ModuleB

Manifesto:
The visual language used in discussions of race:

should guide you through the discomfort of the conversation with empathy.

should be used to listen and reply, not shouted, not whispered.

should never refer to whiteness as default.

group: Nicole, Eeske, Anthony

Chosen Topic:
The loop in the discussions about race; white privilege and ignorance

My Fellow White People This is What I Mean By ‘White Privilege' by Martie Sorois

The loop:
a discussion about race happens, some white people engage and learn, some get defensive, some deny outright. After the discussion nothing changes and it continues the same as before.

"White people pushback against the term [white privilege] out of primal instinct of defensiveness, without further examining what it actually means. Their defensiveness the derails the conversation, centering it back onto white voices, in need of reassurance that they are indeed understood as the good, hardworking people that they are."

"there is no need for "white guilt" because no one is asking you to do anything except listen"
"Privilege is something that we are given, and something we have no control over"

"Recognizing privilege is only the first step. And it's the easiets part. Learning how to check it is the important, necessary, hard part."

“Much too often, Black life is rendered in a way that allow it to be engaged at a safe distance or viewed at arm’s length through a lens of pity, sympathy, or concern. It is a temporary connection, visited and left behind in the face of an inevitable return to the comfort and comforting perspective of self and ‘home’.” (Campt, Tina. “How Black Artists Are Shaping a Distinctly Black Gaze”. Hyperallergic. 22 August, 2021)

How Black Artists Are Shaping a Distinctly Black Gaze by Tina Campt

this "inevitable return to comfort and perception of self and 'home' is what creates the loop in the discussion of race. Falling back into the easy habits of a life with an "invisible knapsack" of tools that help you without your knowledge.

Invisible knapsack idea from Peggy McIntosh

"Rarely do white people, including myself, analyse their own complicity and activity within the racist system we all inhabit. The emotional burden of fighting to be treated equally is predominantly left to those already disenfranchised by that system."

https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2020/05/9830372/white-privilege-definition

"As Saad says, anti-racism work is uncomfortable but that discomfort is insignificant compared to the harm that comes from doing nothing."

"The work is uncomfortable, but the fact is that you have so centred yourself that you're not even thinking about how uncomfortable it is for people of colour to be impacted by racism, being harmed right here. And the two are not equivalent." Interview with Layla
Saad author of "Me & White Supremacy"

acknowledge white privilege --> feels uncomfortable because that means we are safe because others aren't --> "white guilt" (white centering) --> emotional shut down --> falling back into the 'safe' comfort of life before

how do you check yourself and your white privilege?

Visual representation

patchwork calling out white privilege

a discussion about race
that engages the viewer
that shows the complexity and layers of the topic
that represents how we as a group have engaged and developed our ways of discussing race

creating a gesture, a patchwork of the layered fragments of thought and schools of thought that we interacted with and or expereinced in developing the way in which we as a white group approach discussions of race

collecting quotes that triggered a responce from us, that made us think about something else, that gave us a new perspective
collecting our own ideas and meandering string-of-thoughts
reminders to check our white privilege

printed or written on napkins and displayed on top of each other and in relation to each other