Michele

“Tone policing is when someone (usually the privileged person) in a conversation or situation about oppression shifts the focus of the conversation from the oppression being discussed to the way it is being discussed. Tone policing prioritizes the comfort of the privileged person in the situation over the oppression of the disadvantaged person. This is something that can happen in a conversation, but can also apply to critiques of entire civil rights organizations and movements.”
― Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race

“So when people say that they don’t like my tone, or when they say they can’t support the “militancy” of Black Lives Matter, or when they say that it would be easier if we just didn’t talk about race all the time—I ask one question: Do you believe in justice and equality? Because if you believe in justice and equality you believe in it all of the time, for all people. You believe in it for newborn babies, you believe in it for single mothers, you believe in it for kids in the street, you believe in justice and equality for people you like and people you don’t. You believe in it for people who don’t say please. And if there was anything I could say or do that would convince someone that I or people like me don’t deserve justice or equality, then they never believed in justice and equality in the first place.”
― Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race

“Privilege, in the social justice context, is an advantage or a set of advantages that you have that others do not.”
― Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race

“when you are having a conversation about racial oppression, you will not be the only one who is nervous and you will not be the only one taking a risk.”
― Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race