medium | Fortunately, we people of colour can now follow Cristina’s leadership. Will she hand out “multiracial blackness” cards to white people who toe the line? Should the people of colour who voted for Trump wear a mark (perhaps a brand of some kind) so that we can identify and shun them? Does Cristina plan to distribute a list of acceptable opinions so that us poor, confused black folks don’t accidentally think something which costs us our blackness privileges? I can’t wait to learn more about how all of this works.
In the meantime, I’m just happy to see people of colour being infantilised and marginalised in this way. Surely we can all agree that the best way to treat those with differing opinions isn’t to focus on our common ground and try to understand each other but to discard them not only politically, but racially. By erasing the identity of everybody we disagree with, we can ensure that people of colour become the homogenous mass of groupthink Cristina imagines us to be.
Only one small shred of doubt remains. It’s true that I don’t understand how anybody, of any colour, believes Trump’s lies. I don’t understand why anybody would want him to represent America on the world stage. And I certainly don’t understand how anybody could be surprised that a president whose approval rating never made it above fifty percent and who presided over the deaths of more than 300,000 Americans during an election year, lost an election. But my first instinct when I come across these people isn’t to invalidate them.
Sure, sometimes it’s downright unpleasant to engage with people who think differently. It’s tempting to take refuge in the idea that we have nothing in common or that they’re hopelessly deranged. But if we find the courage and decency to talk in good faith, even the most repulsive people can surprise us.
Speaking of surprises, in a shocking turn of events (by which I mean a wholly predictable turn of events for anybody who’s noticed the trend of white guilt being twisted into deeper, more virulent strains of racism), Cristina is herself white*. And learning that she must automatically be invested in “a form of hierarchy in which the standing of one section of the population is premised on the debasement of others,” comes as a huge relief.
Because as revolutionary as the following statement might seem, I think people of colour should be able to disagree. I believe that the colour of your skin says nothing about the values and opinions you must hold. And while I wish that we could all get along, I’m willing to sit down and debate respectfully when we don’t. Because if I had to choose, I’d much rather deal with a person of colour who I disagree with than a white person who thinks we need to meet her standards to be who we are.
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