This Whiteness of Being By Connie Schultz

[babylonsister]

https://www.creators.com/read/connie-schultz/04/21/this-whiteness-of-being

This Whiteness of Being
By Connie Schultz

snip//

I am a white woman who has never had a minute's worry that the color of my skin would lead to the cause of my death. What is my role in this moment as a professor, a colleague, a friend?

I try to take guidance from Black friends, students and colleagues. The instruction is pretty simple: Shut up. For the sake of all that is right and holy, just shut up for a while and listen. To ignore their pain is to magnify our indifference, and filling this space with our words, our feelings, is just another way to say, "I don't see you."

snip//

For all of my 19 years as a columnist, there has been no rival for the hate mail about racism from people who look like me. The message, sometimes cloaked in Scripture but often just raw with rage, is always the same: You have betrayed your people.

If your primary requirement for love or camaraderie with another human being is a matching skin tone, your world is but a thimble bobbing on a wondrous sea. My mother would want me to pray for you, just as many of you claim to be praying for me. She'd want me to mean it, though, so I keep trying.

It's Thursday evening now, and my mind is full of the thoughts my students have bravely shared in this sad week of never-ending pain. I am slowed by the weight of their words, struggling to imagine what it is like to be them right now.

I do not know because I cannot know, in this whiteness of being. But for them, I will keep trying.

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[Hekate]

2. KnR

[Doremus]

3. Such a wonderful writer. Her husband ain't bad either ;)

[abqtommy]

4. For those of us with empathy and a higher level of enlightenment, understanding and

wokeness it's really hard to stay silent. We can only do our best while following our hearts.
Thanks for this powerful op.

[MontanaMama]

5. Kick.

I am ready to shut up and listen. There is nothing I can say to further the cause...I can and will listen. I know I can do better and I commit to that effort.