Dear People with Privilege: On Freeing the Pelican
The first men to deny sexism are sexists themselves; the first white people to deny racism are racists themselves.
One of the profound tensions of the U.S. is that the country founded on the ideals of individual liberty—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—was in fact built by sexists and racists. This is no easy or comfortable contradiction.
We have settled into an ends justifying the means narcotic as a people to avoid that contradiction.
The great praise the U.S. does deserve (although not unique to the U.S.) is the concept of pursuit; a great many people have pursued and continue to pursue the elusive equity of our founding principles.
To identify, admit to, and then confront racism or sexism, we must reach to the people with the most power in the country—white men, who believe they have earned that power, their success.
Racism and sexism are not mere abstractions because some people must be complicit in the perpetuation of both.
Even among the victims of racism and sexism, we find people complicit, but the main people responsible for our failures in the pursuit of equity are the ones with the most power, power gained from privilege.
Most of us, then, when confronted with the ugliest truths of racism and Dear People with Privilege: On Freeing the Pelican | radical eyes for equity:
