{"id":48012,"date":"2016-07-02T01:38:32","date_gmt":"2016-07-02T01:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48012"},"modified":"2016-10-26T22:36:54","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T22:36:54","slug":"your-blackness-isnt-like-mine-colorism-and-oppression-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=48012","title":{"rendered":"Your Blackness Isn\u2019t Like Mine: Colorism And Oppression Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/sil-lai-abrams\/your-blackness-isnt-like-_b_10704520.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Your Blackness Isn\u2019t Like Mine: Colorism And Oppression Olympics<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Huffington Post<\/a><br \/>\n2016-06-28<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Sil_Lai\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Sil Lai Abrams<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Monday night, actor and activist <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jesse_Williams_(actor)\" target=\"_blank\">Jesse Williams<\/a> gave a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bet.com\/video\/betawards\/2016\/acceptance-speeches\/jesse-williams-receives-humanitarian-award.html\" target=\"_blank\">powerful speech at the BET Awards<\/a> upon receiving the Humanitarian Award, during which he spoke eloquently, passionately, and dare I say \u2014 even lovingly to the audience of millions. I have seen hundreds of awards show acceptance speeches and Williams was the first Black man I witnessed stand up and acknowledge the sacrifices of Black women on this type of platform. In fact, through this speech he acknowledged damn near everyone, from \u201cactivists,\u201d to \u201cthe civil rights attorneys, the struggling parents, the families the teachers, the students, that are realizing that systems built to divide and impoverish us cannot stand if we do.\u201d He called out the names of those who have been killed by the police and railed against cultural appropriation and exploitation by White media corporations.<\/p>\n<p>Williams\u2019 speech was profound and emblematic of what it means to be \u201ctruly <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/woke\" target=\"_blank\">woke<\/a>,\u201d yet for some it wasn\u2019t enough. While many tweeted their adoration for his message, there was a vocal group of people expressing their frustration that Williams \u2014 a light-skinned, biracial Black man, was being given center stage as \u201cthe face\u201d for the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Black_Lives_Matter\" target=\"_blank\">Black Lives Matter<\/a> movement. While criticizing his appearance, they conveniently ignored that there are plenty of prominent Black folks with darker complexions who haven\u2019t said a damn thing their entire lives about social justice, stars with platforms even bigger than Williams&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/sil-lai-abrams\/your-blackness-isnt-like-_b_10704520.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Your Blackness Isn\u2019t Like Mine: Colorism And Oppression Olympics The Huffington Post 2016-06-28 Sil Lai Abrams Monday night, actor and activist Jesse Williams gave a powerful speech at the BET Awards upon receiving the Humanitarian Award, during which he spoke eloquently, passionately, and dare I say \u2014 even lovingly to the audience of millions. I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8,23674,20],"tags":[24309,10108,18889,23790,2425],"class_list":["post-48012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-media-archive","category-social-justice","category-usa","tag-bet-awards","tag-huffington-post","tag-jesse-williams","tag-sil-lai-abrams","tag-the-huffington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48012"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48013,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48012\/revisions\/48013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}