Racism in Communities of Color

I was recently doing some research for a project about the Russian Jewish community and I came across this press release.







Racism, prejudice, and discrimination among communities of color is something that gets abandoned a lot of times in the discussion of racism.

Even though my intentions in this blog were to look at as many facets of racism and White privilege as possible, I feel like it continues to promote a mostly dichotomous view of racism as a Black and White issue.  But this inter-group tension is essential to the discussion.

Prejudice between marginalized communities prevents partnerships from being built that could be used to push against institutional and systemic oppression. The development of factions also promotes the dominant group and is, of course, supported by the culture in power.  Freire spoke of how the oppressed often becomes the oppressor when given power, and how this cycle keeps everyone in their respective positions on the losing side of the power imbalance.

This is not to trivialize the real histories of partnership and tension between communities of color. There are long-standing walls that divide everyone, and we can't forget to work at dismantling these as we all simultaneously examine the dominant culture's grasp on power.