![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I explained I was reading writings of African and Indigenous American women who argued that much influential literature about the lives of women and men-about the lives of human beings-was about white people, and in fact white points of view and experiences supposedly stood for “human nature,” or “everyone.” Much of what is taken to be the way women and men behave is about how white women and men tend to behave. ![]() I asked her whether those authors’ perspectives on women and men were in fact specifically white. I recently spoke with a friend who was reading a book of reflections by white women intellectuals on how women see themselves. In some cases, what is feared is what one may learn about oneself, the image of oneself that might emerge. The motivation here is the discomfort, perhaps fear, the denied or evaded subject stimulates. The effort it takes to avoid what is in plain sight requires identifying it while skillfully evading it. The elephant in the room is the familiar metaphor. The irony of avoiding a subject is that doing so may make it more present. Thus, talking about them often leads to talking around them or, worse, about anything else but them. Talking about black and Black consciousness requires an exploration of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and missed opportunities, as well as all kinds of misses and missives that they occasion: anxiety, despair, dread, and fear. ![]()
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