving about passively observing dramatized racism for 2 hours and how they're such good allies for it
Worst holiday
Makes me a sad man
Pretty sure some past employers of mine gonna do this exact same thing.
@@banquetoftheleviathan1404 still better than Christmas lol
@@Alex_Barbosa at least you get stuff on xmas tho. but yeah ugly aesthetic
When I saw the news about the Emmett Till movie all I thought was, "Of all the tasteless motherfucking things..."
What you said about it essentially being made to teach white people about racism seems spot on. Something sentimental to show white people "how bad it was" for them to cry over then move on. It probably won't move anyone to action, probably no one will learn anything from it...it'll be seen as an insular tragedy or just a movie
Also what you said about "look at those bad white people". It allows people to see systemic issues as a problem of a few "bad ones"
But it should be taught in school correct?
Edit: I think there’s some good media garbage in my comment but WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT THE SAME FILM.
_I am referring to a short film that I saw in 2019 from a black director. That this is not what is being referred to, and it is a planned release for 2022, fills me with nausea and bile._
If we’re talking about the same film, it was shown while I was in film school and helped ax my blind connection to white feminism, and helped me start educating myself on how white women find power and security under white supremacy & fascism.
FD is absolutely right that a ton of white people are going to see that movie and go “wow they’re so evil good thing I’m not like that” and move on, which btw? Gross. Shallow and ugly and gross. Where I put myself as a white creator after seeing a well crafted, gut pulling, historically relevant horror movie is to bring that to the attention of white people with the brunt of the emotional labor on me. I didn’t know what specifically happened to Emmett Till, and the two or so sentences we generally get when we ask about him, aren’t going to capture the antihuman brutality of racism. Maybe I’m just a visual learner, and it helped I was already radicalizing as a humanist.
Idk people who find that kind of thing akin to fictional evil and just a movie don’t want to (consciously or subconsciously) deal with the plain text of it. To me the context of the system that celebrated the murder of a black child based on a white woman lying to power trip is baked into the story, but I was watching the film wanting to learn regardless of how uncomfortable it made me. The process of learning and moving away from indoctrination is uncomfortable.
Also, not to be presumptuous, but you have a white person in your pfp that I’m assuming is allegorical to you the human, so like...
it’s important imo for us to also watch failed attempts at getting white people to understand racism, especially content made by other white people (which the film is not, but) to understand where we have the most resistance to the truth, what lies pseudo-colorblind/liberal white people tell themselves to justify white supremacy. Idk keeps me aware of harmful narratives and prevents me from backsliding, and I can find little bits of negligence in myself to weed out.
TLDR my idiot ass was ignorant in assuming this was referring to a short film that’s existed for years, not a *_new and upcoming full length movie what the FUCK_*
When the WW who started it all is still alive. Her and the lynchers should have been arrested 70y ago but instead, they all got to die peacefully of old age. Till's family recently found an unserved warrant in a basement and a judge refused to have it serve.
Meanwhile Black kids (6yo) are sent before a judge for picking flowers. I really wish, White people stopped talking of racism in terms of morally good or bad (bec. they are all thinking of themselves as "good" and moving on with their lives), and start talking about it in terms of power structures, bec. then "good" people still benefit from it and should pitch in to fight against it.
@@SmartDave60 my teacher was really cool and taught me stuff like the Tulsa massacre and we did learn about Emmitt till. I think that was useful because we talked about the history of black males being called predators, his mother, and then the context of how it spurred forward the civil rights movement. I dont know but i feel like the movie won't talk so much about the history or context and it'll just be like "look what the racism did to the black people" and maybe it just wants people to feel pity. Which is only half of the feelings imo
@@HT-pl8du but if a movie DID include the entire picture you’d embrace it?
I've stopped explaining racism to yt people period. The few non Black friends I have left lol care about me as a person so when they've asked me questions on anti Blackness, they've been pretty respectful and I can tell they are being authentic in their interest and concern. They're not just trying to 'debate the Black girl' or poke at my traumas with morbid curiosity. They seem sincerely curious and trying to grow or learn. It also comes up as a natural part of conversation and doesn't trigger any red flags with me emotionally. I feel safe and secure so I'm able to be honest with them with no sugar coating. I'm so glad I've moved beyond being the 'political Black friend' to people who just saw me as a way to gain access to Black thought and not a whole human being with feelings.
I actually don't think that you can 'teach' white people about racism that effectively. The people who genuinely want to do better tend to find their way to Black educators and pay them accordingly for their time. Everyone else is trying to learn just enough surface level knowledge to make themselves feel better and to be able to put on an 'ally' performance as needed.
I really don't know what to do at this point, like i don't want to say its a lost cause but....
@@sunflowersamurai10 the best you can ever do is possibly push them in that direction. That assuming that you know they have the potential to be pushed. They might end up having to go through something before there is more willingness to listen and you can't account and expect that you can do that. There are a lot of other things that support the status quo, and they have to tackle those before and along side the discussion institutional and cultural racism.
@@sunflowersamurai10 I'm a white person so my advice can't overlap 100%. And sorry for the rambliness ahead.
But like being neurodivergent and trans I've found out that its just best to pick your battles and to try to not care if you come off as "bitchy or rude" when upholding boundaries. That's their fucking privilege stinking up the place and not your problem. But this dynamic is obviously gonna be different if you're getting racism in the workplace for instance.
Obviously this is easier said than done. And I obviously can't say how often this type of shit affects you. But regardless, I can offer two bits of advice which can really help minority stress of any kind: try to exercise self-compassion meditation along with dialectical behavior exercises. The latter basically just means channeling your frustrations into something that you can change or mold.
For example, I live in a US state with a lot of anti-transness, and so one thing that's really helped for me whenever a new piece of proposed anti-trans legislation rolls around is to actively seek out "self compassion meditation" videos and to express my frustrations either through poetry or working on building mutual aid networks with other trans folk.
