Released this past summer is a 13-minute short-film (podcast) by Michael, Wesch, an associate professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University. The film deals with institutionalized White supremacy in Kansas, and is entitled Building the Troost Wall: Structural Racism in Kansas City.
One of the things I like about the film is the straight-forward, intelligent handling of the subject matter, especially highlighting the contrasts of the reinforced notions of goodness associated with Whiteness versus the bad misfortunes of Blackness.
Wesch provides a strong visual narrative of the evolution of structural racism against African-Americans in Kansas City, and in doing so seems genuinely sincere in his endeavor to bring light to this historic socioeconomic blight that persists.
Without saying it literally, the film points out the fact that at its core White supremacy is about financial domination and the mechanisms of social control that ensure that.
Overall Wesch's film is informative and certainly worth watching, even though in the last few minutes of the film Wesch makes a few statements the attempts to absolve the complicit beneficiaries of structural racism, in particular when he explains away the culpability of those engaged in real estate redlining and white flight by essentially saying White folks had/have to do what they had/have to do in order to protect their financial assets, which is not inherently racists, and as such he then says "We are faced with a strange situation of racism without racists."
Of course, that cannot be, unless one has cherry-picked the definition of racist. And what would explain that occurrence? It's something that happens within a concept I refer to as the continuity of Whiteness, which will be defined and discussed more in future updates.
For the purpose of mentioning it here, in the simplest terms it must be understood that where there is racism there are racists - individuals acting within a collective that ensures power structures and economic outcomes, which are self-evident.
To benefit from the fruit of oppression is to be a part of oppression, however naively or obliquely. As is, to harbor the land or benefit from the harvest of lands taken by force from another is to partake in oppression, even if obscured by inheritance through the millennia.
To benefit from the fruit of oppression is to be a part of oppression, however naively or obliquely. As is, to harbor the land or benefit from the harvest of lands taken by force from another is to partake in oppression, even if obscured by inheritance through the millennia.
In silence injustice persists. And no amount of bureaucracy can conceal this.
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