My White Friend
(excerpt from A Book of Her Own, Words and Images to Honor the Babaylan by Leny M. Strobel)

He is often concerned that my work is too racialized; that it can’t help but dissolve into dualistic antagonisms — the very antagonisms I seek to transform. But why, I ask him, is it so difficult for him to listen to my story? What does it ask of him that he refuses to hear it? At some level we already agree on our vision of justice and peace, vision of spiritual awakening, vision of ecological justice. We already agree that there is racism still. Or that it is only now that white folks are beginning to acknowledge white privilege. . .  so why does he always resist this? 

(also posted at http://rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com)