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Re: HOW DO YOU WHITE 'RASTAS' STOP OTHER WHITE PEO
Posted By: three_sixty In Response To: Re: HOW DO YOU WHITE 'RASTAS' STOP OTHER WHITE PEO (Bantu-Kelani)
Date: Saturday, 10 December 2005, at 2:38 p.m.
Greetings Bantu Kelani.
You are indeed missed sis. It saddens me that you are feeling ill. I hope for your well-being.
My statements are rather general here and maybe not the specific focus you were looking for – hopefully they will get fleshed out more as(and if) the reasoning develops.
You said:
"1. How can you recognize a white supremacist (racist)?"
* there are so many levels to this i feel. i think each of us has a degree of racism within us - i think it is in a way hard to escape with the conditioning in this culture combined with the privileges of whiteness that create many impediments to truly taking stock and confronting it. with that in mind, i think it is a matter of how much one is willing to confront the issues when presented with them. what tends to happen in the PC(politically correct) climate is that obvious and overt racists are made an example of – the media does it, they even make mini-series on TV sometimes about the klan, or crazy racist individuals – the message at the end is usually that these people are aberrations to the normal tranquility of everyday American multi-culturalism, melting pot _ _ _ _ (insert your favorite liberal phrase here). what is missing is the CONNECTION between the extreme racist and the system that was built and continues to thrive on racism – the individual extremist racist is easily marginalized, while the system is innocent, even cast as the SOLUTION.
2. How exactly do you make sure he or she is not practicing White Supremacy (racism)?
If we all benefit, then in a way we are all practitioners. Starshyne I think made a good point and perhaps this is a good indicator “ . . . realizing in ourselves the white mentality of arrogance and ignorance we are reared in…a sure sign of this mentality is when we deny that we are unrightfully privileged and receive unearned benefits.”3. What exactly can white 'Rastas' do, that nobody else can do, to replace white Supremacy with a system of Justice?
it is unfortunate, but i will say it because i feel it is true - but the Christian redeemer programming that many whites adopt in the trod of Rastafari does not help matters much. if one has the idea that soon God is going to save his own and wipe out all wickedness, then the amount of complacency can often times be magnified to an nth degree. i feel some whites pick up this vibe and use it to negate personal responsibility and feel that in many ways we can just sit back and relax and watch "Babylon fall" fully believing that they will be saved. in many ways this is counterproductive to the focus of African liberation. I do feel though that there are also those who do take the lessons of personal responsibility to heart and would not hide behind a religious doctrine as a justification. I think the focus of anyone who claims Rastafari on Africa specifically(even if just vague at first) combined with a general distrust of the system is a focus that many whites in general don’t have. This specific focalized point is what may make us white Rastas unique as opposed to others. I would think that this would cause white ones who claim Rastafari to be more willing(perhaps) to approach the issues surrounding white supremacy. To what level that is taken I think is a matter of character and/or willingness.
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