Why White Servitude Is Not The Answer To Extinction Revolution's Inability To Act As One

yes, white middle-class people *should* be subservient in any movement towards social justice, just like cis men should be subservient in any movement about gender and white people should be subservient in any movement about race (and climate justice is of course about both of those things, as well as disability, class, land rights, colonialism and everything else.) We don’t have the knowledge of what it is like to like at the sharp end of that oppression, and if we don’t deliberately adopt an attitude of service we will replicate the patterns of leadership and privilege which exist everywhere else in society and which exclude and alienate people.

have the time and the money: we do not have the knowledge What you're asserting is very problematic if taken at face value and needs further clarification I feel in order to enhance its ability to not be taken out of context easily.

I agree. The power the privileged possess ought to be fueling the change that has to happen. But employing that power under a banner of subservience is not the right forward in my mind. It feels totally misguided.

Expecting the consistently oppressed to know of the pathway that leads to their ultimate redemption is wishful thinking. To me, taking that path leads to only more impasses, frustrations and then stagnation. A point where the privileged have ticked off all the boxes of the things they need to do to be absolved of all blame, should things end up at this point again. But it's no way to go forward.

"Tell me, poor person, how exactly may I help you?"

"Just talk to me like a human being instead of a subject"

"Well, I have this purse of monies, which I am quite willing to give to you in order to affirm how much I value your existence. Will this in any way help?"

"Yeah, ok. I'll have some free money, yeah. Cheers."

I'm telling you, adopting an attitude of servitude will never work. Not only is it still terribly patronising, but your solution leads to the propagation of what it is itself. You need to do something much more fundamental than that to build the bridge that connects and fully assembles us. Go much much further. Something you're not willing you do yet, or even consider doing (I love the way things will stay at this point until you do do it! Like its some sort of puzzle with only one solution).

It's something white middle-class people are now desperately trying to find ways not to have to do. Offering their service and resources, even relinquishing all authority of the steering wheel of the narrative in order to not have to endure the internal conflicts and difficulties in accepting the working class as having equal worth. Your words on paper say that you accept us, but your demeanour speaks more convincingly.

Whites needing to be subservient as a solution becomes the thing which is then echoed into the future, leading to its own eventual crises. Turning yourself into a servant, is the best way to hold your hands up in order to avoid having to looking within yourself to find the problem and write the solution.

The solution is always for your actions to contain the essence of the vision of the happy ending. The end itself, and never the means to get there. It's the only way one can overwrite the present with the thing one wishes to see continue into the future.

Intimidating Others Is A Privilege I Enjoy Making The Most Of

One of the best things about being big and black in an almost entirely white village I'm finding is the ability to intimidate strangers without having to try. It really is a blessed privilege!

It's been so nice to have people quaking in abject fear when I've walked into a beer garden and taken a pew with my pint at the picnic bench next to them, and then bathed myself in the waves of worrisome gazes coming in from all angles, as they scope me out, attempting to divine my ulterior motive for choosing that particular bench to plonk my arse upon.

"But why that table in particular? Why not the one furthest away from us?? We're onto you sunshine... We'll be monitoring every sip you take of the delicious local IPA your drinking far too slowly to be a benign presence. Any other person who meant us no harm would have been half way through that pint by now. Keep an eye on him Karen, I'm just going for a piss..."

I love feeling the tension build and build between me and them, to the point where this non-existent war of attrition raging in their minds is just one more non-sip of my drink away from becoming an all-out wild west saloon brawl, minus the honky-tonk pianist providing our farcical soundtrack.

Then all of a sudden something will happen; an unintended connecting of our worlds will occur. The couple's dog, who had up until then been lying obediently at their feet will suddenly get up to stretch its legs, and without excusing itself, stroll casually across the hard border between us and into my domain, and I'll start petting it without thinking, stroking it like it was my own dog, telling it how lovely it is.

When people who think they should fear you see you being kind and gentle to something or someone they really care for then you immediately go from public enemy number one to being their newly adopted son in the blink of an eye. It's great! Shortly after I'd finished stroking their dog, during which I'd looked across at the couple to make friendly eye contact, I was being bombarded with unlimited pork scratchings and original flavour scampi fries! Win!!!

People feel better when they realise their fears were just unnecessary figments of their imagination, preventing them from being able to get along with everyone, and so it's a privilege for me to be someone's fear which is able to make itself disappear.