oh ouch

bossymarmalade tells it like it is.

Excerpt:

You see, I couldn't just decide not to have a conversation about race anymore, because it follows me home. My race issues ARE my home. Other people can pick them up when they want to look at something shiny, something exotic tasty foreign bright colourful strange exciting; they toss them around, try them on. Start to explain them to me and find different names for them, like classism and learning experience.

And then they get confused that those race issues, shiny, aren't also malleable submissive accepting pliant silent cowed controllable; they drop them, scowling, and complain that I should have warned them they might get pricked, especially as they were so well-meaning in their actions.

Well, I say, maybe you shouldn't touch things before you learn about them or know how to treat them with respect.

But please read the whole thing.

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ETA: BRILLIANT. A comparison of what Ms. Bear said against what bossymarmelade replied, by stoneself.