Black People Aren't Allowed To Talk About Race

Racism Is A Tale Of Two Scars is one of those articles that was universally well received. And I think the reason is that everybody can relate to the central point.

Inspired by the readers right here at the Commentary, it’s an attempt to point out how each of us can look at racism and genuinely see something different. If we want to heal, we need to share these different perspectives, not attack each other with them.

And given that the article is about differing perceptions of racism, it’s fitting that today’s conversation reflects two different people’s thoughts about how white people should engage with racial issues.

First we have Chrissie, who expresses a belief I hear all too often from white people lately; namely that her opinion on race doesn’t matter. Given the Chernobyl-esque levels of toxicity in racial discourse at the moment, I completely understand why she feels this way, but I also took the opportunity to point out how ass-backwards this way of thinking is:

---

Chrissie:

I am hoping that there has been some healing, though there is so much more healing needed. I am white, so my opinion matters little. I try to be the best ally I can, while not wearing any virtue about it. I have felt my friends fear when cops drive by or enter the diner. I want that to stop.

---

Steve QJ:

I am white, so my opinion matters little.

Nope, this isn't true. All that matters is whether you care about the issue, whether you're willing to take the time to listen to other perspectives and, in the current climate, whether you're brave enough to honestly express your own.

This idea that white people need to sit down and shut up needs to die. White people are 60% of the population for goodness sake. Healing, and progress, requires that they engage. The people driving up division and tension between black and white people are doing nothing but preventing that healing from happening.

---

My conversation with Chrissie continued for a little while (I might share it here at some point), but far more interesting for our current purposes is what another reader, Treecy, had to say in response:

---

Treecy:

In their defense most of those who have stepped up to get white people to pipe down, were doing so for the very specific and necessary objective of keeping white people from drowning out melanated humans voices (this was very necessary, even if it just needed to be temporary). There wasn’t any conversation being “allowed” before (it was just a barrage of defensive strongly expressed “silencers” being evoked for the sole purpose of the return to hearing nothing and doing nothing, the preferred place of comfort).

I went to all white schools and also work in predominantly white work spaces, and I can say from my personal experience that, having looked back at it, there were zero times (literally no times whatsoever ever) where I personally saw a white person say anything or do anything about overt or covert racism if the offender was also a white person (can I just say again, never, not once, ever in my entire life) and I had plenty of opportunities since my entire life was spent in white spaces where racism was prolific.

Conversely, and to underscore the point again, no one melanated could seem to get a word in edgewise, anywhere, about their actual lived experiences of overt or covert racism. To pretend that white people are just being silenced for being white, is to ignore reality. It’s simply not the case. In the USA, every melanated human is already well aware of white peoples thoughts and feelings, it’s all we ever hear or see, but they don’t know ours and will never know them if they don’t stay quiet long enough to hear about them.

I say all of this to say, is temporarily silencing those who have displayed a history of not using their voices or actions enough on one another, but are always much more emboldened when speaking to (usually condescendingly) melanated humankind, really all that awful?

You cannot have an edifying discussion with people who think their thoughts and feelings trump yours anyway, and as a member of a minority group, trying to have these individual conversations with a group that far outnumbers yours is beyond exhausting (unless you’re agreeing with what they want to hear or, in order to have any type of exchange, coddling and making them feel good in some fashion to keep them from going back to complicity). That too is taxing.

---

“I can say from my personal experience that, having looked back at it, there were zero times (literally no times whatsoever ever) where I personally saw a white person say anything or do anything about overt or covert racism if the offender was also a white person.”

This is the problem with the current over-emphasis on lived experience. While Treecy hasn’t seen white people say or do anything about racism when the offender was white, I (who also spent a lot of time in all-white spaces growing up) have seen it.

If the goal is an “edifying” conversation, perhaps it’s enough to have your experience treated as gospel. But if the goal is a meaningful or even productive conversation, you have to allow for the possibility that your experience isn’t the whole truth. That you have something to learn as well as to teach.

Treecy isn’t wrong about her personal experience. Of course she’s not. But she is wrong to generalise that experience out to the ~230 million white people living in America. And frankly, that’s not all she’s wrong about.

---

Steve QJ:

is temporarily silencing those who have displayed a history of not using their voices or actions enough on one another, but are always much more emboldened when speaking to (usually condescendingly) melanated humankind, really all that awful?

You cannot have an edifying discussion with people who think their thoughts and feelings trump yours anyway

There are a few problems with this line of thinking though:

1. What does temporary mean? What duration are we aiming for before white people can speak again?

2. Is collectivising people like this helpful? I've been spoken over by white people, women, other black people, all sexualities and gender configurations, you name it. I've no doubt also spoken over people in all these categories at some point in my life. At what point do we recognise that disagreement is a natural part of the problem solving process and not an attack?

Don't get me wrong, I come across white people who simply don't want to listen too (interestingly enough, they're usually the wokest, Robin DiAngelo readingest of the bunch), but I also come across plenty who do want to engage and listen if they can have a conversation instead of a sermon.

3. I don't think you mean to suggest this at all, but I always bristle at the idea that black people are too weak to make their voices heard in the presence of white people. The idea that conversation needs to be "allowed" by white people is just no good as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, these conversations can be difficult, believe me I know, but if we're not strong enough to have them unless the white folk "allow" us to speak, we have a serious problem. And if we do have that problem, I think it's one we need to look at ourselves for the answer to. We simply cannot embrace a mindset of needing to be permitted to speak about the issues we face.

4. You say that you cannot have a conversation with people who think their thoughts and feelings trump yours, I couldn't agree more with this. But if we're talking about silencing an entire group of people because of the colour of their skin, saying we're “already well aware of [their] thoughts and feelings", isn't that simply another example of believing that your thoughts and feelings trump somebody else's? Lived experience is all well and good, I don't mean to dismiss it, but it isn't the unalloyed truth.

I do expect white people to listen to me when I talk about racism, I expect them to recognise that I have a perspective they lack, but I also expect to listen and explain and try to understand why they think the way they do. To recognise that I don't have all the answers. That's how progress is made. Adult human beings simply will not, in general, sit quietly and silently accept ideas that they disagree with. This is basic human nature.

The idea that a conversation with a black person about race should be a monologue rather than a dialogue is only serving to make an increasing number of moderate white people check out entirely. I'm really not sure what the end game of this mindset is.

---

It’s always frustrating (though no longer all that surprising), when these conversations end as quickly as they begin. Treecy didn’t respond to my reply, so we’ll never know whether she’d considered any of the points I make here. But again, if the goal is an edifying conversation, there’s not much motivation to engage with people who disagree with you, no matter how much sense they make.

In fact, the more sensible the disagreement, the less motivated you’re likely to be. Because if all you want to do is preach, the last thing you want is to have your convictions challenged. That’s why so many of these “conversations” end in insults or blocks or in this case, silence.

I suspect that for people like Treecy, not being “allowed” to speak is another way of saying, “not having her personal experience completely validated”. And don’t get me wrong, this is an issue. As I said, I expect white people to listen to me when I talk about race. I expect them to recognise that I have a perspective they lack.

But I have to recognise that my perspective is only one out of billions. And it’s filtered through my blind spots and insecurities and the simple fallibility of my memory. If I expect people to listen to me but don’t also expect to listen to them, I can’t claim to be interested in a conversation at all. I’m interested in giving a sermon. And if that’s the case, it’s not surprising if people, white and otherwise, don’t “allow” me to do it.