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In reply to the discussion: Quick Question... Why should black people love white people? [View all]jobycom
(49,038 posts)I don't want to be. I work every moment of my life to not be. But it's always there, always around me. I take advantage of being white every time I walk into a restaurant, apply for a job, get a raise, talk my way out of a ticket. The other day I yelled at a cop and didn't get arrested, much less shot. That was me taking advantage of being white. And using my special privilege of whiteness makes me a racist. People either get that, or they don't. They are like fish who either see the water they swim in, or just don't see it because it is so basic to their world that they live in that it goes unnoticed. (Rereading this, notice I said "people." I'm just assuming you all know I meant white people. It's just the default assumption of us racists.)
Whenever I use my white privilege, someone of another race gets to be the counterweight to my success. Whites are more likely to get raises than blacks, so when I get that raise, black people are statistically less likely to get it. When I don't get a traffic ticket, where is the cop going to make up the statistical difference?
I'd like to believe that because I love everyone and live with a Latina life partner and literally have very few friends who are white that it's impossible for me to be racist. But the truth is, it's impossible for me not to be. When I vote, I don't vote for the candidate most likely to correct the problems, I vote for the candidate most likely to make my drive to work easier. When I shop, I don't spend money in a way that will reduce racist segregation in this country by employing black people, paying them equally to white people, etc. I spend money where it's easiest for me, and that means I'm usually paying white people money that they are statistically cheating non-white people out of.
I can protest the murders of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin (notice how cool I am in my whiteness to call them murders?), but I can't reject the privilege that makes me less likely to get shot. I'm not even risking that much with my protesting. I can carry a sign and yell "Down with whitey!" and if the cops charge into the crowd with pepper gas, I can run a block over and stroll away without fear. And the little risk I take by protesting alongside black people is purely voluntary, unlike the black protestors. For them it's just life. I can't not be white.
So if I don't vote with every vote and spend with every dollar and shout with every word that racism must end, I'm being racist, because I'm supporting a racist system. I don't even have to do anything. I just have to do nothing, and assume that my nice, pretty thoughts are enough to exonerate me. They aren't, though. I can't escape my roll in this society. The best I can do is open my mind and my heart and try to be better, and maybe just maybe make the system a little better.