#thisishowyoually

Everybody seems quick to insist that they’re not the ones who are racist.  So, then who is?  If it’s only the people you say, then why are we like this as a country?

Recently, someone with which I somewhat briefly attended grad school for education (And no, I don’t want to talk about what happened with that whole endeavor) posted the following image to their Facebook profile.

On its face, it seems like a completely reasonable and acceptable statement, and as such, it was generating some likes.  At the time I first saw it, I think there were 6.  But before I, too, submitted my approval of this image, I thought a little more about it, and its implications.  And I realized that I didn’t really agree with it.  I knew the person who posted it had no ill intentions, and I think they even found the image on the profile of another POC.  But the more I reread the sign featured, the more I was sure that it was not a true statement.  I knew that my stance was not going to garner nearly as many likes or other accolades as if I had posted a phrase like “Black Lives Matter”, which at this point, it seems like all reasonable people are able to agree that they do (or at least it’s the obvious appropriate thing to say in this moment).  I knew I might receive some pushback or criticism, and while that did admittedly make me nervous, I knew that I needed to speak up in this way and in this moment.  And I was willing to deal with whatever consequences came my way.  I decided it was that important for me to make a case for a diverging opinion.  So, I typed out the reply below and posted it.

I want to agree with this, but I'm not sure if I do. Please hear me out. It is entirely possible to be a Trump supporter and not be a person who has ever uttered a racial epithet or been otherwise explicitly or overtly racist. However, I do believe that there are degrees of racism, and if you're someone who has responded that "all lives matter" or "blue lives matter" when another person asserts that black lives matter, I would argue that you are on the spectrum of holding onto or entertaining some form of racist ideology. If you watched the video of George Floyd having his life choked out of him and then watched the footage of riots from that first night in Minneapolis and thought "It's a shame that guy died, but what they're doing now is uncalled for", this might indicate that you prioritize law and order (no matter how unjustly they are being enforced) over the life of a man whose only transgression was that he was black, and that, too, places you on that spectrum of racism. Racism isn't always waving a confederate flag and yelling at POCs to go back to where they came from. Sometimes, it's knowing that the politician you support will turn a blind eye to or even praise people who march around with tiki torches yelling, "Jews will not replace us" and wanting to vote for him anyway. Sometimes, it's hearing black people beg to have full access to the citizenship rights that are due them but deciding it's more important for you to vote for the guy who advocates for you to keep your semiautomatic rifle. If you are deciding that your wants (not needs) have priority over the humanity of POCs, then I would argue that you are on the spectrum of racism. And that demands some self-reflection. Complicity is part of what makes racism so destructive. What's the point of knowing better if you refuse to hold others accountable for doing better?

And then I waited.  I waited for blowback.  I waited for pushback.  I waited for agreement.  I waited for literally anything anybody might feel compelled to say.  But the only feedback I received was a single “like” whereas the post itself had garnered six additional since the posting of my comment.  So, people obviously disagreed with my stance but couldn’t bring themselves to make that known in any kind of direct fashion.  And frankly, that concerns me.  A great deal, in fact.  And there are a couple of reasons why.

Firstly, and this is something of which I was starting to become more aware even months before the death of George Floyd and these subsequent protests, white people are very quick to assert that they, themselves, are not racist.  They are also quick to assert that most people who look like them are not racist.  According to them, hardly anybody is really, truly racist.  But if that’s actually true, then why is this country such an absolute mess, and why have we been that way for centuries?  It’s as if the term “racist” is being reserved for truly egregious and over-the-top cases.  And everything else is just the way people are.  White people seem to have a very specific and narrow idea of what racism looks and sounds like, and that allows them to never truly have to consider whether they, themselves, might be racist.  Or if their family members are racist.  Or if the politicians they actively support are racist.  Under their definition of that word, it barely applies to anyone. And as a black woman who considers herself knowledgeable of both history and current affairs, I will confidently say that this is wrong.  

I have had people who cloak themselves under the banner of liberalism say some things to me that would make me raise an eyebrow if I knew at all how to move that particular facial muscle. And no, it’s not the times when the racial epithets and slurs are used that I feel compelled to do this.  It’s actually the times when I’ve made some sort of assertion about the impact of oppression on the lives of black people today, and I am met with sentiments such as “It’s not fair that we keep getting blamed for everything” or “You weren’t a slave, so the legacy of that institution doesn’t create any modern-day problems for you” or “Slavery ended over a hundred years ago, so why do you keep wanting to bring it up? Why can’t we all just move on?  Life is hard enough”. (That last phrase is a direct quote from a white woman who replied to something I said on Instagram regarding the role that white women have historically played in the role of oppressing black bodies.  She objected to my assertion that this is an issue that is rarely discussed, because dwelling on it would cause white women to feel discomfort, and that is in direct opposition to this silent societal code we all seem to follow that says that we must do whatever we can to prevent white women from feeling uncomfortable.  Ironically, she was shutting my argument down, because it made her uncomfortable.) Also, I’ve been told that the ways in which I have experienced oppression throughout my life just aren’t true, that I must be mistaken and that I am making something be all about race when it’s not about race at all.  And finally, I’ve been told the oldie but goodie “I don’t see color; I just see people”.

To the people that are brave enough to read this right now, I will submit to you that these statements and sentiments all reek of racism.  Every single one of them.  And every single person who uttered these phrases would have gone to the grave denying that they could be considered racist.  And sorry, people who made these statements, but this assertion by you would be wholly incorrect.  By so narrowly defining what racism is, we have given many people permission to absolve themselves from any responsibility for how it continues to thrive in American society. Nobody needs to look inward; nobody has to come to terms with any mindsets they might harbor that are truly problematic. And if nobody is willing to deal with anything or even acknowledge it, how are we going to change anything?  If we can’t even recognize and talk about what racism is, how are we going to put an end to it?  And the short answer is, we’re not.

