Entitlement, Respectability Politics & White Supremacy Part II

Here's where the politics of black middle class respectability hop on the entitlement band wagon along with the white feminists: the ultimate goal is to achieve the same swag, condescension, power to ask for what you have not earned that is the sole bastion of  white maleness.  Well, not anymore, the American dream has become about being the conqueror, by any means necessary. 

I've noticed in my work, personal interactions how my responses to the following behaviors/belief systems are received.  The folks most guilty of this are the least aware, but more importantly, they also care the least about how violent and offensive their subconscious motives make them in everyday interaction.  

Each time I encounter it now, I experience is as an attempt to slash, demean and take what I have worked hard for whether it's that bale of cotton,
20 years of acting, teaching,
an MFA and credits as a writer,
producer, my story of recovering from
blackness in America.

Each interaction is a cut or a slash, but the difference is now I get to say "no" and have the power to stop the whipping.  That's my work.  I'm still waiting for the folks attempting to work out all their racist/classist entitlement on me to have the "aha" moment which will only come when we learn to recognize the parasitic behavior,
shut it down and stop engaging
in the game as if it is a fair one.  

Stop asking for,
needing,
relying on,
hoping for
the security of working and living off of the scraps of wealth being tossed our way and learn to rely solely on the products of our minds and hands to make an honorable living.    

That's the only way to outrun the vicious Karens and Kens and the "complicated" woke white folks still breaking treaties, stealing land and stories: 

Here's how it plays out.  I frame this in the world of the liberal arts and education because that's where most of my adult work life has happened:  

 1. Asking for favors that have not been earned.  And asking for more unearned favors when rebuffed.  The determination to get what you want from someone who is not obligated to give it.   It's violent and often couched in "politeness" which is the hallmark of entitlement.

2. Feeding off of the work, pain, suffering and it's ensuing wisdom of oppressed people to make a profit: trauma porn, cultural appropriation, taking credit for the work of POC

3. Taking what you are unable to earn: nepotism, raising trustafarians by giving one's heirs everything you never had without ever teaching them the responsibilities of one who has been given much.  

4. Raising children who speak to their parents with disregard and disrespect while collecting allowances;  never having chores or responsibilities to contribute to the household and who never have summer jobs to teach them responsibilities.  It's starts with disrespect, it ends with entitled adults who take as much as they can while giving as little as they can to their families and their society.

5. Teaching your children to get as much as they can by doing or paying as little as they can. Entitled parents are passive aggressive bullies raising passive aggressive bullies while appropriating the language of "wokeness" to cover their tracks and hide their narcissistic subconscious motives.

6. Assuming you know more about a person's predicament than they do and intruding with your savior mentality which assumes everyone else's inferiority

7. Becoming the ultimate parasite by co-opting the stories of people who have been oppressed by the dominant society while benefiting from the white skin privilege you have in said society

8.  Using the access white skin privilege has to wreck havoc in the lives of folks who don't have that privilege.  Calling authorities on innocent POC  setting boundaries for their lives or simply living.  Circumventing processes that require that you learn a set skills and pay some dues instead of just taking as much as you can while giving as little as you can.   

9.  Talking the language of equity, meritocracy and peace while profiting off the land, resources, intellectual property, inherited wealth from the labor of people who lack white skins. 

10.  Being completely self-righteous and manipulative to get what you want by any means necessary while refusing to examine all of the subconscious stealing, competing, destruction and violence that are the hallmarks of white supremacy.

I write for those of us who have the power to set boundaries against this kind of behavior, to learn to recognize it, shut it down by refusing to engage.  I write it to give you the warning signals so you don't waste your time teaching parasites who aren't willing to pay you for what you've worked so hard to learn and achieve.  I never ever write for those folks feeding and living by the law of entitlement.     By those who not only maintain White Supremacy but are evolving it into a new kind of imperialism that speaks a language of consciousness, while fine tuning a culture and society of violent oppression and greed.  ​

---