There Is No Neutral Place When It Comes To Oppression
Even if you aren’t personally doing the oppressing, you are still taking a side
As Eli Weisel said, “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” But even beyond that, not actively working to dismantle the structures that keep some people at a systemic disadvantage actually works to the benefit of those who are already in a position of power and privilege. It’s how that status gets maintained, whether you have ill intentions or not.
I recently heard an assertion that simply by not being personally racist, one could essentially opt-out of any further responsibility for the inequities of the society that we live in. This all hinged on the “presumption of innocence” — that if someone was not personally behaving in a harmful way, they should be presumed to have good intentions and to be considered benevolent. There are a lot of issues with this line of thinking, however.
You’re treating people as if they are only individuals instead of also (and in fact, mostly) a part of a society. You cannot be neutral as a member of a society the way you possibly could be in a dispute between two friends. Most racism (and sexism) is not overt hatred, it’s implicit bias and…
