White America, I am trying to love you in a different way, an honest way, a way that requires progressive change. I love you, and we need to do better.
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White people, I love you. I really do. Not because I am a white person myself. This is not a story of self-love, although those can be important. This proclamation is not an attempt to subvert power structures that disavow love of white bodies. No, love of white bodies and selves, that is the norm, so hidden in plain sight that it is rarely given a racial identity at all.
We are so afraid of talking about race. We almost always believe racism is a thing that other people do. Talking about race and our own racism is ugly, and it implicates us in terrible things. But love without honesty is infatuation. If we want to love ourselves and each other we have to admit to the worst amongst us and claim the worst within us. I want to do this work.
White America, America full stop, I am trying to love you in a different way, an honest way, a way that provokes a dialog, a way that requires progressive change. I love you, and we need to do better. James Baldwin said, “Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” White people, it’s time we grow up.
Who am I and what am I doing here?
I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X embarrassingly late in life, at 28. I am white and from a working class community in the rural Pacific Northwest. I have lived in NYC for seven years now. I was finishing the final pages at the McCarren Park Pool in Williamsburg. I was at the pool that day with a few friends who are all queer men of color. I consider myself an ally in the fight for racial justice. I label myself a feminist. I do not see the struggles for queer and women’s rights, economic justice, racial justice as separate. The power, I always thought, was at the intersection; no one struggle would succeed without the others. I was reading X.
X, it turns out, was also reading me.
“I sure don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings,” he wrote, “but in fact I’ll even go so far as to say that I never really trust the kind of white people who are always so anxious to hang around Negroes, or to hang around Negro communities.”
I looked around me. In the heart of hipster Williamsburg, the pool was filled with people of color. I turned back to Malcolm.
“I tell sincere white people, ‘Work in conjunction with us – each of us working among our own kind.’ Let sincere white individuals find all other white people they can who feel as they do – and let them form their own all-white groups, to work trying to convert other white people who are thinking and acting so racist. Let sincere white people go and teach non-violence to white people!” (emphasis added)
While I believe that white people do have a role to play in the fight for racial justice, simply unpacking our invisible backpacks of privilege is necessary but not sufficient. White guilt isn’t changing shit. Doing the work to actually see race is the first step. The second step, the harder step, is to stop telling ourselves the lies that perpetuate bias and to stop participating in the structures that codify racism, and to implore other people to do the same.
Moving beyond Malcolm
But what does any of this have to do with love?
Another voice was ringing in my ear that August day at the pool. James Baldwin insisted that love, real love, was the only way forward in America. “We,” he wrote, “with love, shall force our [white] brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it.”
To Baldwin, love was white people’s only salvation. Baldwin’s work was published more than 50 years ago, but the battle feels the same.
White love, American love, still negates truth, requires myth, is predicated on lies. Years after Baldwin, bell hooks reminded us that love and domination are incompatible. Capital L love is built on honesty and equity, requires accountability, and pain and movement and growth. Baldwin wrote, “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace – not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”
Love requires accountability
The face of racism has changed in the last generation in our country. Overt racism still exists, of course. But in today’s America you get fired for using the N-word. We have a black president. It is impossible to say that things haven’t changed. And yet, I promise you white people, the world is not post-racial.
I love you and I want to tell you the truth.
I will start with a little bit of my truth. In college, I was haunted by the folks I left behind. I knew that poor white were not being given the opportunities I had. I knew that there was no such thing as affirmative action for these kids (who were a lot like me, just like me, could have been me) and I argued that they needed it. Socioeconomic affirmative action. I argued this point hard until I was called out. Didn’t I see, I was asked, that when I walked into a room no one saw my socioeconomic status? No one assumed that I got into my elite college because I was from a disadvantaged background. Everyone assumed I was upper middle class and from a prep school and just like them. And didn’t I see what was happening to the students of color on campus?
Race still matters.
