I don’t know what to say.
My Whiteness inherently comes with a ton of privilege. I’ll never forget listening to one of my favorite comedians, live, in Houston—Wanda Sykes. I don’t think she was even talking about privilege at the time, but she remarked how she can’t grab a bottle of water off the shelf, put it in her grocery cart, shop for other stuff, and then open the water because she’s thirsty. That hit me hard. That’s something I’ve done a number of times in the store without much thought other than, “Do I have enough money to pay for this beverage?”
I was floored to think this was something only White people were “allowed” to do. Technically, no one is allowed to do it, but I’ve never, ever given it a second thought, because I knew I was going to pay for it—and no employee, security guard, or fellow customer said a thing to me about it. I had no idea Black people or other people of color can’t do that.
This was, of course, before Ferguson. Before Trayvon Martin. Before Oscar Grant. Before Michael Gray or “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” or Sandra Bland or Eric Garner or George Floyd “I Can’t Breathe” or Ahmaud Arbery or Philando Castile or Breonna Taylor or Tamir Rice. Before Kaepernick took a knee before his games—and before he was released from the team for doing so.
The thing is, Generation X, my generation, thought we were going to continue the work of the civil rights movement and vanquish racism (we’re an idealist generation, to be sure). Popular culture during our coming of age was rife with anti-hate and anti-bigotry messages. En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind” peppered the airwaves alongside Garth Brook’s “We Shall Be Free.” Martin, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, In Living Color, Living Single, A Different World, Moesha—these were interspersed with Seinfeld and Friends and ER.
Many of the White people from GenX learned from these pieces of pop culture, examined our internal prejudices, and realized we had some biases that we needed to work on. Most of the rest of us just knew that saying racist crap was wrong and thus didn’t. Apparently, a few didn’t get the memo and grasped harder with hateful desperation to their Confederate flags and guns. They were often socially shunned if they brought it up, and that was the end of it back then.
We were blissfully unaware of systemic bias and the school-to-prison pipeline. We didn’t know Black people got pulled over for being in the “wrong” neighborhood until Fresh Prince had an episode where Will and Carlton got pulled over by a cop in Uncle Phil’s colleague’s fancy car. We didn’t know.
Now, the truth that Black Americans have lived with for generations is inescapable. Palpable. Devastating. Grotesque. To be Black in America is a drastically different experience than being White. That’s a factual statement, but of course, in these times, every fact becomes a polemic—a point to be argued against.
Doctors believe Black people about their pain and symptoms less than White people. Black and White people commit crimes at about the same rates, but Black people are arrested far more often. COVID-19 affects Black communities disproportionally. Black people have a harder time getting hired than White people. They’re killed more than we are; they’re assaulted more. Just about every facet of the human experience is made more difficult when you’re walking around in Black skin.
All I can say right now to our Black sisters and brothers is I’m sorry. I’m really, really, really sorry this is happening. I try every chance I get to use my White privilege to be a voice of positive change. I haven’t witnessed firsthand anti-Black racism in a long time, thankfully; but if I do, I am NOT afraid to stand up to it.
As a lesbian and a woman, I, too, have lost jobs, not been believed by doctors about my pain, been discriminated against, fetishized, been regarded as less than, as an object, as stupid—for being a woman, gay, or both. I can empathize more than most White people, for sure. But I’m still going through life with light skin, and I can never know firsthand what it’s like to be Black.
I am at a loss for words. I don’t know what to say. I want to hug my loved ones who are Black and cry with you. I want to march with you. If I’m honest, it’d feel pretty good to beat up a couple of racist turds right now, but I don’t think that’ll solve anything.
I don’t know why so many White people hate Black people. They’ll swear on a stack that they don’t, but then they’ll boycott the NFL for allowing players to kneel and claim they feel kneeling is disrespectful to the flag and the military. They’ll serve side-by-side with Black officers and then kneel on the neck of an unarmed Black man—as he pleads for his life—with their hands casually in their pockets as if they were waiting for a friend, all for the alleged crime of… forgery.
I don’t know what is going on in this nation. I do know that the election of our first Black president deeply pissed a lot of White people off and that the current clown in the White House is their revenge-porn candidate who somehow managed to win, thanks to the racist electoral college.
…
I will take action where I can and continue to call out racism when I encounter it. I will work on getting bodycams for cops in my jurisdiction and keep voting for laws that reduce sentencing for nonviolent crimes and enfranchise ex-cons. I will keep voting for candidates of color whose beliefs and values match my own, and I will march with you when it’s safe to do so again (due to the pandemic, not to White supremacists—f**k them).
In the meantime, I’m just sad. My heart breaks with yours.
Photo by Nicole Baster on Unsplash
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