Fam…when I was in college one of my suite mates was this conservative frat buy who LOVED debating people on politics and was so lacking in self awareness that he couldn’t understand why I as a black man wanted nothing to do with that conversation. And the irony is the dude would go to my roommate and always talk about how he thought I was smart but couldn’t get a “read on my politics” and my roommate had to explain to this dude that no one wants to debate the validity of their existence and why they should or shouldn’t have basic human rights. As far as your last paragraph on teaching away racism, you can’t. They have to want to unlearn otherwise its a lost cause. And it definitely ain’t our responsibility to teach em either. What’s hilarious is that the suite mate isn’t as conservative as he used to be but even still it’s like he wants a pat on the back for not being as much of a disrespectful pos as he once was.
It sounds like such a heavy and exhausting thing to carry, and not something you can ever be 'unaware' of. All the theatre around 'educating yourself' is so far removed from what should be propelling a person to learn about these things, and it is theatre - to the point that black people become characters and, like you say, only exist as a way to gain access to Black Thought.
I learned this story from a rogue teacher ONCE in seventh grade. Never said a word to my mom or any other teacher. He really wanted us to know the lengths white people would unnecessarily go through instead of the product trading systems we were taught four years straight.
I'm not even sure how you can make a movie about something this horrific and have it be meaningful and real. You'd almost have to go full on Passion of the Christ and just depict the raw brutality and inhumanity in a way that would make theaters hesitant to even show it, let the absolute horror of the crime sink in so that when the perpetrators walk away free men it has an actual impact. Somehow I don't think mainstream audiences would dig that though.
They’re insane if they actually show details of a 14 year old brutally tortured. I think they have the sense not to tho.
Traumatise the shit out of them! Make them whine about it and the brutality of it all and you can turn around and say it happened and it still happens! That’s the only way a film like this could ever make the change it says it wants to make imo. Make it a pill that sticks in your throat
my old highschool teacher actually taught us about Emmet Till including Black Wallstreet and the reality of the deep roots of systemic racism. He was such a cool dude.
I dont plan to watch the Till movie but it is supported by Mamie Till and their family. I hope it brings them whatever healing they need.
Not supported by Mamie Till cuz she died in 2003. Maybe the other family tho.
@@dejstoney I get how you feel, this story has traumatized me since my school in st.louis taught me about and it scarred me as a black boy then. But I know reasons for why this film is coming out now is because it's hit a lot of walls and many No's. One of the producers who's name is Keith Beauchamp has been trying to get this film made for decades. As far back as the early 2000's when mother Mamie Till (Emmetts mom) was alive because he worked with her and filmed a documentary on the Emmett while she was alive and many witnesses. If you've seen the clips of her sharing the trauma of identifying his body that was filmed by Keith so that's a root reason for the film coming out now. Also cause there's been a pushed to still arrest and charge the woman who lied on Emmett while she is still here and someone can be held accountable. But I completely at the end of the day I know the story like the back my hand, my family has links to the reality my grandfather was civil rights leader in the 50's and 60's then he became a pastor and was under the head pastor whom did the eulogy for Emmett, my cousin sanged at his funeral, my family went to church with Queen Mother Mamie Till in Illinois, my family lived on the same block where Emmett grew up so the reality is very much integral to me on many personal levels and is traumatic for me.
So sad that so much black media goes into explain racism 😩 wish someone could just make original stories that involved black people
I think it's mostly because people have started to see art as a tool for social and political change. Because it reaches a large audience, it's an opportunity to speak to the masses on issues they otherwise wouldn't tune in for on their own.
@@Alex_Barbosa art has always been a tool for social & political change
@@f1i273 what I meant was, that's all they see it as right now.
I was just thinking about this yesterday; I was thinking about how exhausting it is having to explain racism in 2022. As if there hasn't been decades of explaining it, if people actually cared they'd educate themselves -I'm no longer doing so. Seeing documentaries where MLK was literally explaining everything that's still being said today about Racism annoyed me and made me feel drained.
When some color act like criminal monkeys....sorry, it's on you to end racism
My exact feelings! They know it exists, they collectively choose not to do anything about it.
@@Tonia682 what can be done? What can people individually do? What is the solutions?
I remember having a very inexplicable but visceral reaction to Lovecraft Country incorporating Emmett Till as a character.
It was probably the most terrifying thing in the show for me. Seeing him as a living breathing child having fun at a party only for him to all of sudden go “missing”.
I hated it. I really, really hated it. I had to stop watching after that.
Geezus christ....😬
Why? It's just pure facts that's how it happened..he was alive then he was killed...
Honestly I avoided the show mostly on the basis that Lovecraft was a deeply deeply racist man and the majority of his stories and settings were extremely bigoted. The most obv example is him naming his cat the n-word, but that's not ever scratching the surface
@@fideletamo4292 doesn't mean its not terrifying and triggering for black folk??
@@fideletamo4292 what an idiotic thing to say
I can't remember what book I read it in and it basically summed it up as "if the decency of white people was ever going to fix the problem of racism, it would've already happened." When you have this conversation so many times with people, even friends who are in no way trying or understanding what you're saying you'll just give up. Its not even that there's not a capacity for them to understand it but that their entire universe and system is about them not engaging. At every meaningful point it is about them having the easy set of tools to just not engage meaningfully. Its gotten to the point as a gay black man that I just don't bother on either side anymore, there's no point. There's only so many times you can give these people sympathy while they give you none.
I would amend the term to...if the decency of racist ever changed we would see change. I have no patience for racism...pure insanity.
What you said about "Till" reminded me of when one of my white friends and I went to the African American Wax History Museum in Baltimore. Despite the infamous basement, staring at the horrors of slavery, and seeing an exhibit on every known lynching victim in Maryland (including pictures). The white person I went with just moved on like nothing happened and is pro police and holds lots of racist views. I've tried talking to him about it, to no avail. Yeah showing white people Black pain won't fix racism. Like you said they move one, blame others and don't examine themselves, or the systems that caused that pain in the first place.
It's because they really think it's in the past and our country doesn't have a serious racism problem anymore. They really think that when it happens, it's all very separate incidents with no common denominator.
