Thank you for your reply.
Really, an apology is not necessary because I was drawing attention to the feelings I experienced when reading the article. I didn’t find the use of racist language personally offensive.

I do think that using this language continues to afford it power over those it seeks to oppress. Reclaiming it is problematic and not always sucessful: think of the word ‘nigger’, for example. I can only think of one instance when oppressive language has been reclaimed, and it is the word ‘queer’. And even this is dependent on geographical and cultural context.

Talking of context, I’m now more aware from your reply that the language you used makes sense in your geographical and social context; it is alienating for me because I am black, British and living in London, UK. The only people who use the ‘wog’ here are far-right political activists and their sympathisers. I was born and grew up here, and know how important survival strategies to combat racism are – we don’t always choose the ones that are most helpful to us; also, it can take time to grow into one’s identity (I know this from personal experience).

Discussing racism openly and honestly will always cause discord and/or conflict. I know this from everyday life, and also from my research into the British feminist movement of the 1970s and 1980s; white feminists accused black feminists of causing division in the women’s liberation movement because they sought to challenge white feminists’ claim to speak for all women. The disagreements were painful and difficult, but part of the dialogue, and perhaps the only way to make progress.

I’d like to make it clear that I am not advocating or claiming a ’superior’ place in an imaginary hierarchy of oppression. This kind of thinking is unhelpful for everyone. However, I know that the battle is still on for me, and others like me to claim our humanity. It is still in doubt. Sylvia Wynter’s writing on humanism provides some lucid theorising on this subject (see Wynter, Sylvia
Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation–An Argument
CR: The New Centennial Review – Volume 3, Number 3, Fall 2003, pp. 257-337)

I think it’s perfectly ‘possible to imagine relationships unmediated by the violence of race’. I think it’s possible to have relationships in which the issues of race are understood, and dealt with. I have to believe this, otherwise I wouldn’t bother getting up every day!

Best wishes,

Sonia

Thanks for the response to the article… I appreciate you taking the time to do it

I am sincerely sorry if the language used in the article is alienating… It was not meant to do that – just the opposite…

It is difficult to respond to your criticism…

The article is an attempt to confront how someone of non-white background emerges through childhood years with these thoughts that I deny but instinctively retreat to without any realisation. As I was growing up I was beaten and spat on and consistently called a ‘wog’… A term that many have attempted to reclaim… This combined with the way whiteness comes to dominate Australian society led to a denial of my ethnicity…

Even worse, I see people claim a hierarchy of hurt in their dealings with whiteness… Some denying that what other’s experience is worthy of acknowledging…

It is something that I have discussed with many – of all skin tones – including my black co-author…

The article attempts to confront all these things… and I make no apology for that…

I hope that clears up my position… Like I said… Sorry to alienate you

Cheers, james

Have you ever engaged a black person in dialogue about these issues? It may be more fruitful than discussing them with someone else who has a similar fear of blackness.