Poverty is still racialized. The absence of laws ensuring that black folks don’t vote in the south doesn’t mean that access to education , health care, even to the voting booth, is equal. Study after study, if you’re into that sort of thing, has shown that access to these things are not equal across races. Within hours of the Supreme Court striking down aspects of the heavily bi-partisan Voting Rights Act several states moved to change their voting laws in ways that may limit the impact of black voters.
Racism is both personal and systemic. On the personal side, bias infects us, all of us, on a daily basis. Since the arrival of black people in America, we have been constructing narratives that pathologize black men as strong but volatile and dangerous, black women as lazy and overly sexualized. These narratives are still lived today. Again, for those that are into this sort of thing, insidious, unconscious bias has been shown against black people in study after study.
White people, it’s time to learn to listen. Not just to studies, but to people who aren’t us. This is what it means to love. Let us learn to trust truths that we cannot live in. Let us question our own implication in these narratives.
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There are people out there who don’t need these studies because their daily existence speaks to these truths.
White people, it’s time to learn to listen. Not just to studies, but to people who aren’t us. This is what it means to love. Let us learn to trust truths that we cannot live in. Let us question our own implication in these narratives. Do we get uncomfortable when we’re around large groups of black men? Do we assume that a black mother wearing hoop earrings is on welfare? Does that make us devalue her? Would we assume that a black job candidate might be less qualified than a white job candidate based on their race? We might. We could. We often do. It is ugly to admit, but it is also the truth. Studies tell us so. So do stories.
Love requires accountability. We must admit that we see race and that we see it in ways that can lead to discrimination and violence. We must hold ourselves accountable not only for sins of the past but also for the structures we uphold in the present.
Love requires honesty
The summer of 2013 has seen a reemergence of race in our national dialog thanks, in large part, to a few high-profile cases. Beyond the tragedy of Trayvon is our national response to it. With a dead black teenager on the ground, many responses have decried apparent anti-white racism as though discussing race at all is itself racist.
White people, I love you and I want to tell you the truth. There is no such thing as anti-white racism. It’s really quite simple. It doesn’t exist.
I can hear the collective outcry so let me explain. Sure, there are people out there who might not like you because you’re white. You might even get called a cracker while walking down 125th street. And it sucks, truly, to have some one hold the color of your skin against you. I might agree that disliking all white folks is bigoted. But it isn’t racist.
Racism requires power to turn bigotry into coded difference. Anti-black and anti-white bigotry are not the same because history happened. Black people in this country were kept as slaves, and then Jim Crow happened, and that wasn’t that long ago, and then overt discrimination was in some cases illegal but it still existed in all sorts of arenas like hiring and access to housing and health care and healthy food and laws that treated crack cocaine (black and poor) differently than powdered cocaine (white and rich) in sentencing. The predatory lending that led to the 2008 financial crisis disproportionately affected black families and individuals. Blacks and whites use marijuana at the same rate, but black people are several times more likely to go be arrested for it. Anti-black bigotry is racist because there are still systems of power that consistently punish, or kill, black bodies in ways that white bodies are not punished or killed. Believe the studies. Or believe the stories. Either way, it’s time to reckon with the truth.
We need to change
I was hesitant to write this love letter and I am still hesitant to share it publicly. I don’t think I have all the answers. I am still fucked up. I know that I am but an ally in this struggle and that half of the good I can do is to shut up and let others speak their truths. I want people, including white people, to slam me, to hold me accountable; as Kiese Laymon says, to knock my hustle. I want there to be an honest conversation amongst white people about race. We might not know all the right things to say, or the rights ways in which to say them, but it is time to break free of political correctness and speak honestly. If political correctness serves only to mask and not eradicate prejudice it is a false prophet.
When I started to think about and deconstruct race and class in this country, in our world, I wanted to run away from white people. Malcolm’s words brought me back. Baldwin’s love brought me back. We can’t run away from whiteness; we sink or swim together.
I know that where people and systems interact is where the rubber meets the road. I decry economic displacement of communities of color and yet I am a white man gentrifying Harlem. I love my community uptown and I don’t know where I can live in NYC on my income and not be a gentrifier. Am I a hypocrite? I can talk for hours about how attraction and sex are built on cultural definitions of beauty that are heavily influenced by race, gender, and money. But, my last three partners are all men of color, black men. Am I fetishizing black bodies, myself? Or is it that most white people are uncomfortable spending time thinking and talking about race, something (obviously) incredibly important to me?