@@mrcojocaru agreed, I also think white habitus plays a role too. I'm white (Irish) and if I wasn't in constant contact with Black people because I live in Baltimore I imagine I'd be like that dude if I'm brutally honest with myself. It's easy to pretend it's "all over now" when you aren't seeing your friends, neighbors, etc dealing with it. When I was growing up in a very white suburb it was a lot easier to go "that was bad, but it's all over with". I'm not saying I'm perfect now, it's just harder to ignore when there's parts of your city called "the white L".
I hope that person isn’t your friend anymore because if so you are complicit
@@sophiecomedian7166 you might have a point, but a lot of people completely refuse to listen, make excuses, or whatever. I don't really have a lot of black friends, my area is mostly White, and I grew up in a racist community, so I just wanted to make a change because I knew that a whole group of people can't just be somehow worse lol. I think you'd still be a good dude.
@@ZebraForceKid I'm not the person you were responding to, but sometimes those people are family. The trouble is that you have some good family and some bad family and you can't really separate them and you usually see them all at once. It's very conflicting.. I'll say that.
I’m a 32 year old white dude and it’s crazy how much I ‘was not’ taught in school growing up. I learned about most of American horror stories ‘after’ graduating high school. Our education system is just a failure.
That's why movies are important...
@@fideletamo4292 Not if the movies are just suffering/inspiration pr0n or white savior/white guilt BS. I'd rather not have had Sia's Music, and that's a popular take from the neurodivergent community, so I'mma assume that other minorities don't like those genres either.
It’s by design
@@dirtbikehussle61 I was just gonna post the same thing. Our education system is working as designed, and with all the hysteria surrounding CRT it's only going to get "better." 'It's not a bug - it's a feature.'
@@jimmiefarmer3022 I mean, just because it's working as designed doesn't mean it's not broken. Both can be true. They designed the system to break, and it broke. So it's broken. If 6-year-old me throws my toy Han Solo into the air and he shatters on the asphalt, I made it break. It worked as planned, and it broke.
I'm currently doing research for my graduate program on Whiteness and racism, and an interesting thing that has come up is that the number 1 predictor for whether someone will resist and eventually dismiss work around diversity or racism is color blindness. Like you said, it's a commitment to not seeing the reality, and any "lesson" people might take gets watered down to "we're all people and we all struggle", and allows folks to completely divorce themselves from reality.
Oh yeah like having read black authors on colorblindness, it's really interesting albeit super frustrating to see phenomena basically repeating itself with genderblindness (esp towards trans people) and (sexual/romantic) orientationblindness as transness and non-hetero orientations become more accepted in society. And as a queer trans person, if someone says "I don't care if you're gay or trans or whatever: I care about what you can bring to the table", I'll know to avoid them if I can.
So I'm a white person who grew up with the understanding that "We dont see color" ment that us as a family do not see someone of a different race or back ground as lesser, or a threat or what ever. But we where still taught about racism and the general fucked up shit that POC go through from society/government/what have yous, ao it was wild when I got to the age where I figured out that that wasnt the way a lot of people saw it
S'just... So weird.
Yup. Same with trying to use fantasy metaphors to teach white people about racism. If you can't summon up empathy and look at history even as white washed as it is and understand racism then I can't help you.
I mean for anybody who watched a movie with a fantasy metaphor about race and thought "gosh i never understood the plight of poc in America until this sexy snake anime girl explained it to me " like think about that sentence and how messed up it is that you couldn't relate to another human being but you could relate to made up race and why that is.
Agreed and in my experience, racism is mostly represented on a personal level. It's never the systems themselves that are racist just some "bad apples" and even on a personal level they still flunk. A great example of this is harry potter. It is very clear wizard society is systemically racist both to the magical creatures and to normal humans but at the end of it, the problem was Voldemort and harry becomes a cop. The whole allegory doesn't even make sense when you consider that the world has the same exact history as ours and apparently people of colour exist.
@@missmymama1140 Harry Potter does not make any thematic sense. The most pervasive theme of Hermione's character is that she's muggle-born and that she's therefore "not a real witch", and that she should be ashamed of her heritage. All the designated "evil" people in the universe are telling her that the circumstances of her birth makes her lesser than everyone else around her who has a birthgiven right to be there, yet she proves them wrong again and again that she's far better than them(except for Harry Sue of course), and she makes a note of that she's not ashamed of her heritage or what's "in her blood", her biology, if you will. It's a story of oppression from the point of view of a marginalized character that maps perfectly onto a trans person's meeting with systemic cis-sexism and the people perpetuating it, yet it just ends up proving that Rowling simply steals the narrative of oppression as a cultural noble aesthetic but without the desire to truly understand it or sympathize with it.
@@missmymama1140 thank you for this!
Movies have always retold true stories! They are tragic and evoke empathy...I don't see the problem. If your talking about the racist who don't care either way, that is really their problem...there is no reason to avoid touching stories because there are people out there who don't get it.
I’m actually quite relieved to see that I’m not the only one, by far, who had an immediate, visceral negative reaction to the _Till_ trailer. The comments below the trailer I watched were all gushing positively about the film being made. Meanwhile, my only reaction was, “More Black Trauma Cinema. Yay😑”
Hollywood liberals really piss me off with their tone-deaf virtue signaling 🙄🤦🏾♀️🤨
Speaking more on my own transness or general queerness than the axis of race: throughout my life multiple people have offered me the “advice” that if I simply agree with everything everyone else says and be “only ever calm” maybe people would accept me more, and I think this is a take you only ever arrive at if at the heart of it, you believe marginalized people to be solely at fault for their own marginalization.
It’s also really bad advice.
I have completely stopped engaging with anyone outside my race when it comes to topics of racism. It's just not worth it for my sanity. If we can't agree on basic humanity, we don't have anything to talk about.
Understandable. Dealing with overly stubborn for stupid mofo’s can wreck your sanity if you let it.
Yeah I honestly do the same with my transness. Like the amount of times I've had to justify my existence or define myself through pathologized trauma like solely through dysphoria... it's just something I avoid unless I know I can talk about it on my own terms.
