To Be Silent or Not

Putting together various posts, it is clear there is a division among black people on Medium about whether they want to see people who are not black writing about racism against black people. Some see it as a form of allyship. Others see it as cashing in on racism or as a deep-seated psychological issue with the author of the anti-racism pieces. This may feel like resurrecting a settled issue, but I don’t think there has been a greenlight to write about racism. I want to give my justification for choosing to write on one aspect of the topic.

I was late to the clash, but I read it unfold in the attack on jaden violet when she did a post on the effects of white racism on black children. The argument was made that she should not be writing on the topic if she is not black. As a white person, I automatically heard the message. I should not be writing on the topic of racism, either.

In fact, jaden violet, who I believe is Violet, just Violet now (I’m sorry if I’m wrong), and I share many characteristics. We both champion the cause of a race other than our own. We both have tangled with blatant racists on Medium or what could be described as trolls, I guess. We both have had black people in our lives who have made a difference to us.

The list of criticisms Kindra J. F. lodged at jaden violet could squarely have been sent to me. She suggested we were using black people, trying to speak for them. By focusing on white privilege as an issue, was I appropriating ideas or drowning out voices? Did I fail to elevate the voices of people whose liberation I consider tied up in my own? Was recommending and sharing their pieces not enough?

Even though jaden violet did a good job of defending her right to be an anti-racism activist, I still felt slammed by the critiques of Kindra J.F. and then, Bridget Todd, and then the emotional piece by rad fag. These were the frustrated, lashing out essays of people in chronic pain. From rad fag,

“When we say Black Lives Matter, we mean Black people are the experts in their own lives, their own history, their own struggles. We mean your opinions are not necessary, and that debating you is a waste of our valuable energy, mental health and time. We mean you do not get to speak on issues with which you have no experience, which you have not studied nor researched, but on which you feel entitled enough to award yourself authority. We mean you must be quiet and listen to Black people.”

Now, if you’re a member of any oppressed group, you know what it feels like to substitute the words women or poor people or gay people in place of black people above. Frankly, I don’t like the idea of rich people giving their opinions on poor people. I don’t care for rich people writing essays about their uninformed theories of poverty. I would be angry to see rich people speaking out on poverty without experience or research. All I have to do is consider how I feel when I see rich people talking about poor people to know what these Medium writers are saying. Okay, so what does that mean?

I saw Kindra’s additional post about essentially being objectified by white people. It reminded me of when I read Native Son, and the do-gooder white people who dragged the black man from black club to black club requiring him to “tell me about your people.” I’d felt objectified as a poor person when we read about “us” in college classes and people talked about how to fix “us.” So, was something I write objectifying?

Then I thought about how Richard Wright was criticized by James Baldwin for writing protest literature in the 1950s. They fought about it for years. Different philosophies about art. Martin Luther King, Jr. is seen as the peaceful protester. Malcolm X as the militant one. Different philosophies about how to deal with white people. Even if Clay Rivers was embracing the idea of non-black people writing on racism, there are other black people on Medium clearly feeling differently. Where does that leave things? Just what Kindra J. F. hated. Black person against black person. I’m not sure if James Baldwin changed his mind about protest literature. Malcolm X changed his mind about the positioning of black people relative to white people. MLK, Jr. changed, too, in became increasingly frustrated with “moderate” white people. Hmm, a whole fight I don’t belong in.

In weighing the various arguments made, I am going to make what I believe to be the right decision in continuing to write about white privilege. But I will do it differently than I have done it before thanks to Kindra, Bridget, and Rad. Their request to not make it about my needs, be it I think career-wise or emotionally, is more acutely in my awareness.

I have written, even published in textbooks, about how being a poor white person made it harder for me to accept my white privilege. This difficulty came from my past confusing economic privilege with race privilege. It also came from my personal background as a minority white person in a majority black community. I needed to talk through that experience with someone who would understand it, so they could in turn explain things to me in a way that was validating of the economic oppression.

That’s why I write about white privilege from this perspective. It is not written for a black audience. It is written for a white audience, particularly one that is disadvantaged. Because I see white people online saying the same thing over and over:

“I had it so-and-so bad growing up, nobody ever helped me, and I struggle today, so no one is going to tell me I have white privilege.”

In a way, my essays are short-cuts for me. Ready-made responses to white people I have talked to about how our experiences actually don’t do anything to neutralize white privilege. I believe, knowing these white people as I do, they will not hear a person of color making the same argument. They will not recognize the distinctions in their experience without a parsing from a white “eyewitness” to racism who lacked economic privilege.

Therefore, I believe I fill a role. The writings of Bridget and Rad were attacked by white people in the responses in ways I found more than embarrassing. These white people can’t handle frustrated, emotional black people lashing out in words. Concern over the feelings of these white people is not at the heart of what I write. Instead, I don’t think any of these black writers should have to write these unenlightened white people back. It should be a job of white people to convert other white people. I also learned from my black contemporaries in graduate school that they wanted white people to start doing more of this kind of work .On the other hand, of course, no one should speak for these writers, if they wish to write the uninformed people back.

If I did decide to write any of them, I wouldn’t do it in the way I’ve done it thanks to the essays of the aforementioned Medium writers. Even though I have loved ones at risk of police violence, I am not going to make writing about racism about my need to advocate for them. I won’t make it personal, because I have been asked not to. In so doing, I hope I take a more measured approach. I believe I will end up more honey than vinegar this way. Besides, I don’t think I could top H. Nemesis Nyx’s amazing essays on how it feels to be a white person in the face of police violence.

So I guess I will close by saying I suppose I will have made some people unhappy in my decision. Given that black people never have been a monolith — despite what a Medium essay that set me off suggested — I am sure the black people who know me will continue to support me and my writing. You work with those who want to work with you.