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Hello {{ first name | friends}},
If you're Black or a person of the Global Majority, I'm sure you've bristled when a person racialised as white says "you're so articulate". And if you're racialised as white, you've probably wondered why the thing you thought was a compliment wasn't taken as such.
The reason for that is in our history, in a history of denied education and reduced expectations which mean that this phrase, when said in a particular way, can never be neutral.
Use Your Imagination
Imagine, if you will, being trafficked from your home, deliberately chained and housed with people who didn't speak your language, forced to speak your captor's tongue at the end of a whip, taught only what you needed to be "useful" and slated for two things: first, speaking that imposed tongue imperfectly and second, changing it into a language of your own (hello AAVE, Gullah and others). Imagine being denied the education that would have "lifted" (I hope you can hear the air quotes) your speech to the "standard". (These are all loaded terms which I am using for convenience, though I don't believe them.)
Imagine being part of a derided and despised group only seen as worthy when you acquired the trappings of whiteness.
Imagine growing up in a world where everything you are was cause for mockery, derision and othering. Imagine people expecting you to know less and be less. Imagine all that I've described being encoded in your DNA as trauma.
And then imagine hearing that question today, with an air of surprise, if not astonishment. Then you'll get a small idea why it stings so much.
What I Take For Granted
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