Kacee > Recent Status Updates

It is quite a revelation to discover that the place you wanted to escape to is the exact same place you escaped from. That the prison wasn’t the place, but the perspective.

She texted back. It was interesting, she mused to herself, how life sometimes simply gave you a whole new perspective by waiting around long enough for you to see it.

‘We only know what we perceive. Everything we experience is ultimately just our perception of it. “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”’

‘You wanted to die and now you don’t.’ ‘Well, I still think my actual life isn’t worth living.’

‘I don’t think you think that…you’ve spent all your life saying things you aren’t really thinking. This is one of your barriers … they stop you from seeing the truth about yourself. And you really need to start trying to see the truth. Because this matters.’

Just finished the excerpt of Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison - need to read the whole thing.

“What do you know about truth? Truth is eating good, and sleeping good. Truth is living, Rachel. Be loyal to living.” (From The Convert by Lerone Bennett, Jr.)

It was clear that the people we had escaped on the beach were not following us; they were too concerned with being survivors. White people often spent time admiring their survival of one thing or another. I imagined it was because so often they had no need to survive, but only to live.

We scratched and clawed open a hole in the world and placed her inside it. As we began to cover her, Norman said, “I suppose we should pray.”
“Okay. Say it.”
“Lord, meet Sammy.” Norman opened an eye, looking at me as if to ask if that was enough.
“What more is there to say?” I asked.

“It’s a horrible world. White people try to tell us that everything will be just fine when we go to heaven. My question is, Will they be there? If so, I might make other arrangements.” Easter laughed.

“How am I s’posed to know what good is?”

“Way I sees it is dis. If’n ya gots to hab a rule to tells ya wha’s good, if’n ya gots to hab good ’splained to ya, den ya cain’t be good. If’n ya need sum kinda God to tells ya right from wrong, den you won’t never know.”

“But the law says…”

“Good ain’t got nuttin’ to do wif da law. Law says I’m a slave.”

Using the term “racist policy” is more likely to be understood than using institutional, systemic, or structural racism. (Racism itself is inherently institutional, structural, and systemic).

We all have the power to discriminate but only a few have the power to make policy. Focusing on “racial discrimination” distracts from the core issue: racist policy/racist power.