Working in both the active mobility and the racial justice worlds, I have been confronted with this question more than once. People stare at Black people–particularly Black women–with false humility, wondering what they should do. I liken this to someone who repeatedly does the wrong thing, but wonders aloud about how to fix the harm–with the people that person has harmed. Abusive spouse, corporate polluter, bullying “friend, and the like, all want to pretend that they have no idea why people are responding the way they are. In truth, such people know what they have to do, and are actively avoiding doing it.
Directed at most racial groups, this question is a fake adherence to the leadership of Black people, or other people of color. When Barack Obama became president, I remember sitting at work on election night, vehemently thinking, “This is going to change nothing, and we all think this is really important.” I really hate being right about things like that, because the dominant narrative made sure that instead of paying attention to a Black leader, the Black leader was made into a puppet. Claudia Gay of Harvard University? Not only did she have to adhere to the dominant narrative, she was supposed to submit to being target practice for baseless accusations. Ben Carson being in charge of HUD was just adding insult to injury. The dominant narrative believes that Black people are subhuman, so asking us what to do is completely disingenuous.
Moreover, when Black people actually answer this question, no one listens to what we offer as solutions. During the Reconstruction when there were independent Black communities not trying to integrate, there was extensive violence to burn those communities to the ground. We have been told to “take care of our own” segregated communities, but when people decided that they wanted our communities for themselves, we have to be “bigger people” and leave for “progress.” After being forced to “join” the dominant narrative, we have continued to be told that we lack “professionalism,” are incapable of meeting standards, and continue to be passed over to gain our own resources. If people were genuinely asking what to do to take action, racial disparity could have been a thing of the past.
Secondly, most people ask what to do because they want a simple and convenient answer that takes no time, energy or resources, hopefully visible so they can brag to friends. Voting is not activism; it is continuing to prop up the dominant narrative and mindless belief that the same oppressive system that created the problems will heal itself. This can be lumped in with calling and writing elected officials, and signing petitions–possibly unions at this point. Non-profits are about self-perpetuation, and function within the dominant narrative, so no, they are solving problems, either. Protests are now about attention-seeking, which is why I myself stopped doing them ten years ago. Attention is the main goal of these methods, not solutions, and awareness has proven itself to be a worthless method of solving actual problems.
Finally, people asking what to do are really asking to be excused for not doing anything at all. Most people understand that they could probably do something more than stand around wondering what to do, but they want the excuse of a lack of direction. They claim to be devoted to a number of causes and struggles, but they want instructions to avoid liability. In short, people who sit around asking for something to do are generally avoiding responsibility, while looking for someone to blame when things go wrong.
There are a lot of people to blame for the coup in the United States, and I mostly blame the comfortable people with money who sat around asking what to do. They know they created barriers to progress, stripped people of resources, and refused to listen to anything but self-affirming information. Is this just the “elites”? No, because most people lack the resources to consider themselves “elite.” Most people standing around and being willfully ignorant are trying to distance themselves from accountability, because they all knew that what was happening–and what they were doing–was morally abhorrent.
Chasing A Dying Empire 