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Your reasoning seems pretty sound to me.
Thank you! I was really interested in that.

I may have some other thoughts in the future--I don't want you to get the impression I just read this and brushed it off with "yeah cool"--but I'm preparing for a weekend backpacking trip, so it may be a couple days. šŸ™‚
Oh cool! Iā€™m doing some backcountry camping this weekend too!
To be clear, it is other Black activists and thinkers who are saying white people shouldnā€™t participate in gestures like the Black Power Fist, ā€œI canā€™t breatheā€, and, ā€œhands up, donā€™t shoot.ā€

Iā€™m not even saying that white people should always get to say and do those things, but that what should govern our behavior is more contextual than universal.
Gotcha, I was missing the context & Background that it was/is other Black activists making the case. The Black Power Fist I understand warranting discussion. I don't understand white people not participating in those particular chants. Do they feel ownership to those chants as white people likely lack the experiences that gave rise to them?

For me, in either case, I think the clear invitation is pretty important. It would feel inappropriate for me to be the one to be the first to throw the Black Power Fist unless we'd already created that in-group behavior as an ok thing, and that could be misinterpreted by someone who wasn't in that particular protesting cohort.

I'm a sucker for context. and it mattering šŸ˜€
With those two chants in particular, the argument is that we as white people donā€™t experience that oppression so we shouldnā€™t participate in them. I have a lot more sympathy for that argument and do feel more ambivalent about participating in those.

However when the group is 50-ish percent white, and the chant leaders are clear about wanting everyone in, I choose to look at it as amplifying Black voices/messaging. As someone who has called chants in the past, it really sucks when you start a new one and participation plummets amd the volume drops noticeably.

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