Privileged people who say they want marginalized people to educate them don’t really want to be educated. In my experience, people who want to be educated will seek out the information they want, without putting the onus on you.
When privileged people say they want to be educated, what they really want is for you to say no, so they can complain that if you really wanted change, you’d change them. I guarantee that even if you say yes, they will completely disregard everything you say and act like its your fault for somehow failing to change a mind that wasn’t ever going to change.
Literally two kinds of people are reblogging this post.
A. “Yep. Been there, done that. People like that just want to drain you of your energy, not understand the struggle.”
B. “If you don’t spend your time and energy educating other people you’re scum, fuck you, OP!!!!!”
I know I literally just reblogged this, but since adding it to my queue i found a quote that describes what the OP is talking about. It’s from Audre Lorde’s The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, and of the onus being on the unprivileged to educate the privileged she says –
“ This is an old and primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the oppressors concerns.”
“The function, the very serious function of racism, is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language, so you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly, so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Someone says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”
-Toni Morrison, “Black Studies Center public dialogue,” Portland State University, May 30, 1975
QueerAnarchism 