I am just a dumb white American male. Dumb not stupid. I pick dumb because I’ll never know what it’s like to be anybody else. I’ll never really know about discrimination, about the fear of being constantly judged because of my skin color, or the fear of being killed because of my skin color. I grew up in an almost completely white town and went to a super white college after that. Of course I had interactions with people darker than me and was friendly with some people over the years who didn’t look like me but I didn’t have lots of opportunities to hang out with many people of color.
Time went on and I had more opportunities. When I was going to school (again) in Colorado, I knew and was friends with several people from the Middle East. Several Muslim people. They weren’t terrorists and they didn’t hate me or want to hurt me because I don’t believe in the same god that they believe in. I had always thought that the way all Muslims are painted as terrorists was so stupid but when you know someone who is Muslim it really drives home the stupidity of it all. And it also gave me the opportunity to see the other side of what that generalization and behavior means. One of my friends shares a lot of articles about the conflict between Arabs and Israelis. And there’s plenty of information out there about all the drone strikes the United States has perpetrated in the Middle East over the past few years.
At one of my jobs in Denver, I worked with a bunch of gay people and I’ve gotten to known other gay people since then in many different situations. Again, no surprise that them being gay didn’t have any impact on my relationship with them. It didn’t matter that they were gay and it didn’t matter that I was straight.
When we moved back east, I got the chance to work with a few black people. They are super cool people. I love them. I got to see the foolish side of racism when customers would mistake two black coworkers for each other EVEN THOUGH THEY DO NOT LOOK ALIKE AT ALL.
Did you ever watch the Jerry Seinfeld show “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee”? There’s an episode with Chris Rock (in a fabulous Lamborghini) where they get pulled over by the police. Jerry is so casual but Chris Rock looks worried. It comes off as a joke in that show but that’s real shit for people who have darker skin than me. I don’t like getting pulled over but I’m not worried that my life is going to end right there on the side of the road.
As I read over these first few paragraphs, I think it sounds like the typical white guy saying “Look I have friends who are black. I’m not racist.” But I didn’t know people of color or different religions or people who are openly gay growing up. I also didn’t think that those people would be different than me but if you aren’t actually experiencing relationships with different people in your own life then discrimination and racism are just ideas. They may be ideas that you don’t like and sound awful, but I think it’s too easy, especially for white people, to not take it personally enough.
We can sit back and know that any kind of discrimination based on skin color, religion or sexual preference is stupid and illogical. As an intellectual exercise we can realize this, but the depth of the ridiculousness of it didn’t really hit me until I began to get to know people from all these groups who are discriminated against. The depth of the sadness and anger became a part of my response to racism as I got to know people who are different than me.
I didn’t consciously isolate myself from people with darker skin than me or from people who had a different sexual preference or religion than me. I grew up in an almost entirely white small town. No one ever talked to me about racism. The people who raised me were not racist. Even though my grandfather grew up in South Carolina, way back before the civil rights movement, I never saw him judge somebody based on anything other than their character. But if I didn’t have opportunities to get to know people who were different than me and nobody was talking to me about any of this then what the hell did I know?
I used to openly judge and question the rioters after any type of highly publicized police brutality. I think, for me, Rodney King, is the first time I remember really hearing about anything like this. Why would they riot? They’re only making it worse. They’re only reinforcing the beliefs of the racists anyway. Yup that was me. Just a dumb white guy judging people for something I did not understand.
I’m not judging anyone this time. I am not ok with more violence or rioting. But if I can be this full of anger at another murder by police and I’m not directly affected, then what must it be like to be a person of color and see this happening AGAIN? What alternatives are left to express such rage? Peaceful protests are not stopping these killings. Our President is a fucking racist. We are so far past the time to be judging rioters. We need to be trying to understand why they would resort to those actions. We need to be really looking at what the fuck is going on in our country and in this world and get out of our shiny white lives and fucking join in to make some positive change.
I don’t really know how to do that. I’m writing this to dump these thoughts and feelings out of my mind. Maybe this will get some other white people to think in a different way or maybe not, but at the very least, I’m trying to organize my confusion and anger about all of this.
I was going to research and compile a list of black people killed by police in the United States but I don’t need to redo the work that has already been done by others. Here’s a link:
83 Black Men and Boys Killed by Police
As a white person, when you first started hearing “Black Lives Matter”, did you think to yourself, “but all lives matter”? That’s what I thought, then I heard Ice-T explain it like this:
“It’s unfortunate that we even have to say Black Lives Matter. I mean, if you go through history nobody ever gave a fuck. I mean, you can kill black people in the street. Nobody goes to jail. nobody goes to prison. But when I say “Black Lives Matter” and you say “all lives matter”, that’s like if I was to say, “gay lives matter” and you say “all lives matter”. If I said “women’s lives matter” and you say “all lives matter”. You’re diluting what I’m saying. You’re diluting the issue. The issue isn’t about everybody. It’s about black lives at the moment.”
I don’t know what to write next. I don’t know how to wrap this up. I am disgusted with discrimination of any kind. I am full of anger at the loss of life. But my disgust and anger don’t seem to mean a fucking thing. Right now, I’m embarrassed to have such pale skin. I must be too simple-minded to understand how someone is better than someone else just because of the way they look. Even as an isolated white kid growing up in a white town that shit didn’t make any sense. I didn’t have enough life experience to think too hard about it or maybe even to care too much about it, but I knew that it was fucking stupid.
There is a strong minority in this country that may never go away. We can be upset by this or complain about it but we would be better off accepting it and rising to the challenge. As a white person who wants our country to be better, it’s time to be vocal. We can not let the the racist minority in our country be louder than the rest of us who want this shit to stop.
Additional Links:
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
Here’s a black man talking to white people about white privilege and what we can do now.