Because now is not the time for common sense; because people are suffering at the hands of unquestioned institutions and ways of thinking; and because white people like me are usually all too comfortable with that state of affairs. And so,

I.

Common sense is less a way of thinking than it is a way of circumventing thought. It is a means of making consciousness more efficient.

The reason this is important to realize is because bypassing thought doesn’t entail less action, but rather lots of un[der]thinking action.

II.

Oppression has existed and continues to exist because to those who are complicit in its structures, the conditions that enable it are precisely common-sensical.

Common sense has a way of inverting reality when it has to.

III.

Common sense (like ideology) presents itself as impregnable, natural, and innocent.

(Common sense is neither impregnable, natural nor innocent.)

IV.

Common sense must always end with a period (.). Semicolons (;) and question marks (?) are always signs of “overthinking things,” and therefore are made common-sensically suspicious.

Periods are indeed useful and important. But perhaps a question mark is preferable to a period if this period is used to end a sentence–an act, an utterance–that functions not to reason but to rationalize, not to think but to evade or avoid thinking.

V.

Common sense has always been in the white tool belt because common sense is on the side of power. The person of color seems to have little recourse to common sense, and perhaps little use for it. Indeed, is not common sense already against them?