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On savarna fragility by Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt





Some brown folks in academia are as toxic and fragile as some white folks. 

Their hunger for both power, recognition and capacity for toxic positivity is just harmful to all those who are trying to do the “real” work of equity and social justice on the ground and face serious resistance from both masked and unmasked oppressors.
 
These are the same people whose capacity for any scholarly engagement is minimal. 

When you confront them with their transgressions (which are actually very passive-aggressive) they seem to disengage.


And if these are “savarna women,” then their brand of feminism is both self-serving and oppressive. They do little to put their bodies on the line to resist or organize, but jump up and take credit for solidarity movements and coalitions that others create (and they participate by standing on the periphery, and often performatively).


Once you recognize these folks, you really need to be aware of them. 

Call out when they lay any claim to movements that are not their own but co-opted, or ideas that you’ve created - which they will grab like spiders and give you no credit.


This is a kind of violence that must be addresssed. It is predatory.


This is the kind of lateral and horizontal violence that is most harmful to the very bodies that are desperately trying to remove themselves from a cycle of oppressions that they encounter — created by these savarna fake intellectuals.

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