@@unpaintedcanvas just know you're valid ❤️
Very smart. Save your sanity.
I'm reminded of James Baldwin's quote in the interview shown in Raoul Peck's, I Am Not Your Negro. "The question the white population has to ask itself is why it was necessary to have a n----r in the first place..." I don't think the collective "they" have ever seriously considered wrestling with that. And black folk should not have the burden and responsibility to lead them there.
" If we can't agree on basic humanity, we don't have anything to talk about."
That's why I now have contempt for the left.
Emmitt Till, Scottsborough Boys, Black Wall Street and so many other horror stories were things my parents and their peers constantly told us about. This was something my generation just knew because our parents never let us forget. IDK why that stopped being a thing in our community, but it did. I was 7 years old when a I learned about Emmitt Till. And every black kid on my block knew these stories as well. Because history to black people is not just stories, it’s survival education.
Yep, I was also 7 when my father taught me about all those horror stories. In a lot of hood areas their stories are still passed down
The problem is that we know but they don't. And when history is not wide spread knowledge we are doomed to repeat it
The quick “This Is Us” comment is 100% on-target. Melodrama that provides an avenue for catharsis. And once it’s served its purpose, why think about it again?
i.e. nearly all 80s black sitcoms. Racism is a thing that can be solved in a 21min episode.
Yeah just forget the racist power structures that are still in place. Just forget the hundreds of years of historical precedent.
I have never been able to watch "This is us' - pisses me right off for some reason
I think teaching racism to folks that don't understand it I'd like trying to teach someone to play piano by ear. Without a basic knowledge of notes and chord progression your ability to understand and apply the info is severely limited
There's also the issue that you never know how receptive they are to having it explained until you try. Some might only need a few facts and they go "Ohhhh! Oh no!" Others will flat out deny and even get hostile. In the end, it's fricking exhausting and explaining it feels like a constant uphill battle, and most will think "This isn't my job, I don't wanna do this!" To which the answer is "Then who will? The internet, already algorithmed into preserving and promoting racism? The authorities, who institutionalized it? All those well-meaning white peeps who never actually experienced it and will get things wrong?" There's no good answer to that yet.
@@snorpenbass4196 what I ment by that is you can't teach or waste your time teaching everyone because you aren't going to be able to reach everyone. Not everyone is equipped to learn and wasting your energy talking to someone who you know isn't going to be receptive is a waste of time.
If you have a white dude who is cool torwards you but still thinks the confederate flag represents southern pride and one that calls Obama a Muslim or something like that who would you teach? You are never going to reach everyone and we just need more numbers educated than not. So reach who you can.
Literally the first time I found out about him was at my auntie’s house, my cousin had the dvd of a documentary about Emmett and I looked at it and read about it and I could sleep the whole week because I had nightmares. I was about 9.
I’m not watching this movie and I didn’t watch that tv miniseries that came out because it’s too much for me. Way too much. It hurts.
"There's no such thing as whiteness. Whiteness is a property. It's a class designation."
I had to pause the video for a minute just to process that. This man is eloquent as fuck.
Here's another thing to ponder that I just learned about called logocentrism. So for race it would be that blackness and other racial categories other than whiteness can only really be explained as an absence of whiteness or in terms of whiteness.
My personal favorite version of this point comes from James Baldwin: "The world is not white. It never was white. Cannot be white. 'White' is a metaphor for power. And that is simply a way of describing ChaseManhattan Bank."
I dont know, whether White Liberals/Leftists realise, that this over-consumption of Black pain participates in our dehumanisation.
Some of the videos of Kat Blaque, I relate the most is when she talks about White Liberals/Leftists demanding her participation for their little diversity projects, while refusing to acknowledge her humanity by doing something as basic as befriending her.
Thank You!!! I literally got up and walked out of the theater when they showed this trailer when I went to see NOPE. Explaining my feelings and thoughts on this story being made into a movie is so layered that it would take forever, so I'll spare you. But, I will say, I personally am exhausted of black trauma being made into movies so frequently and recklessly. I'm fighting for our history to be taught as a MANDATORY subject in school, but I'm tired of our trauma being fodder for a cinematic experience, under the guise of "education". I'm over it.
Blackz should better look at the bs gangsta culture. This would rather ends racism
@@dieterrosswag933 Hi sweetheart. You are so cute! I love your comment, but who was talking about ending racism? I am going to pray that you find something better to comment on babe, cause you sound sad. Peace and blessings. Love you!
What movie was it
Yes girl I’m with you and F.D signifier. And I actually couldn’t put into words why his story as a movie would be a problem til I came across this video. Feeling sorry for his tragic death is just surface level and goes beyond explanation that that’s not what this movie is really about in a nutshell.
I get how you feel, this story has traumatized me since my school in st.louis taught me about and it scarred me as a black boy then. But I know reasons for why this film is coming out now is because it's hit a lot of walls and many No's. One of the producers who's name is Keith Beauchamp has been trying to get this film made for decades. As far back as the early 2000's when mother Mamie Till (Emmetts mom) was alive because he worked with her and filmed a documentary on the Emmett while she was alive and many witnesses. If you've seen the clips of her sharing the trauma of identifying his body that was filmed by Keith so that's a root reason for the film coming out now. Also cause there's been a pushed to still arrest and charge the woman who lied on Emmett while she is still here and someone can be held accountable. But I completely at the end of the day I know the story like the back my hand, my family has links to the reality my grandfather was civil rights leader in the 50's and 60's then he became a pastor and was under the head pastor whom did the eulogy for Emmett, my cousin sanged at his funeral, my family went to church with Queen Mother Mamie Till in Illinois, my family lived on the same block where Emmett grew up so the reality is very much integral to me on many personal levels and is traumatic for me.
I stopped explaining racism because it's like reliving trauma. I think every black that lives in this country has some sort of racial traumatic experience and it's unfair to continually ask us to relive it.
