This is a Serious Question: Are You a White Supremacist?

A question for all my white brothers and sisters — but especially those who lean to the conservative side of the political spectrum.

Are you a white supremacist?

I’m not asking if you get juiced by the idea of promenading in pointy white sheets or giving Tiki torches a bad name, like those yahoos did in Charlottesville.

I’m asking if you believe black people, and other people of color, enjoy less material wealth in this society and suffer more social problems — poverty, crime, family dysfunction — through no fault of anyone other than themselves and their own bad choices.

You do?

Congratulations. You’re a white supremacist.

Sounds harsh, I know. And for that I apologize. It feels rude because the term white supremacy makes us think about night-riding Klansmen, not private musings about social and racial demographics. It must feel like I’m applying a sledgehammer to a thumb-tack.

But it’s 2017, and an American president just called participants in a neo Nazi rally “very fine people.” It’s sledgehammer time. Donald Trump actually makes my point. He has always made it clear how terribly he thinks black folks are doing. “What’ve you got to lose?” he kept bellowing at us during the campaign.

So, surely there’s something wrong with black people then, right? And if it’s not slavery or segregation’s fault — which he clearly doesn’t believe it is — then there’s something wrong with black people, right? Ergo, white people must be … well…better, right?

Hello, white supremacy.

Don’t tell me it’s not that simple. It is. Most white folks just don’t connect the dots in their minds. For far too long, we’ve failed to call out white supremacy for what it truly is. Yes, recognize that the president is playing footsie with white supremacists. But also recognize that white Americans with far nobler character than he have played footsie with the cultural idol those supremacists worship.

Don’t mistake what I’m saying here. I’m not saying every white person is a white supremacist. Heather Heyer, the young white woman who died when a car allegedly driven by a neo-Nazi plowed into her in Charlottesville, is rightly hailed as a new American hero.

I’m also not saying you’re a white supremacist simply because you might wonder why people of color have it so bad compared to whites. The problem isn’t with the question. It’s with the kind of answer I heard again and again from white conservative readers in my time on the Charlotte Observer’s editorial board.

Black people’s suffering today has nothing to do with racism or slavery or segregation or white people, they told me. Black people made this mess themselves, and they must clean it up. Personal responsibility. That’s the solution.

Fine, I’d say, but if personal agency is everything, why don’t blacks have it in the same degree as whites? What’s different about them? What is wrong with them?

Some quickly grasped the sinister implications of my question and backed away. Others didn’t. They regurgitated Fox News soundbites about Democratic treachery and “the welfare mentality” and moralized about traditional values. They never told me what, specifically and clearly, makes black people supposedly lack those values to a greater degree than whites.

We did agree on one thing, though. This is a zero sum-game.

Either people of color are deficient, or America has retarded their progress.

If it’s the former, then those guys in Charlottesville aren’t as stupid as we think. They’ve just walked the personal responsibility-only line out to its logical, if extreme, conclusion.

If it’s the latter, then we need to have much harder conversations about finishing the work of the Civil Rights movement. Consigning Confederate relics to their proper place in museums and history books seems like a good start.

But what if the truth lies somewhere between the two poles? What if I’m just so angry all I can see are extremes? If the truth lies in the middle somewhere, that’s an even tougher conversation. Given where we are right now, I honestly doubt we can successfully navigate a dialogue so complex, so richly studded with pain points on all sides.

It’s clearer than ever that each of us must understand exactly where we stand. From where I plant my feet, I look the Tiki-torchers squarely in the eye, no equivocation or rationalization necessary to distinguish my position from theirs.

Can you honestly say the same?