White People Like Me: Now Choose
I need to find my words. My own words. It’s just not enough for me to scroll through social media clicking “like” on posts about the need for change…for justice. It’s not enough for me to update my profile banner to make clear that I’m “on the right side.” I need to find my own words and to speak them. I believe we all do. We all need to find strength to deeply, honestly reflect about our relationship with America’s legacy of racism and white supremacy.
I’m a white, cisgender, fifty-something man. I consider myself progressive, open-minded, empathetic, civic-oriented, kind. I’ve spent my career in the non-profit sector working and volunteering for a variety of organizations — for the environment, for public health, for LGBTQ+ communities, for immigration. I’m a trained coach and facilitator who’s skilled at holding space for dialogue. I follow daily rituals of maintaining my sense of inter-connectedness to all of humanity and to our planet. I’ve shared my life with my husband, who is black, for 27 years. And I’ve viewed myself beyond having personal responsibility for…. As I’m writing this I come to a halt right here.
This is why I need to find and speak my words. This is why others “like me” need to find and speak their words. Because a great many white people like me — dare I say the majority, I believe — are scared to finish that sentence:
I’ve viewed myself beyond having personal responsibility for….
I must finish this sentence. We each must push past our fear, our discomfort, our rationalizations, our defensiveness, our hopelessness, our shame. These responses may all be understandable. Yes, it’s OK that we experience these feelings and that we have these doubts. But then, we must go forward. To even hope for change to take root, we must be able to finish the sentence.
I’ve viewed myself beyond having personal responsibility for the fight against racism and white supremacy.
Say it. Try it. Please try. You can try it quietly and unconvincingly to no one else but yourself at first. See how it feels. And don’t think that saying it once, quietly, to yourself will be enough. Be fair to yourself. We also need to understand that we can’t one day be in a fog of denial and the very next, after uttering fifteen words, emerge as a resolute activist. At least that’s been my own experience.
A state of self-imposed neutrality in the fight against racism and white supremacy impoverishes the soul.
I’ve also found that it doesn’t hurt. Speaking and owning those fifteen words doesn’t cost me anything. In fact, as I’ve repeated the phrase I actually find it enriching. A state of self-imposed neutrality in the fight against racism and white supremacy impoverishes the soul. And once I connect with that truth, I can perhaps go one step further by shifting the phrase to one that is not only enriching but also empowering:
I share personal responsibility for the fight against racism and white supremacy.
I speak it and a big part of me wants to believe it and own it. Another part of me worries about the commitment I may be making — am I up to it? Another part of me worries I’ll be found out as a hypocrite while I’m trying. Another part of me just wants to go back to my quiet life. I have that choice and I realize that I will always have that choice.
And don’t you see? My ability to choose exemplifies the injustice we live with. Because millions of my fellow Americans cannot choose. Millions of my fellow Americans cannot choose whether to share the fight against racism because the battle comes to them every day. While they are running in the neighborhood. While they are shopping. While they are barbequing in the park. While they are sleeping in their own bed. Millions of my fellow Americans cannot just choose one day to be an activist and the next to just keep to a quiet life. And if I can see that to be true, then how can I choose a self-imposed neutrality?
What I speak may resonate with some of you. Heck, it may offend some of you. What I speak may reveal ways in which I still need to learn and grow. What I speak may scare me. But to find the way forward to Justice and Peace we must, I must, be willing to say it. Repeatedly. To start to believe it. To act on it.
I share personal responsibility for the fight against racism and white supremacy.
Without each of us finding the will to accept this personal responsibility, there will be no Justice and no Peace.
