Bix dot Blog

One confusion I’ve just sort of tried to shake off is that it’s tough to know how to reconcile voices that are imploring you as a white person to learn when sometimes those voices differ on whose lessons to heed. Kimberly Hirsh’s write-up of having just finished White Fragility reminds me that there’s been a noticeable criticism of that book lately coming from Black women, and yet it was a Black woman writer (whose book I also read) that led me to read it. Like any group of people, of course, “Black women” is not a monolith, so it hardly should be surprising that there’d be no unanimity. The trail just sometimes feels fraught with anxiety, as if following a pointer from one quarter might yield disparagement from another. I don’t think there’s anything to be done about this, per se. Navigating the rapids of educating oneself certainly isn’t exactly on any top-ten list of the world’s problems. It’s also less complaint than observation: when told to listen to Black people, it’s never entirely clear what to do when Black people themselves disagree. Maybe it’s less an observation than a question: what’s good allyship when the Black voices you hear are imploring you to go in different directions?