When you can't identify where accountability lies by parsing where power ultimately lies...your DEI expertise work is just a facade for status quo.
(Post was brought to my attention. She blocked me for pointing out anti-Muslim racism in her posts a while back.)
When we are not equipped do a functional power analysis, unable/unwilling to make judgments of where accountability lies...
...then our DEIBA expertise does more harm than good.
In the context of a holocaust being livestreamed...there is no room for the gymnastics of "both sides"-ing.
Exactly zero room.
In the context of settler colonialism, there is no such thing as "innocent civilians".
Just like Hersh Goldberg-Polin wasn't an innocent civilian.
He parents stole Palestinian land.
He served his full term in the IOF.
He was partying with other current/past IOF soldiers, at the border of a concentration camp.
And who, we'll find out years later, was shot by the IOF, not H/mas.
They were/are ALL illegal occupiers.
There is no such thing as an innocent civilian during an active apartheid, genocide, holocaust...while land is being actively stolen and people are being actively genocide-ed.
An inability or refusal to see where the power lies leads to burdening the oppressed with accountability.
Leads to the All-Lives nonsense.
Leads to place an inequitable burden of "peace" and "nonviolence" on the oppressed.
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It is blowing my mind that this is needing to be spelled out.
So, let me try another angle.
All of Canada and the US....are also stolen lands.
Everyone who is not Indigenous, and not a descendant of slavery, is a settler on stolen land.
Even immigrants.
I, myself, am an immigrant settler.
The levels of complicity are varying....but we're all settlers. And carry our share of the burden of accountability towards Land Back movements and reparations.
We actually don't have any more right to be occupying these lands than ISRs have occupying Falasteen.
Yt Settler colonialsm is Yt settler colonialism...
...even 100, 200, 300, 500 years down the road.
...even when the Yt settlers are unalived/harmed during resistance.
There were NO innocent Yt settlers back when this continent was "being acquired", while Indigenous people were(are) being genocid-ed.
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LAST TIME: When we can't or won't parse power differentials for the purpose of assigning accountability for harm repair and for stopping oppression...
📌 we can't/won't hold the responsible parties responsible for their actions.
📌 we won't do what's needed to repair harm.
📌 only "one side" will get to defend itself.
📌 only "one side's" hostages will matter.
📌 measures of accountability will feel oppressive.
📌 beneficiaries of oppression will be seen as "innocent".
So yes, Elisa, you are being asked to identify & hold the oppressors accountable.
WHY is this so hard? Hold her accountable.
#facts #history #DEI #integrity #power #choice #leadership #criticalthinking
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