Postcard Series: Cleanliness by Mallory Culbert

G0dliness, Cleanliness, USA

by Mallory Culbert @mivcv, @culbert_mallory bit.ly/nevertoldus

Siberia

SOMEWHERE between cleanliness & g-dliness...

Cleanliness is not next to godliness–that’s White Supremacy talking.

White

Supremacy

is

not

a

problem

of

personal

prejudices. It is a historically-based and contemporary system of exploitation and oppression of peoples of color by white Europeans “for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system

of

wealth,

Supremacy, superiority white

power,

conscious and

entitlement

dominance

occurrence.

and

We

and

have

and

are

Under

ideas

widespread,

non-white been

privilege.”

unconscious

and

subordination

implicitly

taught

White

of

white

displays is

that

a

of

daily

white

is

moral, logical, clean, and valuable. In contrast, to be unclean (not white) is to be considered "trash."

People who do drugs are not inherently dirty; abstaining from drugs

is

not

inherently

clean.

The

history

of

a

word

is

important–what shared cultural meanings allow us to create a mutual understanding? What associations and biases have we attached

to

Cleanliness based

on

hegemon).

certain

is the In

words

political

and

imposing

order

to

individually its

whim

truly

and

standards of

reduce

the

as

a

change ruling

harm,

we

culture?

over

culture must

time, (the

confront

even the smallest units of the dominating culture (like words!) that continue the legacy of White Supremacy so we can tear it out from the root.

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