Not all, fortunately
@@ShadowJinxXOX Maybe not you personally, but as black people, either we have experienced it ourselves or someone in proximity to us.
@@QuixoticUkulele I know tons of black people who don’t consider themselves victims in any way. Kinda bigoted to paint a hugely diverse group of people with the broad brush of victimhood.
@@Zodemus wtf are you talking about?
@@MsReveur I am saying that a high melanin content doesn’t guarantee that one faces bigotry in this country. I know this because I am a living breathing thinking person with eyes who has talked to all kinds of other human beings. That’s why I know not to paint entire arbitrary groups of people with broad brush strokes.
A black person who thinks all black people have suffered racial trauma is as ignorant as a white person who thinks all black people conform to whatever stereotype you want to pick.
For guys like me with severe ADD and discalculia problems this short takes are gold.
But believe me, i consume your full length vids to. It just takes me like 3 or 4 days to understand 😆
Big big love for you, from Puerto Rico !!!!!
@Guy Whose opinions will offend you 😆🙏
I get Ill never understand everything that you go through as a white man. But videos where people did sit down and just explain the basics to me broke me from that alt right mindset. It didnt happen one day though, it happened over and over again till I started to listen. And I understand that shouldn't be the burden of the black community to do that I just want to say that those videos did help, and your videos do help me still to take things to that next level. I didn't understand how engrained white supremacy is in society and even my life until I started watching you so I appreciate you opening my eyes to that even if that's not your intentions.
I appreciate your honesty and humility, and your desire to work to improve your relationship with the world and your fellow humans. I know this comment ain't for me, but know that I appreciate you.
Dude, thank you for that. You have no idea how rare it is to hear a white person have the humility to admit that and actually gain the ability to truly listen and understand when these topics come up. Hopefully others can follow suit.
@@riotron1026 you shouldn't have to thank me for that, I wish we were just tought this stuff in school. I honestly just appreciate people giving me the ability to learn and getting a second chance.
That's why i Always advocated for explaining racism some people Can change...
Yeah as a white person myself that's why it's so important to like go after black and other poc voices (esp indigenous) who are willing to talk to white people _on their own terms._
6:11 I love this point so much. People always see these acts as individualistic, rather than a system that they may unknowingly contribute to
Your whole video transported me back to a time where I helped a local film festival and a lady came out b-lined it for me after watching a documentary on the Michael Brown case and started talking to me about "what do we do?" I was more...shocked she came to me like I was the monolith of blackness...gave a very generic (but still ok) answer of legislative stuff and make a fuss so change can happen...
She turned around got mad and told me "I am just trying to help YOUR people" and walked off proud. To add insult to everything I told the festival owners....who were all about helping black people til it came to something actually happening, who told me "well...she is a paying customer"
TLDR: I agree with you and I never helped that festival again.
You are so right. In one of my comms courses on film, we talked about Schindler's List in the same way. Meant to bring the audience in on the "experience" for a few hours, and then relieve them of the guilt of having to do anything about it. White liberal audiences (or just non-African American audiences) can go in, "feel the pain," and then absolve themselves of any guilt around complicity with systemic racism because they "felt it" and it's now "done." It's not trauma carried in their bodies whether they want to engage with it or not.
The recent series "Women of the Movement" that premiered last year was a very gut-wrenching retelling of Emmett Till through the eyes of his mother.
That series was one of the most raw, unbridled works of him that I've seen to-date. They didn't try to filter or sanitize it or coddle anyone's feelings.
I had a feeling this film would be very PG. anytime they make a film back-to-back about the same person, I'm usually very leery.
Even as someone born and raised mostly in Canada, I learned everything from like, 3 rogue teachers and another one, who won awards for how she taught history, she specifically did Indigenous history and modern day culture. Everything else I learned from people I looked up on here... and that's how I found out how horrifying it also was for the Italians, Japanese, and Chinese up north 🤢
Question for everyone: Do you think this movie is coming out now to gain public support for the prosecution of the woman whose lies about Till led to his lynching?
If this movie brings greater attention to the fact that Carolyn Bryant is still alive, brings greater accountability to her, and makes her sleep a little less comfortably at night it will have done its job.
Seconded
Thank you..
How does that change the system? I bet nothing will change with her either just making your ego feel better
@@imanigordon6803 Almost everything man made exists only to make our egos feel better. Phantasms all. Doesn't necessarily make them invalid.
Yes and no. As has been said, they still hunt down 95 yo Nazi's who never touched a Jew or other prisoner in the concentration camps but might have been some low rank bookkeeper. Yet this woman's lie lead to a heinous murder of a child, and "the system" has no interests in prosecuting her. Yet we see the LINEAGE of white lies leading to black harm and death in 2022. I agree with Imani.
4:13:
I'd say so. I'm white and I've been enjoying all of your deep discussion videos so far. I've found all of them really informative and they've all left me questioning how I should approach racism. Granted, I've never been shy about acknowledging the way racism has continued to try and influence me growing up, so maybe I'm not the best example of your average white audience.
But you've been my go-to person for learning more about the black experience. Even when you're talking about white people, you've got me nodding and paying attention.
felt very similarly- especially about this movie being for white liberals. i don't know if it's catharsis, or even just vindication, but non-white trauma is like conscience candy to those audiences. having it as a teaser before Nope also seemed like it would only serve to appeal to the white liberals who (in absolutely no disrespect to Peele or that film) think they're progressive for watching a black film while triggering the black audience who just wanted to see a cool fucking movie by a great black team.
love the content as always, thanks F.D
Personally I think it's more nefarious. IMO white liberals use black trauma as propaganda to shame other white people from ever questioning class hierarchy and the existing power structures. Like how some assholes respond to their kids with shit like "why are you complaining, there are starving kids in Africa".
The people who are going to watch Emmett Till and pat themselves on the back are the same people who clutched their pearls when they had to reckon with the fact that Atticus Finch was racist. If you understood how racism, classism, and sexism all work to uphold and enforce white supremacy, his form of racism was very apparent.
