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.

Some Privileges Only Emerge When You Reach A Certain Age

Some of the privileges I currently have began as things almost everyone starts off with, and only became privileges the longer mine endured.

Like still having hair.

Recently a follically challenged man threw a jibe my way regarding my excessive cranial foliage. He implied that all the hair I got given must have landed in the same spot, and therefore the rest of my body must be mannequin smooth - devoid of all manly hairiness.

I didn't tell him he was right. Instead, I lifted his spirits by recalling the time I thought you could use shower gel as a substitute for hair gel because both products had the word 'gel' in them. I told him how the swagger in my step from showcasing my coiffed afro while ambling through Birkenhead Market soon turned to panicked scurrying as rain caused foam bubbles to suddenly start streaming down my forehead like I was sweating soap. This cheered the man up no end and it looked as though he felt a bit better about being bald.

But as well as those privileges we have which make others resent us, other privileges can sometimes make people pity you and even want to use you as a piece of technology. My height one such versatile example.

Shorter people breath sighs of relief not having to donate their face to rid doorways of ornate spider webs, and feel the wave of good fortune wash over them on the nightclub dance floor, glancing over to see the lone pitiful giant sticking out of the sweaty throng like Herman Munster, dancing like he's 5 feet 6.

But just an hour ago I realised that my height is also a privilege inexhaustible in its ability to not only give my life meaning, but also create a sense of community, bring people together and reaffirm the sentiment that we have to help each other if the world is to run smoothly.

I was in ASDA, again, walking down the soft drinks aisle, had picked up the cheapest drink when an old woman looking a bit embarrassed asked if I would use my height to fetch her a crate of Purdeys from the top shelf. I did and her face lit up! I may have even made a joke about the number of crates I should get down for her.

But it made me think, is this what she has to do every time she goes to ASDA and wants something from the top shelf??? No.... Her shopping trips must take forever and she didn't strike me as the kind of pensioner accustomed to scaling shelves like they were climbing frames.