Celestina, Erin, Carol, Ryan, Sam and Kakas

Hi folks. Such hot and juicy readings this week, many questions and feels, but here are two:

Both Baldwin and Freire employ a language of love and humanity in their conceptualizations of how to disrupt oppression and work toward liberation. I find something powerful and beautiful in that, but also in my experience, this language can sometime be co-opted as means of invalidating and vilifying the righteous anger of marginalized peoples (e.g. "Ugh how are we ever supposed to reach equality when Black/Brown people are so bitter and mean all the time?!") I think it's tricky work to push back against the dehumanization of folks of color without falling into the trap of a colorblind, humanist (I understand this as very white liberal, but Freire uses it in a different way) understanding of how we all should/ should be expected to live in the world together. How do you understand Baldwin's appeal to his nephew to "accept" white folks "with love"? Are love and anger mutually exclusive? Where is the space to talk about our shared humanity in such a fraught historical context, which has produced such differential realities for different humans?

Something else I struggle with which was touched on by these readings is whose shoulders the onus for liberation is placed on. Baldwin very clearly says that his nephew must accept white folks with love in order to force them to recognized themselves as oppressors, the first step in his own liberation ("We cannot be free until they are free.") Freire's work emphasizes similar sentiments about liberation (for both the oppressors and oppressed) only being able to spring from the oppressed themselves. While in many ways I find this gives agency by positioning the oppressed as the holders of transformative power (and also agree that the oppressors are far too entrenched in systems that benefit them to lead the struggle for liberation), there's always a piece of me that feels like really?! Folks who have already had to work 10x as hard have to lead this work too?! And yes, of course, the work is 100% necessary and ultimately much more life giving/soul feeding than maintaining a dehumanizing status quo, but what liberation actually looks like is so HARD since a) "To be Black and conscious in American is to be in a constant of rage"-Baldwin (so responding with love ain't so easy), b) The laundry list of super difficult and painful dualities Freire offers on p.48 and c) capitalism (among other things of course). While we live in this type of economic system where people have to constantly compete and prioritize their paid work for survival it's extremely difficult (while still necessary) to dedicate one's life to transformation. I feel that ugly, painful, full of constant struggle piece is often downplayed in the romantic conversations of liberation and transformation. How do we talk to students about justice being their responsibility, while both attending to the incredible weight of that and also treating them gently when perhaps they make decisions that in turn, "prevent others from being more fully human" (i.e. for survival)?