I will say, speaking from my own experience in high school history, Emmett Till was a part of the curriculum and it was taught as a major event in the Civil Rights Movement, and this was back in like 2016-2017. So at least for me (should clarify I'm white) I was taught about it in an academic setting, and considering the way I learned about it, I think it should absolutely be discussed more *in an academic setting*.
I saw Nope with a couple of friends recently, and the trailer for this movie played, and I'll be honest, the second it clicked for me that this was an Emmett Till movie, I just started thinking "how are we not past this kind of movie?" Again, its a story that needs to be told, but not as this glossy, inspirational Oscar movie about the terrible before times.
Exactly. Everytime I explain racism I die a little inside.
It's just going to get worse and more annoying. As the world becomes more connected we're exposed to racism I've never even thought about.
Like... how are there still black kpop stans 😳
I concur as an ex kpop stan 💀 it is a hellscape
@@SapphicKnits LOL glad you survived
Say all of this! I go inward a little more every time I even try to explain racism.
Emmitt Till’s story never ceases to make me intensely emotional. It’s something obviously very touchy in a cultural way, and it should not be dramatized on screen
I had a unique HS history teacher who didn't teach from the textbooks. He would tell us to read the chapters at home to pass the tests, but would only teach us info not in our books. What happened to Emmitt Till was something he focused on.
I literally didn’t know it until I was sitting there weigh my mom, my momo, my aunt, all looking at me like “You don’t know about Emmet Till?”. It was insane.
Some of my friends didn't know about Emmett Till either. That's one of the reasons I don't get people blasting telling these true stories...it is unknown for the new generation, so why not know about it?
I have this same exhaustion with a lot of subjects. I think the only thing I still really get heated on fast is people talking about how this country treats veterans because the wound regarding my experience being a minority in the military is still fresh while everything else I've kind of been worn down on. And btw unc you definitely don't give yourself enough credit
I will never forget my middle school history teacher calmly and very matter-of-factly explaining the Emmett Till case. The physical feeling of horror and shock I felt from that simple re-telling of the facts was probably more powerful than any reaction a movie could prompt.
I learned this from my Uncle, I was 15.
It hit hard, and like I just couldn't.
Love your content. I tend to think of myself as a forward thinking person. But you continue to challenge my ideas, and that’s a great sign.
You also create some excellent avenues for having discussions about race without some of the tip-toeing-through-minefields scenarios that can pop up.
I don't know if this video covered the ”power+prejudice” definition of racism, I have zero data, no wifi.. but I thought this'll be a good opportunity to write this here.
This may just come off as rabidly off topic and random.. but I just felt like commenting it somewhere lmao.
The “prejudice+power” definition being good or not may boil down to a matter, or more correctly, a *question* of epistemic viability.
Lemme explain.
Firstly, within the constructs of critical race theory, there's this narrative of a *depersonalization of racism* , that is, instead of an analysis of racism in the sense of the individual, the analysis is taken to the very societal structures and their in-relations.. and when you start talkin about societal structures and relations within those structures, one thing of course surfaces; *power* , and since racism in and of itself involves prejudice, the “power+prejudice” definition hence arrives.
Secondly, that definition may arise as a result of a collectivistic model of conceptualizing structural relations.. so it may just be naturally for there to be a departure from the individual level of analysis [which is of course what the alternative definition of racism states], hence you get something like what your post is critiquing.
From the foregoin, there arises the question, which is the better approach in the analysis and conceptualisation of racism? a depersonalization of racism vs the opposite, a collectivistic approach vs the opposite.. imo,this is where it should start.
Note, I'm not well versed on critical theory and postmodernist thought, so it is *highly* possible that everything I just said is straightforwardly false, this is just info I get from reading debates and articles.. still savin for books lmao.
Basically, this video is based around that. You are on the right track. It is good practice to be able to express those concepts in writing.
The best way I like to explain whiteness being a social construct is as followed.
Jews were considered white and a model minority in the 1900's, until too many of them immigrated to the US in the 1920's and their white status was taken away.
Italians and Irish werent considered white until the 1924 (And they did not suffer as much as the black community, did they suffer? Sure: but indentured servent is very different from chattel slave)
Hitler and much of Europe didnt even consider slavs/eastern Europeans white.
Whiteness is a tool of the ruling political elite and it will be taken away the instant a scapegoat is needed or if it's no longer beneficial to recognise a group of people as "white."
Can we do a video about conservative views in Africa? Im from Brooklyn and a lot of my friends are from Kenya (and through out the continent) because I went to boarding school out there, but there are so many African people that align with these toxic conservative views coming out of the Thomas Sowell, Jordan Peterson ethos. Id love to be a guest on the show but its not really an objective. I just think its a black experience that needs a little bit of exposure. I really love your videos and its helped me challenge and develop on ideas I've literally had for 10 plus years. But explaining racism to Africans on the continent and Africans that emigrate to the west can literally be one of the most frustrating things you can do.❤
"Racism Movies(tm)" always have a main character who is white even if the story is about black people. Or at minimum there is a "good white person" shoehorned in to the center of the movie... a kind of totem of identification for white audiences. What would this story be like if it could at least skip that bit of "tooth pulling" ?
I also have issues with radicalized violence in film when it starts to act as many rape scenes do in movies. The brutality, the violence, the suffering are ... pornographic. Possible to imbibe as a fantasy. Often used in just that way by some segment of the audience. This isn't exactly intentional. Often the director and actors want to show what it was "really like" they dive into extremes... but, unable to break the habit of watching all things as if I were many different audiences I can see how the horror may become fantasy.
If someone made a movie that touch on this subject for me it would not be at the center of the story like some freak show centerpiece.
What if you had a movie about a little black girl who lived in a black neighborhood at that time. And she and her friends are playing in an empty lot, they create a fantasy world that seems real to them. It's like "Alice in Wonderland" and the movie seems like this is all that it will do. Tell a simple kid's adventure. But one of her friend's is a boy named Emmett. So her adventure is interrupted by an outside force. She doesn't want to go to the funeral. She doesn't want to look in the coffin. In her world of imagination there is a monster there! But she must look. And it's just her friend who is gone forever.
