Week 1: Day 3:
White silence
Today hit pretty hard for me the entire book is really stepping on toes but today was more!
When we silence others because of the tone they use, it makes us uncomfortable we are exhibiting white silence.
When white people get angry or upset about something it is often viewed as righteous and justified
when black people express anger it is viewed as aggressive and dangerous
Why is this?
This really made me think, why would we do that?
As a college instructor I believe I have experienced this first hand. A white student would come to me upset about a policy change the school had made she made her view point very clear and was very expressive while doing so, a black student in the same class also took a stand and was just as expressive, I tried to calm the black student down but allowed the white student to continue why would I do that, in the moment I didn’t realize I had done it but reading through this book it was brought to light, I am saddened that I participated in white silencing. Now that I know and understand what it is I can be better. This right here is the reason I am reading the book and the reason I feel so compelled to share on this blog, I think we all have some maybe all of these tendencies and we don’t even realize it, it may not even be intentional as my case was, but now that we have learned we can be more cognizant of our actions towards others.
Everyone should be able to express their anger the same, everyone should be able to express their thoughts and opinions the same no matter their skin color.