Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

Once again white folks, please stop assuming you know what racism is

You will never feel the deep down pain of it. So you don’t have the authority to tell a black person their feelings are invalid

Georgia NeSmith
4 min readMay 3, 2022

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NOTE: This piece was written in response to a comment by Robert Freedom who in turn was responding to one from from Aza Y. Alam. The interchange was in reply to discussions of Rebecca Stevensarticle linked below. The “you” addressed here is Robert Freedom. However it could just as well be written for all white men and women who care about racism..

You (Robert Freedom) express yourself with the privilege-based confidence that you know what racism is, and that the black people and people of color who experience lack the authority to name it when they experience it. That white people can be authorities on it without having lived inside it.

The assumption built into your response implies that it is possible for a white person to comprehend what’s going on in a way that gives them authority to argue that…

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Georgia NeSmith

Retired professor, feminist, writer, photographer, activist, grandmother of 5, overall Wise Woman. Phd UIA School of Journalism & Mass Communication, 1994.