Conversations with White People by IC Bailey

Author:IC Bailey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Justice. Racism.
Publisher: IC Bailey
Published: 2019-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_philosophy

“Ubuntu philosophy”

“Nelson Mandela explained Ubuntu as follows:

A traveler through a country would stop at a village and he didn’t have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food and attend him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu, but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?”

“Ubuntu: ‘I am what I am because of who we all are.’” (From a definition offered by Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee.)

“Archbishop Desmond Tutu offered a definition [in] his 1999 book No Future Without Forgiveness.

‘A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.’”

Tutu further explained Ubuntu in 2008:

“One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity.

We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.”

Duncan*: IC Bailey, you started me thinking on this thread. I think growing up trying to gain access to, and acceptance in, the white community does, in my experience, train you to be defensive, even aggressively so, in outlook. I’m trying to come up with specific examples. But it’s certainly been an outcome of my exposure to white culture, especially Anglo white culture – especially when uninterrupted, or not anchored, by intergenerational social influences (in my personal experience).

Madelyn: I’m sure that’s true that wt people have been included more readily into Black communities than vice versa due to white privilege, but they likely wouldn’t be so welcoming to a wt person who didn’t speak similarly or dress similarly or came from a different socioeconomic background. Every community is brought together by their similarities and those who have differences are “excluded.”

Harrison, are you seriously trying to suggest that the only way that white people will be accepted by Black communities is if they try to “act black?”

If anything, I would imagine that that would make Black people less likely to trust that white person, not more. Unlike when Black people are forced to “act white” in order to gain (partial, at best) acceptance into white communities, the reverse does not hold true. In the first case, an oppressed group is being forced to assimilate to the dominant culture’s norms in order to make them feel more comfortable and at ease.

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