Full disclosure: I am a white, male, middle-class, soon-to-be senior citizen with liberal tendencies.
That said, I’ll tell you that I simply do not understand racism.
Oh, I understand that we humans like to draw distinctions, define the “Other” in the face of conflict. Such dichotomies make it easier to argue, to fight, to hate, to kill. I get that. Not a fan, but I get it.
But why skin color?
Obviously, there’s a history between white folks and non-whites—plenty of history—where the white folks stomped around the globe, subjugating any and all people of color. They stomped around pretty damned efficiently, too, primarily because of their technological advantage over less industrialized societies. Guns beat arrows pretty much all the time.
With that as a backdrop, it was natural (one might say) for those white folks to think themselves superior to the non-white folks. Stronger than. Smarter than. Better than. And based on the yardstick of who can best kill whom, they were correct. They were better. Better conquerors. Better enslavers. Better killers.
There are other yardsticks, of course—scientific understanding, artistic excellence, compassion for others, plain old wisdom—and at that time, white folks might have excelled in some of those, too, but the “Best Killer” yardstick, well, that’s the one they stuck with because it was the one on which they were the undisputed tip-top best. Aces all ’round. Simply Better Than. And God smiled down upon it all.
That attitude of superiority, along with a penchant for subjugation, that love of being on top of the food chain, it hasn’t gone away. After centuries, it still resides within white society. Today, we call it “white privilege,” but white privilege today is being expressed more than just as a feeling of being Better Than.
It’s being expressed as fear. And fear is volatile.
But why? Why are white folks so fearful?
Why should I be fearful if a man with brown skin has something I do not? Plenty of people have things I do not. I don’t feel fearful if a white guy has a yacht and I don’t, so why should I be afraid of a dark-skinned guy having one, too?
Why do white folks fear black people so much that they’ll call the cops if they see a black person in their neighborhood? Or in the common area of their dorm? Or sitting on a park bench? It’s not because those white folks suffer from PTSD over some racially charged trauma in their past. I’d wager that none of those people have ever suffered the violence and indignity that people of color experience every damned day.
Why is it so easy to gin up fear, hatred, and violence at the mere thought of a caravan of brown people fleeing the poverty and violence of their home, coming to our borders in hope of a better, safer life? Why is it so easy for white people to believe that the only reason, the only reason a family might up sticks, grab the kids, and walk two thousand miles through perils both natural and man-made toward another country, is to sell drugs to white kids, assault white women, and steal white jobs? Why is that easier to believe than they do it because life is so hard and dangerous where they live that even the hope of asylum justifies the risks?
It’s the fear of loss.
Loss of position, of power. Loss of standing. Loss of self, or at least of self-esteem. In short, white society doesn’t want to share power, and can’t stand the idea of being judged on its own merits.
Bluntly put, there is nothing about having dark skin that makes you unworthy, and there is nothing about having pale skin that makes you worthy. Every person is a sovereign entity, and should be treated as such.
If I’m going to judge you (and trust me, I’m gonna), I’m going to judge you on your merits, your attitudes, your opinions, your achievements, your values. There are so many reasons I might ding you—slovenliness, a lack of empathy, picking up the wrong fork, spreading a rumor that I like to eat at Olive Garden—that I’d run out of high-and-mightiness long before I ever got down to the color of your skin, and even then, it would be irrelevant.
Can we draw general conclusions about populations? Yes. But those are cultural generalizations. Culturally, black folks generally like hip-hop more than I do, but my black neighbor listens to opera and the white girl down the street loves Cardi B. Mexican and Asian palates are said to be more enthusiastic about spicy food than Americans’, but there’s a guy from India in my office who cannot abide anything over one-star-spicy, and I know plenty of white chili-heads who dare each other to taste-offs with hot sauces that are damned-near pure capsaicin.
Just as the creators of the internet didn’t foresee the oceans of cat videos and porn and political disinformation it engendered (okay, they probably foresaw the porn part), so were the wunderkinder of social media convinced that their invention would be a way to connect and unite people, rather than a tool we’d end up using to draw more deeply the distinctions that divide us.
It’s almost as if we want to be divided, and some people sure do seem to be working hard toward that end. Fear, their stock in trade, encourages it. But here’s the truth:
- That brown man doesn’t want your job. He wants a job of his own.
- That black woman doesn’t want your stuff. She wants stuff of her own.
- That immigrant family doesn’t want you to worship the way they do. They want to worship that way themselves.
Everyone pretty much wants the same things, and skin color is not a determiner in those equations.
Racism starts with the oppressor, to justify the oppression, and face it, in America, that’s us white folks. Racism amongst the oppressed is a reaction, as natural as self-defense, and will persist as long as oppression continues.
If you bristle at the word “oppression,” consider this: While you and I may be perfectly fine with a multi-cultural and diverse population at every stratum of society, we must realize that as long as segments of our society, large segments, try to suppress the black vote, call the cops whenever they feel “uncomfortable” around a person of color, or send the military to stop brown-skinned families from seeking asylum at our border, we are culpable and complicit in the continuation of a pervasive and institutionalized racism.
I’m not saying white people have to love all people of color. We don’t even have to like all people of color. We do have to treat everyone as an equal, with mutual respect, regardless of the hue of their skin. Go ahead and judge folks on whether or not they use the proper fork if you want. At least that makes some damned sense.
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Excellent, well put as always. Cheers, Kurt! Keep up the good works!
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Danke, Shane.
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