Race | Religion

Writing About Your Race, Gender, or Religion Does Not Mean You Are Empowering Them

Take another viewpoint, from former military police, former employment professional, and current mental health professional; no skin color added

An article titled "How I Maneuvered To [specific] Field [or academic] Success Despite Racial Oppression" is much much much more appealing than "a [skin color] man's [or woman’s] view of a White Boss."

• Naturally, people will go straight to visualizing a white man. But, I've seen an article similar to this and the boss turned out to be female, and the employee [the writer] was also female, but the title just said “white boss”. Not just that, maybe the author is actually trying to racially oppress white people — the reader isn’t trying to come to their own conclusion. In another title, this same writer added “female boss” when it suited the clickbait.

The title I created notates which way the racial oppression is going. Across 217 flags across the world, all skin color is oppressed. I would expect an ignorant person not to see another's heartache and strife and truly believe racial oppression only goes one way. Not only that, my title hits on how a person rose through the cracks between racism here and there, to get to a point of success and ease. The title showcases a writer that is not complaining but gives a testimony.

Complaining is designed to get people to one's side and do nothing constructive or get anything towards a goal accomplished. I think a lot of this comes down to Medium giving everyone a platform to write, not just those of us who had obtained a certain level of set-out-for success.

"A Christian Woman in a Secular Workplace" umm, yeah, that's what Jesus said you will do, good job. Do you want a cookie? So, give me your success story, not a useless ramble. That’s what a therapist or a blog is for. Medium is for writers, not bloggers. I know “life blogger” is a popular thing now, especially Instagramers, but there is a difference between what readers are coming to Medium for and why people are on Instagram.

I'm a Christian mental health professional with a successful portfolio with the LGBT community - "How I Maneuvered the Mental Health Field With No Barriers in Reaching Clients as a Christian" is the title, not "The Struggle of Being Christian in General Life."

Why? Simple.

Jesus has called us to shift spiritual climates that are currently under negative climates.

Anyone who has shifted anything so large has always been in awe, "wow, I'm humbled to have been a part,” no negative comments or behavior.

A black man who has attained a Ph.D. after not learning to read from his Chicago inner-city childhood would motivate others through a tear-jerking testimony of courage, strength, and resilience. He would not hate those who judged him, tried to derail him, or oppressed him. Someone who has won justly is empowered. That’s this story’s point. Someone with unmet emotional health is bitter and full of gossip.

The black man would talk about his poor environment (in his all-black community in inner Chicago). His coming out into a "white world", which he knew wasn't a white world, it was just not his area of Chicago's inner city. He would talk about people (not white, Asian, black, etc.) who oppressed him based on where he came from because he was more than likely racially oppressed by everyone.

"I want to learn to engineer" and people see an unlearned black boy. They did not bother to help and would say something close to, "what are your strengths? Maybe you can get a basketball scholarship". His response: "a hoop is all we had in my side of town." Then in 7 years, he makes a living driven by racial oppression. He plays basketball while putting his actual dream on hold. His story would be different with many targets he is angry towards.

Writing about your race, gender, or religion does not mean you are empowering them.

Writing about how you navigated barriers of widely sought-after dreams from discrimination or discriminatory routes is empowering. No good combat team focuses on the issue, they focus on the details of their chosen profession. A software engineer doesn't think about common problems, they merely do their job.

To point out something and complain about it is giving it power, not your people. The Bible even explains not to give a name to the enemy. Driving the enemy out only takes your success. Racist this, racist that, sexist this, sexist that, only promotes caution, hesitancy, and even fear of it.

Start saying, "although I met many things, barriers, and roadblocks, not just racial oppression but also my own pride to not learn what was necessary for the top practitioners in my occupation.” Vikings who explored the world didn't say, "the waters were too rough, the new land is a century ahead of our weaponry, and some places were too hot and full of sand." They said, "look at this gold we have and you don't.”

Conclusion

To empower others is to first breakthrough yourself.

Thank you for reading! Thank you for positive comments!!