@pro-diversity / pro-diversity.tumblr.com
When Auntie Breya Johnson said "I want the next face of empire not to be a black women," and Ancestor Zora Neale Hurston mused "All my skinfolk ain't kinfolk," THIS is what they meant. Many of our sisters and self-proclaimed feminists are turning their faces away from the freedom struggle and decolonization efforts of our world to fulfill a false dream of empire built on apartheid and antiblack violence.
In their attempts to challenge the institutions that dehumanize + commodify their existence, some BIPOC, AAPI, queer, and cis folks in these digital spaces are utilizing a similar form absolutism that exists in spaces of radical feminist separatism and conservative, religious imperialism.
P S. Never forget that "cancelling" is a tool and, like any tool, it can be worn down, warped, and weaponized by unskilled hands.
I see there are a lot of new faces in the community! I wanted to reintroduce myself and my budding platform!
🖤 My name is Sidney Rose McCall (she/her/they). I am an Aries 🐏 of 25 years who enjoys Star Wars comics, Nina Simone albums, and Baldwin works. I am named after Sidney Poitier and my grandmother Naomi Rose~
👩🏾🏫 I am also a Black historian and independent scholar who cultivates antiracist history lessons and resources that focus on upRooting white supremacy.
🌿 White supremacy is more than just a social construct or a caste system. White supremacy is an ecosystem that seeks to protect the "perceived privileges" of white (or near white) sovereign powers; by extension, we all exist in this ecosystem where racist philosophies are reinforced by racist policies that infect and affect our day-to-day practices and understandings.
🌻 My academic and liberation work are both rooted in providing intellectual discourse, tools, and resources immersed in decolonized language and historical frameworks to examine the intersection of race, identity, gender, and community engagement.
🔮 In the realm of Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr, I cultivate history reading lists, community resources, and share my late night musings about period dramas (I got a LOT of thoughts about Downton Abbey)
🌈 Over on Patreon, I do monthly history lessons and book discussions, virtual livestreams, and interviews with other community bridge builders and activists.
✨ If you're still reading this (hi again!), share what you're reading, and what you hope to learn or manifest this season in the comments below!~
“How to learn about U.S. history without ever having to read anything written by an old white dude ever again; a working list,” with bookshop links; find these books at your local black bookstore or local library. Amplify Black historians and antiracist scholars ✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿
Just wanted to share the first of a handful of virtual resources I am curating this summer. Hope to see you and all there!
**Juneteenth to the Fourth || Weekly Antiracist History Class for Community Member and Grown Scholars (Starts Sunday, June 6th): https://www.eventbrite.com/e/156710727003
The events are donation based to ensure we can continue to curate free public programs and community conversations in the future.
**If you'd like to support my work and access exclusive essays, decolonizing history lessons, and antiracist resources, join my Patreon community.
Dear children of the Black and African Diaspora:
Dear brown, beige, white, and pink decolonizers-in-training:
It is alright to feel angry, frustrated, or helpless about the verdict. The next step is to ask yourself:
What is my role as an abolitionist, decolonizer, disruptor, or educator? How can I cultivate an antiracist, decolonized community?
If you’re ready to decolonize your understanding of history and build antiracist tools to practice in your day-to-day life, come join me on Patreon.
Ma'Khia was a child who will never have the chance to walk across the stage at graduation. She will never have the chance to show her family her college acceptance letters or scholarships. She will never grow up because, in the ecosystem of white supremacy, Ma'Kiah wasn't a young scholar, or a blooming
She was a threat.
It's time we uprooted and dismantled white supremacy.
Just in case anyone in your stratosphere is trying to compare celebrating Prince Phillip's passing (at 99 years old) with celebrating George Floyd's lynching, here's a quick response to dismantle their alignment with whiteness and the monarchy (which is a white supremacist institution) 👑
"No one is celebrating the death of a white man. They are celebrating the death of a powerful individual who supported an apartheid regime, and never publicly denounced Nazism or white supremacy, both which his family + government benefited from at the expense of Black, brown, and indigenous people."
When we say we are descendants of enslaved people, we are also acknowling that our ancestors survived the Maafa, the African Holocaust.
The United Nations recognizes that between 15 and 20 million people were kidnapped, burglarized, and trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean during the era of American slavery.
Ship logs from this era reveal that the death tolls across the Middle Passage were staggering. Sometimes, more than half of the enslaved occupants perished on those ships. This does not include the countless Africans who died on the death marches from the African interior to the slave forts on the coasts . . .or those who died at the hands of their enslavers or chose death over white violence and exploitation.