The answers to these questions are not straightforward. I know that when I see myself honestly, I don’t always look that great in the mirror. But through these questions, and their answers, we hold ourselves accountable.
Baldwin asked for quest and daring and growth. That is the love that is required for change. That is the change that is required for love. I am trying to do James Baldwin’s bidding, to take off my mask; I am asking to be loved as I am and promising to try to love others. Real love is immensely hard work, the work of a lifetime, something that must be done and redone daily.
Love is not something that requires others to be made lesser than to make some worthy. Love does not tolerate the making of collective myths that dehumanize and debase. White people have become skilled at ridding ourselves of guilt by creating stories of circular logic, always pointing outward, to rid ourselves of culpability.
Love can be redemptive.
I hope that we can do better. But I know that there is no hope without honesty, without accountability, without trust in each other’s stories and truths, without true capital-L love.
I say it, with toughness, with trust, I love you, white people. We can change ourselves; we can change our systems. I believe in you. I believe in us.
Originally appeared at The Feminist Wire
Also read:
That’s Racist Against White People – A Discussion on Power and Privilege
The Luxury of Invisible Privilege
Photo: flickr/ctj71081
Since I am a white “red head” and a person who is not financially successful I can honestly say that this is hogwash! I have been very much discriminated against for being white, a red head, or not having much money. It has everything to do with the person judging you against their own agenda. I have seen the “poor” children who do not have the advantages of the rich and that is where I think the main problem lies. Yes there is racism, but I think it is far less common than you think(at least where I am from)… Read more »
You didn’t see it because you didn’t have to. You’re white.
Ask any Black person or other person of color if they saw racism in the years you claim not to have. I bet they did. Even living in your area.
Because racism isn’t about YOU. It isn’t about ME. That’s the entire point. We can’t see it easily because we don’t experience it. Yes, we can experience the horrors of life, of poverty and illness, of discrimination. But we don’t live racism.
I find it ridiculous that there are so many white people who get up in arms about small perceived injustices they suffer at the hands of “people of color” in America. For instance, I can understand pointing out Affirmative Action is racist: sure it is, in a literal sense; but it’s fighting a forest fire with a well controlled burn. And until the forest fire is under control, the controlled burns remain necessary. But the angry indignant shouting for the rights of white people, in the name of absolute justice, is like screaming at the refs at a Harlem Globetrotters… Read more »
So are you going to volunteer to be the “tree” that gets burned down in your controlled burn? Your analogy fails miserably because you fail to realize that your “trees” are individuals who will be sacrificed in a “controlled burn” to satisfy some unmeasureable metric of equality. Who get’s to be part of the burn? Do you want to volunteer?
I believe in judging people by “the content of their character.” Seems like the majority of the people around here are focused on the color of skin. You guys can focus on “white guilt”, I’ll focus on treating people decently.
@ CW You make it sound like the control-burned tree is a white guy getting hanged in retribution for former lynchings. It’s more like the pretty good white student who misses the cut to make room for a black student with a slightly lower SAT score. Probably happened to me when I applied to Stanford. So what.
So you’re ok with judging people or preferring them due to race? Sorry- I’m not. Beat me fair and square or eat my dust.
I do agree the starting lines should be as equal as possible but your “controlled burn” hurts people who earned achievement and were then denied it. You just don’t care about them because of gender, race etc…
Anyway, I wanted to say I liked the use of the word “love” so many times it lost meaning and then gained it all back. Like Lennon and McCartney “Love, love, love…”, until you understand that the answer is just THAT simple. Of course, implementation of the answer is another story. Nevertheless, it’s good to say it.
