I’m Not A Racist

“Every finger in the room is pointing at me.

I want to spit in their faces, then I get afraid of what that could bring”

-Tori Amos

I am white, and straight, and fairly well-off. I have privilege not only coming out of my ass, I’m sitting on a pile of it. A mountain. I can, and have, argued with police when they pulled me over, called them ‘dude’, cursed in front of them, smoked in front of them and generally been disrespectful to them at various times in my life. What has never happened is I’ve never been beaten, handcuffed, shoved, shot, or abused. Not once. Now, I am 42 years old and my days of arguing with cops are over. The tickets, when I get one, (I’m let off with a warning more often than not) are easily paid and my youthful ire and indignation over ‘disrespect’ have fled for hotter waters than mine. I’m polite and respectful and attentive around them and they treat me the same. This is not a give-and-take situation. This is a privilege situation.

I was raised in a racist home in the Deep South. Phrases like, “That area’s getting too dark” were oft-uttered in conversation and editorial commentary. I grew up hearing that, and other phrases. Hearing how ‘the blacks’ were ruining this country, ruining this state, ruining this county, ruining this neighborhood. It was better, the adults said, back when “they knew their place”. If a black person was caught committing a crime, or worse, if riots broke out it was “Well of course, what do you expect from them? They’re like animals.” I was steeped in hate from my infancy. Fate has a funny way sometimes of teaching you lessons you don’t realize you’re learning though. In first grade I befriended the only black child in my class. Her name was Wilhelmina and I coveted her beautiful name, her beautiful skin, and her beautiful handwriting in that order. I had not learned hate then. Not yet.

Wilhelmina was from a very poor family while I was from a working class one. I loved Wilhelmina. I can still see her eyes and her smile to this day, some 36 years later. One day Wilhelmina gave me a handful of pencil stubs as a gift. At 6 years old the term ‘treasure’ is subjective as all hell, but I treasured those pencil stubs. I was proud of them, in fact. What a neat thing, all those sharpened pencil stubs with their flat, smudged erasers worn down to the ferrule. I took them home and showed them off. I was told to throw them away after answering where I’d gotten them because “they’re dirty”. I was never too clear on whether that meant Wilhelmina’s family or the pencils. Black people were often referred to as ‘dirty’ in my house and community. The lesson I took from that day was that we are good and clean and white and we don’t want to get too close to the ‘others’ lest we find their stink clinging to us. That day, through a lot of confusion and bewilderment, the first seeds of hatred were sown. In the fertile field of fear and dysfunction that was my home life those seeds sprouted and sent deep roots to stake their claim on my innocence.

I won’t go through my whole sordid White Guilt Tears history with you. (And for the love of all that is, don’t bother your Black friends with your White guilt, please. Believe me when I tell you they already know all the things you’re just learning. They’ve lived it their entire lives and their job is not to hold your hand, teach you, or assuage your guilt over being an unintentional dick to an entire race of people.) When I was 15 I had a crush on a guy. I used the n-word, that terrible word, in casual conversation with him.

Now, I want y’all to think about that for just a second. I was 15 years old and had never been exposed, in my whole life, to someone who wasn’t racist. Never. It had never even occurred to my country-mouse mind that there were people out there who weren’t racist unless they were a crazed ‘n-word lover’ and everyone knew those people didn’t know their right minds and were probably on drugs beside. I was naive as hell.

That boy, the one I had a crush on, looked at me and said, “I don’t use that word because I don’t see it,” and it stopped me cold. I had a crazy crush on this guy and zero self-esteem and I decided to change for him so he’d like me better. Plus there was no better way to rebel against my daddy than to start taking up for the Black community.

