Hello. My name is Em.
And I am a racist.
I say that without a sense of irony and with some small sense of shame. It is primarily passive racism at this point, but I benefit from the color of my skin in innumerable ways every day. And if you are reading this, and you are white, so do you. And you have been trained by our society not to see it and to embrace it and to benefit - every day - from the fact that you are not a person of color.
I am racist. I don't like it. I hate it. But every fucking day I struggle with myself. I fail at being an anti-racist ally every fucking day. But I keep trying. And I learn. I'm not saying this because I want someone to give me a cookie and a pat on the back for trying not to be an asshole. I'm saying it because we can all learn together if we want to, but first we have to see our prejudice for what it really is. We have to own it. We have to admit to ourselves the way that we react to people of different races and not try to explain it away as something other than an instantaneous value judgement based primarily on the color of someone's skin.
There has been a ton of fail around these here internets latey - RaceFail, if you will. It is bleeding over - as it should - into other venues I frequent (and if you frequent them too, then a lot of this might look a little familiar, but it needs to be said). It makes people uncomfortable. Fact is, it's not nice to be confronted with our own privilege. It's not nice to think that we as white people might be racist. It's a lot easier to talk about racial prejudice, and privilege. It's lot easier to not push ourselves out of our comfort zone. It's uncomfortable, and it sucks, and it burns and if we are even the slightest bit concerned with social justice, it can make our entire selfhood squirm to call our race based prejudice by its actual name. RACISM.
But here's the thing.
It's not about us. It's not about the white people.
It's not about how our feelings get hurt when people call us out for saying stupid shit.
It's not about how an innocent comment (or chapter or essay or statement) was misconstrued.
It's not about how hard it is to be sensitive to other people's cultural sensitivities.
It's not about how it stings and burns and makes us want to rage when someone suggests that we are, in fact, racist.
It's not about us white folks.
At it's root it's about systematic racism and how generations of racial oppression have created a system in which what a white person says is valued more highly than what a person of color says. It's about how generations of passive lack of resistence have benefited white people at the expense of people of color. It's about using the language of oppression to cast white people we don't like into the role of racial other when there is no other target, or to make the case that we're not racist, we're classist. It's about white being the default and non-white being "special interest." It's about not having to bear scrutiny for our entire race when we fuck up.
It is not about how uncomfortable we feel. If it hurts to be called a racist, too damn bad. If it hurts that much, do what you can to help create a world that is less racist. It's our fault as a race, not peoples of color. We can listen. We can speak up. We can see to it that we learn and that we don't leave anti-racist work to people of color. We can call out our friends.
We can own up to our own racism.
I say that without a sense of irony and with some small sense of shame. It is primarily passive racism at this point, but I benefit from the color of my skin in innumerable ways every day. And if you are reading this, and you are white, so do you. And you have been trained by our society not to see it and to embrace it and to benefit - every day - from the fact that you are not a person of color.
I am racist. I don't like it. I hate it. But every fucking day I struggle with myself. I fail at being an anti-racist ally every fucking day. But I keep trying. And I learn. I'm not saying this because I want someone to give me a cookie and a pat on the back for trying not to be an asshole. I'm saying it because we can all learn together if we want to, but first we have to see our prejudice for what it really is. We have to own it. We have to admit to ourselves the way that we react to people of different races and not try to explain it away as something other than an instantaneous value judgement based primarily on the color of someone's skin.
There has been a ton of fail around these here internets latey - RaceFail, if you will. It is bleeding over - as it should - into other venues I frequent (and if you frequent them too, then a lot of this might look a little familiar, but it needs to be said). It makes people uncomfortable. Fact is, it's not nice to be confronted with our own privilege. It's not nice to think that we as white people might be racist. It's a lot easier to talk about racial prejudice, and privilege. It's lot easier to not push ourselves out of our comfort zone. It's uncomfortable, and it sucks, and it burns and if we are even the slightest bit concerned with social justice, it can make our entire selfhood squirm to call our race based prejudice by its actual name. RACISM.
But here's the thing.
It's not about us. It's not about the white people.
It's not about how our feelings get hurt when people call us out for saying stupid shit.
It's not about how an innocent comment (or chapter or essay or statement) was misconstrued.
It's not about how hard it is to be sensitive to other people's cultural sensitivities.
It's not about how it stings and burns and makes us want to rage when someone suggests that we are, in fact, racist.
It's not about us white folks.
At it's root it's about systematic racism and how generations of racial oppression have created a system in which what a white person says is valued more highly than what a person of color says. It's about how generations of passive lack of resistence have benefited white people at the expense of people of color. It's about using the language of oppression to cast white people we don't like into the role of racial other when there is no other target, or to make the case that we're not racist, we're classist. It's about white being the default and non-white being "special interest." It's about not having to bear scrutiny for our entire race when we fuck up.
It is not about how uncomfortable we feel. If it hurts to be called a racist, too damn bad. If it hurts that much, do what you can to help create a world that is less racist. It's our fault as a race, not peoples of color. We can listen. We can speak up. We can see to it that we learn and that we don't leave anti-racist work to people of color. We can call out our friends.
We can own up to our own racism.