White America: Collect Your People

Jeremiah Timmons
Aug 28, 2017 · 4 min read
A lovely photo of avocado toast, courtesy of Yagan Kiely.

I imagine you’re at a crossroads about whether or not Dax Shepard and Kristin Bell have crossed the event horizon into annoying or, at least, annoyingly cute.

Maybe you’re consciously resentful of the accusations of plagiarism dogging Taylor Swift’s music video for “Not My Fault: A White Woman’s Journey” (I’m not sure of the title). Perhaps you feel like Beyonce has enough praise and should learn how to share.

Is it almond milk?

Whatever the answer is, I have to make my peace with the fact that I’m just unequipped of the prerequisite cream cheese preferences to know what exactly is on white people’s minds. Though, that is not to say that I don’t WANT to know.

I’m by no means the self-anointed spokesperson for East Coast Niggadom, but we’ve all wondered what it’s like to be white, right? To use phrases like “that nice policeman…” or respond with the nonsensical descriptor of “mid-day” when someone asks you for the time.

Even if it were just to have people take me seriously when I offer a fantastic recipe for a quinoa and heirloom tomato salad. I can’t help but wonder at what it must feel like to walk through this country in what has to be the equivalent of ‘plot armor’ as far as the conceptual relics for the basis of this country is concerned. All of which leads me to another speculative chasm: what do White people think about the white people warranting the unironic usage of ‘white people.’

I ask because this is the first time I can remember seeing white people employ an organized effort to collect their own. Almost as if White America has had to reconcile segments of itself and, unlike usual, POC may not be left to clean up from the fallout by themselves.


Perhaps this is a case of me treating an Instagram thirst trap as if it’s Langston Hughes’s lost works (i.e., reading too deeply into a situation that doesn’t merit the scrutiny). However, I don’t believe that’s true in this case. We watched as several white supremacists beat Deandre Harris until his blood coated the cement of that parking garage. We watched as they fired guns into a crowd with no fear of action on behalf of the officers present because that’s counter to the narrative this country has reinforced their entire lives. We watched as America ate itself.

Though despite my cynicism, I’ve also witnessed White America not only condemn these sentient herpes diagnoses masquerading as human beings in the harshest of terms but also go as far as to make these assholes catch that work. I won’t deny the subtle yet heady tingle I get whenever I see a white person educate a racist with the five fist exploding palm technique (the benefits of which recently demonstrated by the character in Street Fighter that’s blacked out until you beat the game on ‘expert,’ Colleen Dagg.) Because of this, I can sympathize to an extent.

Forget the white supremacists like David Duke and the calm, measured hate of figureheads like Richard Spencer. Think about what the ‘nice white’ must be feeling right now.

It’s a must be a viscerally upsetting epiphany whose mere mention is triggering enough to make TV personalities cry on air. There are many public instances in which that same uncomfortable feeling has manifested into some truly peculiar, if not outright frustrating, spectacles. My hope, though, lies in the fact that more and more I see segments of White America push past their perceived comfortability and have conversations that it has previously ignored or dismissed with the utmost prejudice.

This is not to give too much credit or to make it seem as if I’ve thought so little of White America that the slightest bit of effort warrants the parade from the end of The Empire Strikes Back. One of the easiest things to do in this life is to condemn a nazi. Right there behind politely asking Stacey Dash to sit quietly in the corner.

It’s just that for the survival of not only myself, but that of my family and my unborn children, we’ve always needed White America to do better. And, the silver lining on the undeniable semen and turd tostada, I’m getting small glimpses into their capability of doing so.


The Bigger Picture

Oddly specific. Universally applicable. Submit your writing to biggerpicturemedium@gmail.com.

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Jeremiah Timmons

Written by

Kitten Whisperer, Kardashian Taxidermist, and Property Manager of The Shire. Also, the editor and creator of Fukette.com.

The Bigger Picture

Oddly specific. Universally applicable. Submit your writing to biggerpicturemedium@gmail.com.

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