Why White People Keep Saying It’s Divisive to Speak about Racism
Exploring attempts to silence the movement
Antiracism is an upside-down cake. Even though America dropped the original social contract with Black people on the kitchen floor, the recipe requires that we pick it up, flip it, and salvage it. There is just one problem — white people would have to take the initiative and pick it up. Many white people insist that mentioning the upside-down cake is more problematic than leaving it on the floor. They call Black people divisive for merely bringing up the pink elephant in the room.
We can see white-privilege through the positive advances white people receive, like access to well-funded schools and higher-paying jobs. However, we can also see white privilege in the things white people do not have to endure, the things their skin color saves them from — racial discrimination and systemic oppression. White people do not live in fear of overzealous police officers or white-supremacist vigilantes.
It is so much easier to accept the mythology of the greatness of America than to acknowledge the cruel reality of how America has and continues to devalue the lives of Black people (Jackson, 2018).
According to modern research,1 in 1000, Black men can expect to die in police custody. Full stop; a Black…
