Remember when BLM was first uttered as a rallying statement to the world, how long, how much precious time, lives, and resources were lost needing to educate and convince non-Black people and white people that Black lives indeed do matter? And still?
The amount of time and energy to untangle white people conditioned under the colonial mindset, in explaining to literal death that no one ever said other lives didn’t matter.
White eople so used to being centered as whites that they could not even fathom that other people ALSO matter. They could not even grasp being decentered. And so everything stopped for them to catch up.
It is all happening again with the call for a free Palestine. Precious time and lives are being taken because of colonial-mindset people who simply cannot let go of being centered.
Never once did anyone say that everyone should not be free. In fact, it is the very opposite call to demand everyone’s freedom. The call is for Palestinians to ALSO be free. But colonizer mindset means those who are used to being centered cannot even imagine that EVERYONE can be free.
And this is what I mean when I say white colonial dominant culture limits thinking.
That colonial centering and limited thinking comes at a cost. In order to have a colonial and oppressive center, it is at the DIRECT expense and harm of everyone else.
Colonial centering compels casualties. Oppressors SACRIFICE the oppressed so that they can be in power. Oppression REQUIRES the existence of the oppressed.
This is why we call for an end to oppression. Why we do not stop until EVERYONE gets liberation.
Those who are strapped into the colonial oppressor mindset, you can release it. You can unlearn it. You can challenge it. You can dismantle it. And in so doing, not only are you moving toward freeing yourself, but also everyone gets closer in the fight for liberation. EVERYONE.
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