Stop Ripping Our Souls Out Through Our Chests

Human beings like binaries. Black and white. Liberal and conservative. Hero and villain. But it’s never possible to sum somebody up with one of these labels. More often than not, we’re at least a little of both.

In my article, The Hidden Complexities of Being A Racist, I re-examined the infamous Central Park Birdwatching Incident. I pointed out that the temptation to paint Amy Cooper as a perfect villain, or Christian Cooper as a flawless victim, clouds the issue.

It’s possible for Christian to be a victim of racism and also an asshole. Or for Amy to be a racist and also a solitary woman who was frightened for her dog.

People are complex. And racism can be too. Eli (who you might remember from this conversation) showed that there are even more complexities than I realised.

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Eli:

a lot of people are tired of talking about racism

Let’s get really specific when we say a lot.

A lot of white people are tired of “talking” about it.

A lot of black people are tired of “experiencing” it.

So let’s recap we will stop fatiguing them with discussions about our humanity when they stop ripping our souls out through our chests just for their own enjoyment.

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It’s possible to mis-interpret my observation that “a lot of people are tired of talking about racism” as, “a lot of people don’t care about racism”. Which is why the very next line (which Eli chose not to include in her quote) says:

Or more precisely, the way racism is sometimes talked about.

I’ve spoken with literally thousands of people about racism over the last year or so, and I’m convinced that the “tiredness” I refer to isn’t because we’re having these conversations about racism more often or because people don’t care about the injustice it causes. The problem is the toxicity that’s become such a feature of these conversations. It’s the bigotry and vitriol and hyperbole.

I mean, “ripping our souls out through our chests just for their own enjoyment”?? Seriously?! What are we even doing here?

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Steve QJ:

we will stop fatiguing them with discussions about our humanity when they stop ripping our souls out through our chests just for their own enjoyment

Oh good God. Please get a grip. This is exactly the kind of nonsense that everybody with half a brain or who doesn't get their kicks from seeing black people as helpless weaklings is tired of.

Are you seriously pretending that your life is some kind of racist hellscape as you sit comfortably, a $1000+ device in your hand, and write this drivel in your free time? Did you pick any cotton today? Anybody try to lynch you or call you a ni**er? Did you have to use the rear entrance of any buildings? Were you harassed by the police? I'm guessing not.

I write about racism and as you can see, I'm black. I'm tired of experiencing it. But man, the fetishising of it that's become so popular among the victim class and the white liberal elite. It's honestly embarrassing. Don't you see that this ridiculous melodrama about "the black experience" is just another way to "other" black people?

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Eli:

Anybody try to lynch you or call you a ni**er?

Is this really the depth of your understanding of what racism is? Let’s try and stay authentic.

I’m sorry I upset you. You must be dealing with a lot and under a lot of stress.

When I was a kid I use to imagine I was in Narnia a lot.

It’s so much nicer to imagine everything was a magical wood than to live the reality of childhood sexual abuse.

We appear to have a lot in common. You have tried to fly off to some magical wood of white storytelling and narratives about black people as well. To escape the realities you have faced in this life.

I’m sorry if no one has ever apologized to you , I’m sorry the world is like this.

This does not make you or I a victim. It makes us highly adaptive, highly resilient and creative people.

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Steve QJ:

Let’s try and stay authentic.

😅 Yes, let’s.

"...when they stop ripping our souls out through our chests just for their own enjoyment."

Now you’ll have to excuse me. I’m just a poor dumb negro that needs you to sweep me up in your arms and “apologise to me” because the world is like this (my world is pretty good thanks), but could you explain to me how the above is an “authentic” expression of your experience? Or of any black person living in America?

It seems you’ve replaced Narnia with another fantasy world. Only this time, it’s a world where you’re a hero to us poor confused blacks who don’t understand what victims we are.

My understanding of racism is fairly deep and nuanced actually, and I’d be hapy to discuss it. But my understanding of the above is that you’re a fetishist who can’t conceptualise black people as anything but helpless weaklings who need to be spoken to as if we’re children. I can assure you that you’re wrong.

God, I find good old-fashioned hateful racism infinitely preferable to this patronising, “hero-complex” neo-racism. Both types think black people are inferior. But at least the old-fashioned type doesn’t expect us to be grateful for it.

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I should clarify that I don’t hold Eli completely responsible for this idiocy. It’s very clearly a learned behaviour.

If you spend enough time being told that the only way to see black people is as victims, that life with black skin is first and foremost a hellscape of oppression, and that questioning these ideas makes you evil and racist, it’s not entirely surprising that some people absorb this worldview.

But make no mistake. This is just a modern, socially-sanctioned form of racism.

Whether you think of black people as victims or monsters, devils or angels, you stop seeing us as human beings. Yet that’s all we are. We shouldn’t be defined by our ancestry or our struggles or most of by all the colour of our skin. We are (as everybody is) too complex to fit into any of these binaries.