(and really. with so many of us having already spent a life time grappling with the often dire consequences of visibility, it is unsurprising that it does not have the same currency in our communities as it does amongst white radicals. especially since some of us know that we’ll always be visible no matter what we do and we know, already, the negotiations that are necessary to render ourselves invisible in order to keep surviving. because, as the most frequent targets of violence and oppression, we know that visibility is not always good.

and. as I once saw someone else write – Titotibok on tumblr wrote about this in terms of Filipin@ visibility in Asian american politics – the notion of visibility is troubled for other reasons.

white radicals seek and desire visibility because in a white supremacist framework, they are the default human. they are what is natural. thus, they require additional effort to mark themselves as other within this system. and, by seeking visibility in the ways that they do – ways that so frequently involve appropriating from IaoPoC cultures – they merely end up proping up and supporting white supremacy by legitimizing their positions as default, normal human.

and then, of course, going around and making themselves also the standard for what counts as good activism by shaming all those who choose not to be a visible as they are or, because we are often already visible to each other, more accurately not seeking to become more visible to white people.)