My Goal Is To Make Sure The White People Know The Score

I’ve always been uncomfortable with the label “ally”.

Not the concept you understand. People who consistently take a stand against bigotry and injustice are brave and selfless and tragically rare. Most of them work quietly, in ways that don’t attract attention or applause. But I’ve yet to come across somebody like this who labels themselves an “ally”.

Instead, calling oneself an ally has always struck me as a humblebrag. I don’t doubt that some of the people who label themselves this way are genuinely doing good work, but it’s as if they can’t bear to have that work go un-applauded. They need to be seen as one of the “good ones“. Not simply be one of the good ones. No prizes for guessing which of the two is more important to them.

That’s the vibe I got from Richard almost immediately. In my article “The Rise Of The Racism Industry”, I mentioned how nonsensical it was to frame the tragic death of Daunte Wright as a racially motivated murder. Richard didn’t exactly disagree, he just wanted to let me know how much better he is than other white people.

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Richard:

…when Daunte Wright is tragically killed by a white police officer who mistook her gun for a taser, the diagnosis is racism instead of incompetence.

This is taken somewhat out of context. First, she pulled him over as a training example.

Second, she is a trainer.

Third, how much skin color bias was involved in the whole matter from what side of town she was on, to who she pulled over and why, to would she have gotten it wrong with a White person, and has anyone ever done something so incompetent like that who was trainer and an officer for over two decades?

Finally, any one case can be weasled out of as not really, truly, surely racist, like an insurance company saying it was 77% inexplicable, and "only" 23% racist, so you are not at fault. But in reality the overall data for biased policing/legal system is damning. Why? So we screw up a few White lives, by calling it wrong a few times. When we screw up thousands up thousands of Black lives each year.

How many hundreds of thousands of years before White people could say one word about our concerns, if we ended all Black Americans getting wrongfully stopped/killed/arrested/incarcerated now, but kept screwing over a few White lives each year?

Bias works from a very deep place. And our color bias comes from an even deeper and scarier, more terrible place, insidiously cultivated for 400 years.

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“So we screw up a few white lives by calling it wrong a few times”

One of the standout features of self-described “allies” like Richard, is how easily their mask of empathy slips. I mean, what exactly is a “white life”? How does it differ from anybody else’s? How does ruining the lives of innocent people help black people or create a better world?

And even if it did, would it be worth the cost to our humanity?

Most importantly, would he, as a white man, be willing to have his life “screwed up” for the cause? I strongly suspect he wouldn’t. But of course, he’s not like those other white people.

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Steve QJ:

But in reality the overall data for biased policing/legal system is damning.

It's so infuriating that you feel like you need to explain any of this to me. Not only am I black, I'm a black writer who writes about racism. I'm incredibly confident I know the statistics on these issues better than you do. But here's what's missing from your analysis of Daunte's case:

Daunte would still be alive if he hadn't tried to run because of an outstanding warrant.

You can mind read about racism or talk about hypotheticals all you want, but I, who actually wants that black life to still be here with us, am more concerned with the facts regarding his death than whether we can minimise his culpability by crying racism when that obviously wasn't why he died.

This is what genuine solidarity looks like. Not making excuses, but looking at a situation as honestly and clearly as you can so that the people who are harmed aren't harmed in future.

As for who cares about whether we "screw up a few white lives", Martin Luther King cared for one:

"We will not seek to substitute one tyranny for another, thereby subverting justice. We will not seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage. This is why I say that a doctrine of black supremacy is as dangerous as a doctrine of white supremacy.

God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men, but God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race and the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers." - https://www.smu.edu/News/2014/mlk-at-smu-transcript-17march1966

And more to the point, I care. Anybody with an ounce of sense and compassion cares. Yes, bias works from a deep place, but ignorance and bitterness work from somewhere far deeper and more terrible. I suggest you have a serious think about what the world you want to create looks like.