I applaud the author for taking a step out there. I am involved in a race and social justice effort in my own way, and it is never easy no matter how much I wish it were. But, comments are always interesting. So, challenging the central point of the piece means avoiding the issue at hand? How can that be? It was after all, the central point and an important discussion from that person’s view. How does characterizing someone’s viewpoint in that way promote dialogue? I find it typical of efforts to shut down dialogue except within the norms accepted… Read more »
I’ll admit it. In general the African-Americans I’ve known have been a better quality of person than the European-Americans I’ve known. So I’ve tended to have a more positive bias for the former. And yes, I have used the phrase, “wh@#$ tr@#$ on occasion. I will try to do better. But if your asking me to love white people. I don’t think I can go that far. They are just too big a pain in the @#$.
I really hate when I see people writing things like this. How is this not racism itself? You’re making sweeping negative generalizations about an entire race. That’s racism. If you want to stop racism then stop adding to it. I find it disturbing that “white people shaming” is somehow seen as ok and politically correct. Why should it be? It’s wrong. It’s just as wrong as the types of racism being written about in this article. The author is hypocritical and need to take ownership of that fact if he’s truly committed to “ending racism”. Quote: “… assume the black… Read more »
Hi Joseph, thanks for your love letter. I am from Australia so you will have to forgive me if anything I say crosses any lines, I simply don’t come from the US so I don’t know where the lines are and I don’t have much familiarity with US history. I am a white male of Irish and Welsh heritage (not that I ever think of myself that way, I am normally just “me”) and I have travelled around the world and I have come to realise that a lot of “ism’s” is mostly just people’s disposition to hate others, anyone… Read more »
Thank you, Luke.
This is the second article in as many weeks that has tried to assert that the definition of racism depends on the possession of privilege and power. In other words (as the author states plainly) it’s impossible for a member of a less privileged group to actually be a racist. Do some googling for yourself and you’ll see very quickly that this is NOT a universally accepted definition – not by a long shot. It is merely an argument of a small set of leftist academics, who think that this SHOULD be the definition of racism. I would argue that… Read more »
Let’s say you’re right. That the generally-accepted definition is not the same as the technical definition. Even so, does that make this whole article moot?
I’d argue that those who take this much energy arguing one point in a 1500 word essay are trying to avoid the issue at hand.
notice that i did not say that ‘minorities’ cannot be racist, just that one cannot be racist against white people. the question is with the OBJECT and not the SUBJECT of the sentence (who is being oppressed, not who is doing the oppressing) it is a semantic, and subtle, difference, but an important one. of course people of color can participate in systemic oppression (looking at you, clarence thomas) just as women can participate in systems that oppress women, and this is part of racism and sexism respectively (to me). the key distinction i am trying to make, if you… Read more »
Great clarification.
Joe: the key distinction i am trying to make, if you take the words out of it, is that there is a difference between anti-black and anti-white sentiment because of the historical context. would you disagree with that, in those terms? — Of course there is a difference because of historical context. But that statement is VERY different than saying that black people can’t be racist, or women can’t be sexist. Here’s a much more nuanced (and I believe correct) statement from a Nadra Kareem Nittle, a black woman who curates the “What is racism” section at about.com: — Can… Read more »
This is a rather good point, and definitely needs to be said. I typically roll my eyes and disengage from the discussion once the “power + privilege” argument comes out.
But you’re arguing against a point that Joe never made. Nowhere in this article does he say that POC can’t be racist, women can’t be sexist, etc, etc. What he says is that “there is no such thing as anti-white racism.” And if you reread his clarification above: “Notice that i did not say that ‘minorities’ cannot be racist, just that one cannot be racist against white people.” These are two very different assertions. Joe doesn’t say that bigotry *from minorities* cannot be racism. He says that bigotry *against white people* cannot be racism. It’s very possible for a minority… Read more »
I know I can find myself in trouble for saying this, but I’ll say it anyway: Does anyone here see racism in the “person of color” label? As I’ve heard it used, it pretty much means “anyone who isn’t white”, so isn’t it encouraging an “us vs them” mentality? Keep in mind, you’re talking to a linguist who believes the very language we speak plays a role in how our ideals develop, so when accused of being sensitive about this sort of thing, I must say “guilty as charged”. The only trouble with this particular case is that I’m white… Read more »