Baldwin, and the not so white guys
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I feel grateful for the readings for this week as it resonates a lot with me on a personal level. It is one spoken with the idea of love around it despite it being something very challenging to navigate and speak about for both people who experience whiteness, and for those who propagate it consciously or unconsciously. This is something that I am still trying to figure out if it's worth doing, and so the text reassured me that it is, as it is through love that relationships between anyone thrive and maintain a healthy balance. It's an important perspective to put into words for the public to see, as I find that it is not always noticed by people who see oppressed who speak their minds as always angry. Angry people who should be grateful for what they "have". I read Baldwin's letter to his nephew as a love letter drenched in agony and warmth to reassure him, to let him know that he is not alone and that people before him have endured pain and have his back for whatever challenges he may face. It is also to motivate him to not give up in this life as words will be used against him to convince him that something is wrong with him to be living in the society that he will be growing up in. Baldwin says that he must "accept them" (p.22) because he believes the people hurting black people, still do not understand how wrong their thinking is of black people. They are caged up in their hate for black people, blinded by lies and non-rational fears, and fears are extremely hard to get rid of especially if one feels that the fear is a legitimate one. Why get rid of fear if it's protecting us right? This also relates to when he says "We cannot be free until they are free" (p. 24), because it is their fears and thoughts that were learned in various ways that are holding them captive from seeing the problem. When he says accept them, he also means accept them as being lost, because not accepting the truth of people will only lead to more hurt. Acceptance here does not mean being okay with their maltreatment.
From my understanding of the readings and videos, I recognized the correlation between whiteness and otherness as a reflection of one another. Whiteness and the space being infiltrated by whiteness should be understood as a way that people understand one another, and people who propagate this notion, themselves. The "other" emphasizes their notion of identity so that when the person emulating whiteness looks at something that is not emulating that, their whiteness is solidified. It's a comfort, as it serves as a way to understand their presence in society.
As for the pizza thing, I think pizza as a food is symbolic of "normalcy", "cool", and "comfort food". Most people like pizza. It's a safe food to eat anywhere in many Western cities. It's a song where 4 guys who are clearly not white, are trying to convince others that they are just like everyone else, hence they are eating pizza and vibing to rock/indie/ music to cosplay "whiteness/norm". Why do they get sick from it and fall? I don't know, maybe they want to eat homemade food of their cultures but they do not because of stares and judgment so they settle for less and assimilate and keep getting pizza for lunch. Eating blander food than we are accustomed to, or food we don't enjoy eating on a daily basis with no variety is not fun. For me at least.