Making it About Me, To Prove it’s Not About Me
In trying to understand, unpack, and process my own thoughts and emotions around racial violence, it’s easy to forget that it’s not about me, or my rage. It’s easy to spend so much of my energy reading, learning, and talking about racism that I forget I’m making a choice to feel that pain. It’s a mark of my privilege that I have to imagine what racial oppression feels like, and an even further indicator of my privilege is that I want to imagine what that’s like. I feel a certain amount of obligation to put myself in shoes bearing the damage of oppression I don’t experience, with the hope that I may become a better ally — but again — I choose to listen to the voice in my head that says, “do better. Be better.” There are plenty of other choices available to me, as a middle-class white lady. This is not a humble-brag, I’m not saying “I could be running a daycare by now, but look at me, spending my energy trying to be a good advocate.” Hell no.
I elect to feel grief when I read about racial oppression and violence. It’s not something that happens to me, I make that happen. I’m a member of the only group for whom that is an available option.
Think of all the recent instances of black Americans murdered and violated by law enforcement — take that reality and look at it through the lens of “representation,” how various types of people are portrayed and depicted in mass media. When I, as a white person, look at that? I see generations of white supremacy and institutionalized racism, which has manifested in a spectrum of fear based almost exclusively on skin tone, and I see underpaid, undertrained law enforcement officers (who have a “Get Out of Jail Free” card tucked deep in the pocket of their uniform) reacting to situations with bullshit bravado. Bravado fed by adrenaline and power complexes — bravado that ends in permanent damage. And while this representation generates in me a feeling of fear for the safety of loved ones, not once has it made me fear for my own, or my family’s safety.
Being bombarded daily with news and images of dead or injured people who could just as easily have been me or my father? That’s something I just can’t imagine. Fearing for my life when I see flashing lights? I will never experience that. Watching as self-proclaimed experts debate the validity of my fear — debate it publicly, debate it to generate fucking votes, or money? That will never happen to me.
There are people of color who make a choice to focus on other things, there are people of color who have decided “I am not here for this fight,” and have put their energy into other things. My baseline is comfort, and I choose to venture into discomfort. Their baseline is discomfort, and they are choosing to protect themselves. They are choosing to feel free. If there’s anything white America owes people of color, it is a guarantee of safety, comfort, and freedom. And speaking as a member of white America — we are in more debt than a fresh med school graduate.
Please hear me: this entire post, all these examples and metaphors relating to my own life — it’s all just to say, to everyone without my privilege: I see you. I’ll do better.
