Dear Fellow White American,
I’m afraid I have a confession, and it is this: if I hear one more time that you don’t have a racist bone in your body, I think I might have to smack you. It isn’t that I don’t believe you, even though we both know that this statement or something similar is frequently the preface to an outrageously racist remark.
No. That’s not it. I’m willing to assume the truth that your skeleton is, indeed, lacking the racist bone. I’m even willing to go even farther in my assumptions: not only are you entirely non-racist, you are also utterly colorblind and totally devoid of implicit biases (you know, those impulses that make you assume that the black woman in your doctor’s office is a nurse’s aide and not the new internist). Somehow, you’ve managed to escape the pernicious effects of living in a racist society. I know you, and I honestly believe that most of you possess good faith and good will in abundance. But even under those conditions, I’m afraid that your non-racist bones (and mine, for that matter) do not suffice.
That’s because, as innocent as you individually might be, you (and I) are still the beneficiaries of centuries of racist attitudes, actions, and policies that have placed us at the top of the heap. The issue is not that things would change if only black people were more like us. The issue is that things won’t change until we are less like us. And if that surprises you, then I suggest that all of us (myself included) need to stop blathering on about our non-racist bones, and instead shut up and listen. If we did that, we might understand that nothing is going to change unless we change our attitudes, assumptions, and actions about race.
Here’s an example of what I mean. A lot of people I know get very riled about the idea of “Black Lives Matter,” not because they are racist, but because in their idealistic, good old fashioned liberal way, they think that all lives matter[1]. People of a certain generation were raised to believe that because race doesn’t matter, we shouldn’t ever make distinctions based on race. And when applied to things like water fountains, school buses, and public restrooms, that seems about right. But we need to make distinctions based on race if not to do so would result in the perpetuation of an injustice.
Frankly, the reason why the movement is not called “All Lives Matter” is that our history has shown time and time again that this is simply not the case. White American hands have torn, broken, and burned black bodies with impunity since the arrival of the first black slaves to Virginia in 1619. You don’t have to go far back to see the violence wrought upon black bodies. There is no reason to look at the Civil War photos of Private Gordon’s scourged back or the photos of Emmett Till’s desecrated body in his coffin to see what I mean; you can look at Trayvon Martin’s body, shot down for buying Skittles in the wrong part of town. Perhaps they should have called the movement “Black Lives Matter, Too.” Sigh. For want of an adverb, a cause was lost. And who says grammar doesn’t matter?
But easy flippancy aside, I doubt that even the inclusion of “too” would make the acceptance of “Black Lives Matter” more likely, because it flies in the face of what we white people believe about our country and ourselves. We are raised to believe in the fundamental fairness of America, where due process and equal rights exist for all, and the American dream is attainable to anyone willing to put in the hard work necessary to achieve it. But what due process did Trayvon Martin have when George Zimmerman tried and convicted and executed him for being a young black man in a white neighborhood? What equal protections were afforded to Sandra Bland, who was pulled over for not signaling a lane change, beaten by the cop who arrested her, and then found swinging from a sheet in her cell three days later? And how attainable is that American Dream to a black child born into a black neighborhood that had been transformed by racist housing policies from a “nice” white neighborhood to a living diorama of urban ills?
And the list goes on: incarceration rates sky rocket among black men and women; schools are increasingly segregated, while white schools receive more funding than black schools; and even though the life expectancy gap has narrowed, black life expectancy is still significantly below white—even in the same city.
The easy and, frankly, most popular way to explain these disconnects between white patriotic ideals and grim African American realities is, simply, to blame the victim. To assert that there must be something wrong with them that creates these difficulties. A nice idea, except for one tiny flaw: it ain’t so. These ills have their roots not in black capacities or inclinations but in the systems that allowed and then justified the subjugation of blacks. Crap housing and dilapidated neighborhoods? Thank the block busters who instigated white flight by terrifying white homeowners with the vision of black neighbors, while selling the resulting abandoned houses to black families at inflated prices they couldn’t afford. Shitty schools in black neighborhoods? Take a hard, long look at Brown v. Board of Education, which enshrined in educational law the belief that black schools were inherently inferior, thereby holding up the white school as the institution worthy of support and improvement. Entrenched poverty? Blame the vast difference in wealth between white families (with a median nest egg of $111,146) and black families ($7,113—not so much a “nest egg” as a “nest crumb”) on, among other factors, the lasting impact of the discriminatory housing policies in the GI Bill. Most of our wealth takes generations to build, and the houses of our ancestors have contributed much to our present wealth. But what if your ancestors were precluded from buying houses? Or if they were forced to buy inferior housing stock?
See? The typical American narrative—the plucky immigrant who came to America and worked his socks off so his children could have a better life—doesn’t apply to the African American experience. For one thing, despite the assertions of a Texas history book to the contrary, the African Americans who found themselves on our lovely shores were not “immigrants” or “workers”; they were slaves, property, chattel, whose designation as “souls” in their owners’ accounting books demonstrates unequivocally their absolute subjugation to the white population who regarded the black people in their midst with little more respect than what they would show a draft horse or mule. And despite their emancipation, they were subjected to an unrelenting campaign to keep them “in their place.” To white eyes, the Civil Rights movement, Dr. King, and the election of Barack Obama are proof that the campaign is over and the battle against racism won. However, the hate-filled faces of the white-supremacists in Charlottesville, and the support given to them by our Equivocator-in-Chief, are chilling reminders that the struggle is far from over.
And the fact is, the struggle might never be over if we white people don’t do our part.
So, what is our part? Well, as I said above, we all need to shut up and listen. How about inviting a black friend for dinner, and then letting him or her speak without interruption, explanation, or excuse? Just take it on the chin, no matter how much you want to interject. And then we need to read histories and analyses to learn what our textbooks have long hidden from us. A great place to start would be “The First White President” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, recently published in The Atlantic. It is an eye-opening analysis of the role white supremacism played in the 2016 election of that man. For a magisterial history of how racism and racist policies shaped our country from its foundations, you really need to read Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander is another crucial book. But you should also check out Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, because you can never underestimate the power of metaphor to explain the truth. And there are lots more out there.
After that? I don’t know. Taking a stand? Calling out bullshit? Writing a blog? Going on a march? Donations to Black Lives Matter or the Southern Poverty Law Center? Any constructive ideas gratefully received. It’ll be a start. But not a finish. Not by a long shot. But in the words of John Milton, “Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.”
© 2017 D.R. Miller
[1] I’m perfectly aware that there are many rabid racists who foam at the mouth at the thought of “Black Lives Matter,” because they really think that black lives don’t matter. Some of them even hold the highest positions of authority in our government. But I’m not talking to them. I’m talking to you!