I'd enjoy something like that.
Gritty historical realism that just plods through the sequence of events. Where a white guy "learns a lesson about race" ... no thank you.
As a black man and seeing How mad star wars fans got at Finn being the leader to where Disney cowardly blacklisted the character so these same fans can see rey a White girl get with a white emo sociopathic serial killer (reylo) just so she wasn't with Finn was sick and sad to see
Then they tried to blame China for it when I know for a fact John Boyega himself said he was beloved their and the CEO of Disney at the time Bob Igor wrote in his book it was his decision
That's why George Lucas referred to him as a "white slaver"
@@thepubknight6144 I don't follow? I agree... but don't see the connection.
Pls be a screenplay writer. Your story sounds so interesting.
Actually the director of Till made the same point of violence in films that you made. The protoganist of the movie is Till's mother so I definitely think some TH-cam videos misjudged the movie without watching it. Good film!
@@thepubknight6144 actually Star Wars fans were mad Finn didn't get a larger role. I mean common he was a good character, even if he wasn't the protagonist, they ignored the character's potential 😏
As a white guy who first heard about Emmett Till about a month ago when this movie first announced itself as the next Oscar bait white guilt placebo I had one response.
"So the next "green book" that's going to steal the "black" film Oscar from black panther 2 is about an unarmed kid getting lynched and then a white savior will come in and teach his mom how to set up rallies and protests. There's 12 Emmett Till's a day in this country! Where's the movie about them?"
The help, green book, and even hidden figures are all symptoms of white supremacy still holding sway in Hollywood. You want to make a movie that actually confronts the evils of racism? Do a scene for scene remake of Wrath of Man, replace Jason Statham with any black actor old enough to be a grieving father, and title the movie "Blue Lives Don't."
12 Emmett till's a day? I don't think that passes Hitchen's razor.
This was referred to as "moral suasion" in 1970 when my sister and I did integration.
I didn't have any highschool history classes. The story of emit till was one of the first pieces of "real" history (as opposed to the kinda vague US history osmosis I had). It took me by surprise and gutted me. I learned a ton from that history class but it terrified me how much the rest of the class seemed able to compartmentalize it and move on. I left that school (HMC) cause they were incredibly discriminatory across many axis, but damn... It's horrible to be able to learn this stuff I had to already fit into a specific academic hierarchy. I still have a bunch of college texts from my favorite history professor at my next college. He was the one who (incredibly patiently) taught me to read and listen. Absolutely changed my life.
Camilo Lund-Montaño, if ur reading this. You're an incredible teacher!
My cousin is the star of the Emmett till movie, surreal seeing him on your page
Wow! That was him...he did a great job!
I was really surprised when he described Emmett Till as something that isn’t in the curriculum because where I live learning about Emmett Till and all the other victims like him is a whole section of our history class. I’m not saying it was the best, but we had to go through the history. Like how the court was against him, or how the murderers got away with it. We had to learn example after example of how Black people where harassed, attacked, and killed all the while being then left without justice because of our racist society. Admittedly, there was an air of “this was then” but still. This is from a class in Mississippi, and we did not have a rogue teacher. They taught straight from the book.
If I could guess why we learn about these things. It’s because as people who live in the State of Emmett Till’s murder, we can’t say “those evils white people” because those evil white people where out grandparents and great-grandparents. Most of us have living memory of those events with us. We can’t forget it because we must all live with what people we are related to directly participated in.
It's wild it's not taught in American schools, cause it's taught in Danish schools
So does the trailer for Till--this **specific** film that's focused on Mamie Till-Mobley's pursuit of justice, directed by Chinonye Chukwu, co-written by Keith Beauchamp whose Till documentary helped reopen the case, and featuring depictions of figures like Medgar Evers and TRM Howard--tell us that the film will be an easy place for white folks to compartmentalize our culpability and responsibility?
Or is it that the actual specific historic atrocity of Emmit Till is **itself** the container for white folks' culpability and responsibility, no matter *how* it's depicted?
The pacifying catharsis of media that says "Oh yes we see how bad it is, we're so glad someone is addressing it"
All that movie is going to do is add Till to the long list of items we get to have a culture war over. I truly hope I'm wrong and that it turns out to be some masterpiece that changes the zeitgeist of our nation, but more than likely it's just another movie in the same spirit as passion of the christ: cynical, misguided, and appealing to the lowest common denominator.
Emmett Till did not whistle at Caroline Bryant. He had a stutter and would use a low whistle to facilitate speech to prevent what is called a "block". He was a black boy with a speech disability.
Even if he did..it's irrelevant..
@@fideletamo4292 No It's not. It adds to our understanding of how disabilities combined with anti-black racism impact Black Americans.
@@fideletamo4292 Why? He lost his life for it. Why is it not important?
@@sleepyccs sorry but i Never went this far, to me he was just savagely killed because he was black...that's the main point, even if he wasn't disabled he could have been killed too...
@@sseraphim2818 it's irrelevant because even if he did whistle he didn't deserve to be killed...
That Adolph Reed quote about liberals not believing in politics anymore, only in bearing witness to suffering
I learned more about social studies spending my life around the poverty line than in school. There's a way that I recognize my privileges and acknowledge my disadvantages. You're right about the "race is a social construct". I feel like identity politics is only making racism worse. Being a mentally ill white person in a predominantly white liberal city is frustrating. I feel if more people would be able to acknowledge that they can break the cycle rather than feel ashamed and do nothing, all of us would benefit from existing a lot more. We're all humans, but we all have different experiences with the ultimate barrier, classism.
As a white (aspiring) writer, I take notes from your videos when I want or need to write about racism, and avoid the same mistakes as these movies you review made. I don't want to be one of those people (white liberals/saviors/etc explaining racism gently).
Thank you F.D.
Trying to teach wyt ppl about race. There is a term called 'Emotional labor'...I stopped doing this around 38 years old...I'm exhausted.
