Not All White People: The King’s Edition

Today, I stumbled upon a post where the awesome Son of Baldwin quoted Dr. King in response to yet another person using his “I have decided to stick with love” quote as an argument against Black anger.

It’s a great response because it simultaneously shoots down what little argument there is, while also subtly making the point that people often use Dr. King’s “peace and love quotes” for their own anti-Black arguments without any real appreciation for Dr. King.

In response to this, the reader Curtis L Walker wrote:

don’t pain [sic] all whites with same brush. My African-American wife can vouch for me.

Curtis, I know you’re trying to help, but I think you might be missing something.

Son of Baldwin didn’t paint white people at all with any brush. Those were not actually his words. Rather they were the words of Dr. King, who, because he was not writing directly to you, does not actually need your wife to “vouch” for you.

But there’s something bigger going on here that everyone should know. So I’m going to put on my Clay Rivers hat and lay it out as compassionately as possible. Allow me to use your comment as illustration because it provides an excellent example of this broader and very important point I’ve wanted to write about for some time.

Don’t use the phrase “white people”

So you’ve chosen to respond to Dr. King’s words, and that response is to effectively point out that using “white people” as a term is wrong because, well, #NotAllWhitePeople.

You, after all, are A Good White Person™. You have a Black wife. You are vouched for. You are not whom Dr. King is talking about. Therefore, it’s not fair to be lumped in with the people that he is talking about.

The writer should change their message to specifically acknowledge your goodness.

There’s a problem here. These are King’s words:

White America is not even psychologically organized to close the gap — essentially, it seeks only to make it less painful and less obvious but in most respects retain it.

Do you see that you made Dr. King’s point?

Your response suggests is that we should not paint you with the same brush as other white people– making the message “less painful”– which in fact centers your personal goodness above the message itself– retaining white importance over Black people by putting you above their message.

Do you see it? You as an individual are still more important than whatever the Black writer is saying.

Writing “Black people” is fine, though.

Responding to the phrase “white people” with “but not all white people” is an exceptionally common response to Black writing on race. I’ve seen this countless times. What I find most interesting is that never have I seen a “not all white people” person acknowledge the fact that the Black writer is also painting all “Black people” with the same brush.

It’s perfectly acceptable for Dr. King, or Son of Baldwin, or me, or any Black writer to use the phrase “Black people” and lump them into a group. But the phrase “white people” requires the acknowledgement of good white individuals in a way that Black people need not be afforded– even when they are used in the same paragraph.

And apparently even, as in the case of that Dr. King quote, when the phrase “most whites” is used.

Negroes have proceeded from a premise that equality means what it says, and they have taken white America at their word when they talked of it as an objective. But most whites in America, including many of goodwill, proceed from a premise that equality is a loose expression for improvement.

In the excerpt that Son of Baldwin posted, Dr. King writes “Negroes” as a monolithic term, then actually qualifies “most whites.” Yet there still needs to be a response that acknowledges your individual goodness?

Sometimes writing is generalized

Here’s the deal: Black writers write about “Black people” frequently. We do this knowing Black people are not a monolith because we are intelligent enough to hold that truth and simultaneously avoid diluting our central message with inane sentences like “Black people, but not all Black people, because Black people are not a monolith and there are a multitude of individual experiences and expressions of Blackness that all interact with the world in their own unique way.”

We write “Black people” because we are discussing the broad generalities of reality. When doing that, the phrase has as much validity as using the term “American,” or “Christian,” or “Muslim–” None of which, apparently, warrants a #NotAll response.

Dr. King marched with white people. James Reeb was murdered for helping him. He wrote about white people knowing that white people are not a monolith. His entire strategy depended upon that fact.

He just didn’t always feel the need to qualify his writing with an inane sentence like “White people, but not all white people, because white people are not a monolith and there are a multitude of individual experiences and expressions of whiteness that all interact with the world in their own unique way.”

#AllWhitePeople

Here is the thing that I hope all white people will internalize:

If you need Black writers to avoid using the term “white people” because you, personally, are a good one– especially if you don’t argue when they use the term “Black people”– then you should ask yourself an important question:

“Why am I telling this Black writer to change their message specifically to center and protect me?”

Because it’s not all about you.

Black writing isn’t about singling you out. You are not specifically being written to. We don’t need to know you have a Black wife, husband, daughter, best friend. You don’t need to respond with proof of your goodness. When you do, you are valuing yourself above whatever that Black person was writing about.

In fact, reading a Black person’s message and responding with a statement like “but not me because I’m a good one” often illustrates the very point they were trying to make.