My second concern is that, while it seemed like almost no one who saw my comment agreed with it, no one felt compelled to say anything, give any sort of reason for WHY they disagreed with it.  Maybe it’s because I’m black that they felt like they should just let me get on my soapbox and say what I needed to say, and that would be their form of allyship (even though at the end of the day, them doing this was just a dismissal of everything I said so they could go on with their lives, which kind of flies in the face of being an ally).  When these protests first started, I think many black people were reasonably skeptical about the degree to which we could rely on non-black allyship for the duration of however long we needed it.  We wondered if the outrage and fervor exhibited was sustainable.  And we wondered if white allies, specifically, were truly willing to endure discomfort if it would eventually lead to the advancement of our movement.  And I hate to say it, but I feel like the instance of this post about racism and who it applies to gave me substantial reason to believe that they are not.  The fact that there are people aligning themselves publicly to the BLM movement who are already seemingly unwilling to settle in their discomfort in order to be a more effective agent of change greatly concerns me.  It indicates to me that for some people (not all, but some) a lot of what’s going on right now is an exercise for them in anti-racism theater.  To put it simply and bluntly, they are not “in it to win it”, because “winning it” requires that they sacrifice more comfort than they are ready to do.  And while that’s certainly not everybody who calls themselves an ally, I worry that it represents a substantial number of people who we are currently relying on as allies who really aren’t.  And when they start drifting away from the protests and the posting of hashtags because this movement is no longer the fun, new thing we’re all doing, the people who remain are going to have to pick up the slack and work even harder to account for their absence.

To be clear, I’m not trying to knock anyone who wants to be an ally or make it seem like I want to nitpick at everyone and that there isn’t anything that any non-black ally can do that would truly please me.  If that’s what you are thinking now as you read this, I would implore you to reconsider. Because that perspective is one that stems directly from the notion that we are trying to hurt people’s feelings. It stems from this idea that it is our responsibility to make our white allies feel good about what they are doing right now so that they will continue to feel encouraged, or else they will walk away.  But this movement is not about pacifying white people’ feelings, whether they consider themselves to be allies or not.  We are not here to make you comfortable.  We are here to seek the justice that we are due.  We are here to seek the rights of citizenship that we have been routinely denied.  We are here to put an end to systemic racism.  Catering to allies’ feelings is nowhere on that list.  It’s not even a close fourth.  We need people to put their own individual feelings aside (discomfort, guilt, or whatever else) and help do what needs to be done.

And I realize this might be a harsh reality check, I do, because I know that many black Americans have spent a significant portion of their lives doing whatever they could to make white people comfortable.  During slavery, we performed their backbreaking hard labor so they wouldn’t have to but could still reap the financial benefits.  In modern times, many of us deliberately hold back a lot of ourselves in white people’s presence, because it’s always been an expectation that successful black people who have properly assimilated in the larger American society need to make sure that nothing we do resembles anything that might make them remember that we are not the same color.  For many black women, this means stifling their voices and hiding their frustrations, because nobody wants to deal with an angry black woman.  For many black men, this might mean being keenly and constantly aware of their physical stature and proximity to other people, because they don’t want anyone to find them intimidating in any way.  I think white people take these acts for granted because we’ve always done them, but they are not “just the way we are” or “just the way we like to be”.  They are a series of survival skills that we have been forced to adhere to, because to refrain from doing so would allow others to perceive as people they’d rather not deal with, if possible.  That means, we wouldn’t be the ones who get into the good school or get the good job or even get to keep our lives.

I have been deemed a quiet person my entire life, and while some of that is due to my genuine introverted nature, the majority is supplemented by the fact that, in most situations, if I am given the choice between being the quiet and unassuming black girl who nobody really has a problem with or the more vocal and passionate black woman that asserts herself but then has to deal with the consequences of nobody really wanting to be around her, I choose the former.  And I started choosing it at a very young age; I was definitely still in elementary school.  It starts that early.  Because we know that early.  We know that this country was not designed with us in mind unless it was to depend on our labor or our ability to entertain.  We know that the system is literally rigged against us in such ways that, if we were to inform white people of all those facets of oppression, they would accuse us of being paranoid.  Actually, that is precisely what happens when we try to tell people about our experiences of being black in America.  There are a lot of people out there who are masterful at gaslighting and being utterly dismissive of our struggles.  And that is a response that is literally for the sole purpose of driving the other person to the point of insanity.  So, for the most part, we stopped telling you things, because you weren’t really listening, anyway.  And we realized that, if we were going to make it in this country, then we really did have to work twice as hard, be twice as amiable in demeanor, and twice as resilient. Was that fair, for that to be put on us? Of course not.  But we shouldered that burden.  Because what was the alternative?  So, we did it, and we’ve done it fairly quietly for a very long time.

The link above is to a rather compelling essay that was written by a former colleague of mine. It hits on many of the points I made in my previous blog post about what qualifies as racism and what is needed from our allies (check it out if you already haven’t), but it addresses them from the perspective of a white ally.  This perspective is refreshing and also might feel more accessible to those who are coming from that same place, so I asked her permission to link to her work, and she agreed.  Please check out her essay.  She, too, is advocating to engage in allyship that is both deeper and more substantial as opposed to performative in nature.  Thank you, Karen, for letting me share.