Decolonizing work is not possible WITHOUT reconciling and TALKING about the history of slavery.
I read about the Holocaust in 4th grade, 5th grade, and through middle and high school. I only had two teachers who discussed slavery in detail. My 4th grade teacher (who was Black) and my middle school humanities teacher (who was white). One high school teacher said "we're required by the state to teach this . . ." My 96 year old grandmother can recall her grandmother talking to her about her life as an enslaved youth. Most of us are just FIVE to SIX generations removed from slavery. THAT'S how recent this history is.
If you feel overwhelmed, embarrassed, ashamed, or spiritually upset about this history or your miseducation, it's up to you to educate yourself and your community. Don't wait for education reform. Reform yourself! ✊🏿📚
Come join my Patreon community where I host weekly virtual classes, interviews with historians, and share activities and resources to help you decolonize your life and build antiracist tools to upRoot white supremacy in your community.
Hello everyone! 👋🏾 I just wanted to take a moment to re-introduce myself. 📚
My name is Sidney Rose. I am a current historian and graduate of Florida A&M University’s history program, with a specialization in American history during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The pandemic has put my Ph.D. track on hold (for the moment), but, in the midst of the racial vengeance and violence (both physical and virtual), I wanted to find a way to make decolonized history and learning more accessible for the public, especially parents and educators of young (and growing) scholars.
While I curate antiracist resources and book lists through Instagram (@rosecolored_scholar), I started an antiracist community on Patreon (www.patreon.com/antiracistliberation) where I hold weekly [virtual] history lessons, exclusive interviews with antiracist scholars, and share decolonized essays, articles, and resources for antiracist padawans, students, parents, librarians, and concerned citizens looking to decolonize their day-to-day practices.
If you are reading to activate your activism and decolonize, your reading, our history, and your community, come join me on Patron! 🖤🌿💞
here is a sneak peek from the Patreon post I dropped earlier today going through a few words that I think we need to wash out of our mouths this year
(Read my full lesson on www.patreon.com/antiracistliberation)
Minorities - in the words of Afroherbalist and Moon Mother, Suhaly Bautista-Carolina, “there is nothing MINOR about me.” Referring to Black, brown, beige, and indigenous people as minorities feeds into the racialized idea that the dominant racial group has the inherent right to define and shape the society we live within.
Words and Terms to replace minorities: Black, brown, beige, and indigenous people, BIPOC (Black and Indigenous People of Color), AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islanders), or marginalized people.
Politically Correct - for me, there is no word that is more oh-so benevolently racist as politically correct. Used by corporations and FOX News charlatans alike, this term is often utilized to shield white supremacist policies and practices. Referring to a comment or a practice as politically correct not only simplifies the ever-evolving nature of white supremacy but, further reveals how the speaker
White Fragility - I will save my full breakdown of why you should shelve your copy of DiAngelo’s White Fragility for another day, but the argument that “white fragility” is constructive term is based on a very two-dimensional understanding about language, lived experiences, and the nature of antiblackness. What DiAngelo describes as “white fragility” is, in fact, cognitive dissonance and antiblackness, philosophies and practices which are NOT UNIQUE TO WHITE PEOPLE. Now don’t think this means I’m saying white folks are off the hook (cause ya’ll aren’t). The ecosystem of white supremacy infects and affects all of us, and, for many people across color lines (but especially white folks), aligning oneself to whiteness (meaning accepting the philosophies, policies, and practices that reinforce white supremacy) is a way of life that [they believe] preserves a handful of perceived privileges that give them a sense of security, status, or prosperity…
In the ecosystem of white supremacy, aligning oneself with whiteness and “white culture” are just as much about survival and and sustaining a [false] sense of security as they are about self-preservation at the expense of Black and non-white existence and equity. Referring to the complex reactions and struggles with grappling with one’s own system of reality (or world view) purely as “white fragility” takes focus away from the much larger task of people across color lines upRooting themselves from this ecosystem that infects and affects all of us.
Illegal Immigrants - Superman is an alien, but NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL. Full stop. The irony thickens when you realize that the United States and Canada basically established themselves on top of already established, politically complex indigenous nations and communities. Our feet rest on native land that was occupied and co-opted by Europeans who committed cultural erasure and genocide on indigenous people and kidnapped, enslaved, and trafficked Africans across an ENTIRE OCEAN to further exploit and dehumanize them.
