In my “NonComplicity” post, I missed the point of my own post. I sound like what I am, a clueless white person. Someone with the privilege and luxury to stew over my inaction in my mostly white, relatively secure (for now), environment, and then go about my business. Whereas, Black, indigenous, and immigrant people of color continue to just survive and struggle against the same persecution and violence they’ve been enduring for hundreds of years, only perhaps more escalated and in our white faces (literally) at this moment.
The layers of conditioned racism go deep. For many whites, their protest is performative: look, I’m woke, I was there, being an “ally” for a day/week/whenever I could get away from my normal routine. I’m not pointing fingers, because I myself am not even doing that much. I’m just pointing out the huge gap between two realities. The fact is, most whites have never really lived the reality of being in danger and deprivation for decades, centuries, because of color alone. Then we have the nerve to come along and think we can make up for it by being all kumbaya and chivalrous like a white shield or something. Then we go home feeling good, while they continue to die or get dragged away, only more so.
Again, this is just me listening to what savvy Black people are saying, and recognizing the conditioning in myself. I have the luxury of sitting here mulling over what I could possibly do to “help”, which is a bit paternalistic (maternalistic?) in itself. As if I, from my white privilege and suburbs, could ever really comprehend the daily reality of being of color in this country, and be forced to endure it, not just volunteer to show up sometimes. Even my holocaust legacy is third-hand, though the generational trauma still exists to remind me how hypocritical and complacent some of us can become once the tables have turned.
That’s why, as Dr. Stacey Patton and others eloquently point out, whites couldn’t “join” the new Black Panthers, even if we wanted to. It’s not an inclusive tea party with quaint rules of etiquette. It’s not a performance and then we go home, unscathed. It’s not about us! I was around for the original Black Panther Movement, and believe me, it’s not for white yoga soccer moms. It’s fierce, because it’s when all else fails and life under racist fascism is intolerable. People will die. When the BPs return, you know whites have allowed racism to go too far. Things will now get serious.
Just the fact that some of us are just now learning how deep and engrained racism is in our own lives, says it all. How naïve and sheltered we have been. We’re definitely late to this “party”. People of color are the new majority and the future of this country, as it should be. It scares our criminal racist “bosses” to death, as it should. May they get what they deserve. Karma’s a bitch.