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Richard:

It's so infuriating that you feel like you need to explain this to me. Not only am I black, I'm a black writer who writes about racism.

First, online it is almost always a talking over each other situation. It might be in person as well, and even if we knew each other a lot better, but for sure online.

Again, when I write something, my underlying goal is to make sure the White people know the score. I know you know more about racism in a billion ways I never can, but I am reacting to your writing not you in that instance, so I assume nothing much beyond that.

(Unfortunately, I may also over or under read it, my ADHD sometimes has me jump the gun. However, I don't think that was an issue here. I hope.)

That said, I am more concerned about how little White people think about racism. Of course, even the best people think about themselves 93% of the time, even Mother Theresa. But whatever is left over, Whites put almost no time into thinking about racism. Most hardly see a Black person, more than by a glance, if not just on media. "Racism can't be that bad if White supremacists skinheads are NOT killing Blacks in the streets, while yelling racial slurs that are completely audible, and they have a confederate flag as well as look mean enough to be doing it on purpose."

I am exaggerating above, but Whites' angry reactions just to being called White privileged show their ignorance. Not because they misunderstand WP, but because they get angry reflexively. That shows how juvenile they are in respect to their own internal understanding of racism overall.

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Again, notice how Richard talks about white people as if he isn’t one. “I’m one of the ‘good ones’!!!” screams the subtext of every line. Is his desire to “make sure white people know the score,” really about clarifying racial issues? If so, why the hell is he clarifying them to a black guy?

Or is it about putting himself on a pedestal? Two guesses which answer I think is more likely…

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Steve QJ:

Not because they misunderstand WP, but because they get angry reflexively.

We aren't talking over each other. The beauty of this format is that talking over the other person is impossible. My issue is that you talk as if you have everything figured out when you very, very clearly don't.

You want "to make sure white people know the score" when YOU don't know the score, that's apparent already from our brief conversation. I'm not trying to give you a hard time about that, nobody understands anything perfectly, but don't position yourself as an educator for white people while you still have plenty to learn. And especially don't talk to a black race writer about racism as if you understand it better than they do. That's almost guaranteed to get their back up.

I think white people get angry about being called privileged both because they don't understand what it means (nor does the person making the accusation most of the time) AND because it's a worthless accusation.

Okay, you have white privilege. Now what? Does my life improve because you agree? Is it worse if you argue? It's this vague accusatory comment with no suggestion of what should be done or why they should feel bad about it which causes the issue.

I have plenty of privileges. I'm smart (an enormous and underrated advantage in life), I'm well educated, I'm reasonably attractive, I'm a native English speaker, I'm able bodied, on and on. I did nothing to earn these things, they were handed to me on a platter by chance (and in the case of my education my parents). But the combination of these factors has made my path through life much easier than many white people I know.

Again, so what? Where does that leave us? This bickering about one advantage while ignoring all other context is why people get angry and defensive. I wrote an article about privilege recently. Hardly any pushback. Plenty of white people saying they understood the issue better. Why? Because I'm not presenting these issues in simplistic, divisive, meaningless terms.

Again, if you want to improve the way white people think about racism, understand it better yourself. Not just by reading CRT books, but by speaking to a diverse range of voices. Seek out people who disagree with you. Have conversations with them. Think deeply about those conversations. Rinse and repeat.

Also don't rely on exaggeration in your arguments, it loses you credibility. These problems don't need to be exaggerated. If the person you're speaking to doesn’t care after you've explained them accurately, they won't change their mind because you resorted to hyperbole.

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That was the last I heard from Richard. Perhaps he’s off having some of those conversations I suggested.

To be clear, I genuinely want him to have those conversations. As I said, nobody understands anything perfectly, I certainly don’t claim to understand racism because I’m black. My understanding of racism, such as it is, is the result of years of reading and thinking and talking with people who challenged my assumptions.

Who knows, if Richard does the same, maybe I’ll be commenting on one of his articles one day.