Ask Lemmy

It is very difficult to be anti-racist if you fundamentally don't understand the struggles of the oppressed. Sometimes you can do more harm than good, despite your best intentions, simply because you have no knowledge of the issues.

The Ibram X. Kendi quote that spawned the idea (among white people) of anti-racism was a good one:

The opposite of racist isn't 'not racist.' It is 'anti-racist.'

But as a Black man, he inevitably approached the subject from a bone-deep understanding of racism almost from birth. I think he failed to consider people who were so far removed from the struggles of Black people that they legitimately had no understanding of the issue.

I think that if you are ignorant of the issues, or have a surface-level understanding (the white college kids I mentioned in the OP), it is sometimes best to simply be nonracist rather than anti-racist...or perhaps better to be anti-racist in the sense of "I oppose the concept of racism". But this idea of "I must take action!!!" is...not terribly helpful if you have no idea what you're doing. It's like going to a poverty stricken neighborhood planning to build houses for the homeless, but you have no experience in carpentry or plumbing or roofing or anything. Your heart is in the right place, but please. Slow down. Take your cues from those who have lived through it.