It took a long time, but eventually the change happened inside me for real. I’ll spare y’all those details too. Because this essay isn’t about my personal journey. This essay is about you, the white person who has said “I’m not a racist, but” or “I’m not racist, I have black friends!” This essay is about you because I was you at one time. As a ‘not a racist’ racist, our first reaction to being called out for racist behavior is to get very defensive and upset at being called a racist or accused of acting/speaking in a racist manner. It’s time to put that aside for the time being, though. You are racist. You are racist, not, you are a racist. Please note the distinction. You probably don’t mean to be or even see how you are, but I promise you, if you’re reading this right now getting indignant because you don’t use the N-word, support the KKK, or discriminate against Black people this essay is for you. You are racist. You benefit from a racist system and you do racist things and it’s not because you’re a bad person.

I see that shit more and more clearly. I see it with more clarity today than I did 5 years ago and I had more clarity 5 years ago than I did 10 years before that. I’m always growing, or trying to. Sometimes I fuck up mightily. It happens.

I am sat here, in my comfortable well-off white woman world on its mountain of privilege, watching the valley below me burn and I feel stuck. I want to smash the faces of all the “I’m not a racist, but” people I know, have known, will know. I want to flatten the hatred and fear and sheer fucking ignorance of their existence. I want my Black friends to feel safe. I want my White friends to stop being so fucking myopic. I want to stop being so fucking myopic.

I can’t do anything but listen and beseech other White people to do the same. I can speculate and extrapolate and attempt to educate, but in the end, my ass needs to shut the hell up and just listen. How can I ever hope to learn about a part of society I so stupidly held apart from myself, my humanity, if I don’t fucking give them the floor?

Jesus, y’all, I am tired. I’m worn out. My reserves are pretty empty. I feel like this a lot lately and then I stop and I remember, consider, and truly understand that I am allowed to be tired. I am allowed to put this burden down, I am allowed to forget that this is even an issue on this planet. I am allowed these things because I’m white and the chance color of my skin grants me a whole host of undeserved opportunity to put down this burden and rest.

Our Black friends, and strangers, and neighbors do not have that luxury ever. They are tired too. They are worn out. Their reserves are always dangerously low. They are never allowed to lay this burden at their feet and walk away from it. They are never allowed to forget it exists. They are never allowed to be “an individual”. When Brock Turner raped that woman by the dumpster no one said “Well what do you expect, he’s white”. When a biker bar got shot up in Texas no one said, “When will Whites learn that white on white crime is just hurting their community? Maybe we should just put them all behind fences and let them kill each other and do us all a favor.” No one has said these things. No one has thought these things. But let one Black man commit a crime and it’s open season on the entire race.

It’s bullshit. The Black community has been trying to shove our faces in some harsh truths for a very damn long time. We have, for the most part, refused to listen. They’ve done it peacefully, they’ve done it not so peacefully. It makes no difference. Of course they’re fucking angry and tired. If we Whites had to deal with a fraction of the bullshit society puts on the shoulders of our Black brothers and sisters we would fucking collapse under the weight and see the world shattered by our outrage at being burdened in the first place.

Sympathy is being able to say “oh that’s too bad, it must suck to be you” and for a long time sympathy was as far as my sheltered heart and mind could manage to see. Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else’s shoes. To feel their pain on some level. To understand the emotion of the situation. Empathy is the key that unlocks the shackles of our racist upbringings.

Empathy, it turns out, is found in words from Black minds. I am a voracious reader. My to-read pile is growing at such a rate that I’ll probably end before it does and I’m a huge reader of essays and social anthropology tomes. I seek to understand and the voices of those Black people braver and more articulate and far smarter than I am, those are the voices I listen to. Those who have traveled that terrible path their entire lives. Those are the voices we should admit into our heads and hearts. Not the hatefully ignorant ones. Not the confederate-flag-waving-heritage-not-hate-but-I’m-not-a-racist-because-I-have-black-friends-#alllivesmatter ones. Not those. Even when they come from our own heads. Especially when they come from our own heads. Those voices seek only to protect the status quo and for reassurance that we’re not terrible people.

You’re not terrible people as I was not. You are misguided, ignorant people,as I was and still am, but you are not terrible. There’s your reassurance. Now go read something written by a black person. Then read something else. Then again. Keep going until you can put down your automatic defensiveness and find your empathy and then come see me.

We’ve got work to do.