Apologism… #WritingWhileBlack
Beware of people who sit in places of privilege and constantly ask people who are disempowered for accountability, White cishet and het-passing people who are in authority and insist that marginalized people need to admit to what THEY did wrong because we “all need to be accountable”
THEY ARE APOLOGISTS.
An apologist is busy looking for ways to tell you that you have no right to protest. No right to complain. That you can’t complain. And that you have to be worried about how you asking for basic equity, human rights, or representation hurts their feelings.
Sometimes there is no representation – as in, where they literally have only white cis people in power in their organization as their entire board or most of it is white, and their management is almost all white and cis and the people who are not white and cis have roles with no actual authority
And these people are touchy as hell every time you mention it. And you have to be careful about their paper thin ego. And you have to now be asked to APOLOGIZE for rocking the boat.
APOLOGISTS think that someone else’s feelings being hurt when you mention that they hire like 95% Cis White People and/or their Management and Boards are 95% Cis White People is MORE IMPORTANT or EQUALLY IMPORTANT to the actual lack of diversity. Now we aren’t talking about the GLASS CEILING or LACK OF DIVERSITY we are talking about someone’s hurt fragile white feelings and how the marginalized people didn’t politely ask for change without offending anyone for another 80 or 38 or 31 or 27 years until they get around to any real change.
So the vested interests stay in place, we get one Black president (Token) and everyone else a White Cis Het-or-Hetpassing Male and this goes on forever and ever in the White House and everywhere else while we tell the rebels to be silent and not rock any boats because it’s rude.
Sumiko Saulson 