Bruh I learned about Emmet Till In photography class in highschool, definitely needs to be part the curriculum. Wild that only a handful of people at my school even learned about it.
There is a documentary Emmett’s family created about his murder. It was very well made. My high school African American history teacher showed it to us during class. If anyone wants to learn about his story, please watch it. It’s called “The untold story of Emmett Till”
White supremacy requires that 'Whiteness' be Centered in all the discourse around race. You're 100% right about us. White people need to Educate ourselves as to how this White Supremacist Society and Social Framework denied, and continues to deny Economic and Social Justice to the groups that have been Othered (and black people almost always Specifically). We (whites) are the ones benefiting from this Inequity and are therefore the ones with the onus of putting forth that bare minimum of effort. (Lots of words for "You all have enough shit on your plate. It isn't fair for us to expect you to explain our bullshit to us.")
I'm glad you said this because when I heard about the trailer and then watched it during Nope I couldn't help but feel weird and conflicted. Like, people need to know about what happened to Emmitt Till, but I don't think a film is the best way to do that.
6:15 - end. i luv the “ohhhhhhh daaaaang” moments i have watching your channel
I appreciate your channel SO much, seriously. I have learned a lot from you
Have you mistaken persuading people of their errant beliefs for getting them to acknowledge their mistake? These are different things even though hopefully the former will eventually lead to the latter.
I get where you’re coming from, but I don’t understand this take. Mamie Till is one of the most badass black women in history and a lot of people don’t know who she is-even in Black circles. Like you said in your video, CRT is already being curtailed in schools. We need to keep talking about Black historical figures. Plus, the movie isn’t out yet. It could go on to show that “Till’s murder wasn’t just individual white men who murdered a little boy, it was also the court system…the white girl who got away…the culture of Anti-blackness….”
What don't you understand? Why do we need to rehash this very traumatic time again and again? And why must you see black bodies being degraded on screen to think racism is real? Do you think that is a fun time? Why is it not enough to know the history? Why do you need visual cues of tortured black bodies to do it for you?
@@sseraphim2818 Mamie Till was a large part of the decision to show her son’s mutilated body. She wanted the world to see how cruel White America was to her son and could be to any black men. If it triggers you, don’t buy a ticket. But that shit happened, and plenty of black and white people have no idea it did- I think the movie would, at the very least, show what happened. You know it’s possible to show history and fight today’s racism at the same time
I'm gonna expand the topic to include some other minority groups. Can you take a step back and look at all the films about black people, gay people, trans people, etc. that put those adjectives first and foremost? It's a movie about blackness, gayness, transness, etc. and about their _struggle about_ being black, gay, trans, etc.
All of these movies are in some way commodifying trauma to appease the white, straight, cis, etc. viewers. If any of these movies show happiness, it's in spite of their minority status.
Agreed!
@@sseraphim2818 the movie was not about torture, it was about Emmett Till and his mother's love. The Till story has not been rehashed on the big screen, there was a BBC miniseries, but this is the first cinematic movie about it.
I think there's an important difference between "teaching people about racism" being *a* function of a piece of content, vs that being the *only* function, in basically the same way that there's a difference between "not being racist" vs "doing something about the effects of racism".
More importantly how do we teach black people about racism
All these slave movies have become so common because the realities of racism have become undeniable thanks to the internet.
This knowledge creates an internal pressure for whites to begin confronting their own culpability.
Which obviously, they try to avoid as much as possible.
Movies like Till, Green Mile, Driving miss Daisy, The Blindside etc etc perform the function of a cathartic escape vent to those who are conscious enough to know that racism is real, but at the same time want to be relieved of the responsibility to do anything about it.
Hence why all these movies are historical (racism is in the past), there are easy scapegoats (racist lone wolves/singularly evil people) & at the end of the film, the whites breathe a sigh of relief & move on until the next movie.
I don't agree at all. Besides Emmett Till, was not that long ago. People from the incident are still alive!
Feels like if everyone gives up on explaining this subject it will just never be understood and thus never solved
Personally I love wasting my time explaining toxic masculinity to people, and it keeps getting misunderstood as "men bad". Gender and race work pretty similarly.
Toxic masculinity has only been aknowledged as a thing to explain in like the last ten years or so. We been explaining racism to white people for over a hundred years and they just don't want to hear it. I mean how weary can we be?
Countless books have been written in the subject and the fact that white people want it explained to them, but only in a way they find personally palatable, is telling.
In a few more years you'll get there with toxic masculinity.
You can't teach those unwilling to learn.
@@Chelaxim
Yeah true
I try to package the gender subject in a non threatening way so they don't shut down instantly, but I don't have that much success
I don't think you understand how tiring it is. I don't think you care either.
Thank you for sharing this one !
Finally someone else saying it. Thinking in terms of good and evil limits one’s ability to construct solutions.
ong im 1st💯
In one of your viewer's comments in a previous video, an 'ally' called themselves a "plain, boring white guy", and I extremely gently pointed out within the context how it's mildly problematic to do so because of the 'default' verbage they used. A few minutes later they wrote an essay about how their friends said it was okay and they just wanted other people to feel special, etcetera, and I just could not at that time...
I feel similar frustration when trying to describe class to Americans. Like race, the entire premise of US structures of power & hegemony is that people do not understand it.
So, like you said about pointing to individual acts of racism & demonizing that while never addressing or confronting the structural, systemic institutions that produce those individual acts -- that's where the class discourse also is in my opinion.
People demonize individual capitalists, but never dare to look deeper into the structures of capitalism that produce them in the first place.
I guess my question has always been: So… what do we do? We have no (real) money, we are in the bottom caste of every society outside of *certain* parts of Africa… How we we speak to power? How can we turn the tide? Is it even possible?
Preface all explanations with your Paypal or Venmo. Do not teach lessons for free.
Otherwise they can google for free, maybe Bing it if they feel nasty.
Evil does exist, Satan's greatest lie of all was convincing people he isn't real.
Learned about Emmett Till in Elementary School, Middle School, and High School. Granted this was over 20 years ago in Massachusetts.