White people be like: talking about racism is racist!

I seriously debated whether I wanted to discuss this via this medium right here but since that's the purpose of Mother Dean Says I'm gonna speak on it. The idea that black people or any people of color talking about racism is racist drives me up the fucking wall. The fucking wall. Apparently scores of white people took umbrage at the Ebony magazine's September cover paying homage to fathers and sons who posed wearing Travyon Martin-like hoodies, a demonstration of solidarity that was powerful in its imagery as it invoked the fundamental truth that every black man and black boy is Trayvon Martin. That is, every black man and black boy is deemed a suspect and up to no good for being black. His very skin is the badge of a criminal in an America that tells black men and black boys that their blackness makes them scary, threatening and suspicious.

White people were deeply OFFENDED by this. First of all, there is nothing objectively racist about this cover. There is nothing objectively offensive in the image of a black father posing with his black son in a demonstration of the impenetrable bond between a parent and child. Secondly, the headlines "We are Trayvon" and "Save our sons" more than likely referred to the painful reality that faces black men and black boys: That they are targets and that they have been and can be killed with impunity merely due to the fact of their blackness.

And apparently it's racist to talk about that. It's racist to acknowledge the inequalities and oppression black men and black boys face because of their blackness. Because in a supposedly post-racial America, white people think merely mentioning race is playing a card, that you are invoking some sort of racist ideology because you aren't blind to the fact that you experience oppression and degradation because you are black. White people demand colorblindness from those who suffer through the injustice of being shamed FOR their color while at the same time failing to recognize that color blindness is the purest form of color consciousness. Afterall, in order to not SEE color, I have to first actively repress the color I do see and then pretend that it doesn't exist.

The problem with this view of course is that racism is actually not the recognition of color or how people experience oppression and degradation of color. It isn't racist to talk about my experiences of anti-blackness as a black woman. It isn't racist to recognize the danger black men and black boys are in due to anti-sentiment. And it's most certainly NOT racist to celebrate the bond and union between black men and black boys as sons and fathers. It just simply is not.