That’s Cat Business. Not Your Business.

Jill Thomas
Sep 2, 2018 · 3 min read
Ginger the Cat on Pensacola Beach

Ginger, the cat, stands outside the patio door with a lizard in her mouth. She grips the wriggling beast with her teeth. She wants to come inside and play with her prey until it dies.

You’re tempted to judge Ginger, to label her as cruel and having poor manners. Resist and remind yourself that you’re not feline. You don’t understand the irrepressible urges stored in Ginger’s DNA.

The lizard is a cat business. It’s not your business. You don’t know about cat business. So don’t judge.

I was in a room a while back with a group of people who have big salaries. We were discussing raising the minimum wage. Some folks at the table explained that poor folks don’t know how to handle money and so they would waste their raise on unnecessary luxuries.

It’s tempting to judge poor people for their bad choices, but you don’t understand living on $184 a week. Thinking you, a person with a life sustaining salary, understands the circumstances of a poor person’s life isn’t accurate.

Poverty is poor people’s business. It’s not your business. You don’t know about the poverty business. So don’t judge.

Poor people know about being poor and so will have better ideas than you about how to solve their problems.

Last week I had coffee with an African American pastor who told me that people in his community fear driving over the bridge from Pensacola through the predominantly white city of Gulf Breeze. He said it’s been worse since Trump was elected, because of the “boldness of language” he incites.

He said, “I get pulled over randomly, and I am good at handling it, but it shouldn’t be a norm.” He told me that his son carries his documents in his car’s sun visor so he can keep his hand by the steering wheel when he gets pulled over by the police. He does this because he is afraid of being shot.

I told this story to my white friends, and they argued about its veracity. They denied white people are privileged in America.

I asked my pastor friend how to talk to white people about racism, and he said, “No one gets a pass at being stereotyped, we need to sit down and have a conversation and look for unity. Tell them that what I am saying is not an attack on you. What I am saying is factual. It is the truth that I have.”

Racism exists, and there are challenges that African-Americans face in this country that are purely based on race. If you’re white, you don’t understand being black.

Being black is black people’s business. If you’re white you don’t know about the business of being black. So don’t judge.

Think of Ginger the cat and remind yourself that you only know your reality. You don’t understand cat business.