PSA: I am 12% into the audiobook of Ijeoma Oluo’s “So You Want To Talk About Race” and she’s already given me 3 insights that made me gasp.
1) “Do you think black people are poor for the same reasons white people are poor?” (spoiler alert: no)
2) So, my own lifelong focus on economic issues without seeing how race is a factor is “trickle-down social justice.” Maybe everyone will move forward, but still in the same relative positions with people of color at the back of the bus.
3) Saying “you’re playing the race card” IS ITSELF playing the race card, because being white is a race too, not an absence of race. It means “my racial experience is more important, valid, and true than yours is.”
She is doing a much better job than I could of arguing for these ideas. So if you want to debate any of this in the comments… maybe we should both read the book and do a little book club?