With everything going on in the country right now, racism has suddenly become a hot topic for everyone. We’re posting quotes and memes and analyzing statistics and reading studies that all contradict each other, but I feel that we’re missing the real point here. And that point is that as white people, we really don’t understand what racism means. So many of us are questioning the Black Lives Matter movement, or clinging to the myth that racism doesn’t really exist. But, numbers are never going to show the whole picture. So I thought we could take a moment here to see if we can really understand what racism means in this country.
Do you remember that time you were on a road trip with your family and you accidentally took the wrong exit and found yourself in the middle of the black ghetto. Do you remember driving down the street and all of the sudden you felt White. For the first time in your life you really felt like you stood out, only because of the color of your skin. Remember how your heart started to race and your hands were sweating and you couldn’t help but feel that something bad was going to happen if you couldn’t find that freeway onramp and soon. Independent of whether anyone did anything threatening or not, all of the sudden you felt like your race mattered. And then you finally found the onramp and you drove off and pretty soon that incident just became a funny story that you tell to your friends at dinner parties.
Now try to imagine what it would be like if your race always mattered. If every decision you made and everywhere you went, you felt White. Imagine if you felt that people looked at you different, not because of what you were wearing, or how you were acting, but because of the color of your skin.
Imagine waking up in the morning and deciding what to wear that day based on what is least likely to get you treated as a criminal, or maybe even shot.
Imagine having to tell your son that he can no longer wear hoodies, because any white kid in a hoody is considered “suspicious”.
Imagine having the police called on your 10 year old son while he was selling candy door to door because the neighbors thought it was “suspicious” that a white kid was selling candy, when he was only trying to raise funds for his sports team.
Imagine the joy and pride you feel being the first person from your family to graduate from college, to feel like you’re finally making it, only to have your coworkers treat you like a charity case. Because white people only get the good jobs to meet diversity requirements, not because of anything they did to earn it.
Imagine working a 12 hour day on a construction site and all you want to do is get home but you can’t even make it the two blocks it takes to get to your bus stop without the police being called, because you just don’t “belong” in that middle class neighborhood where you were working.
Imagine meeting someone for the first time and the only way they can think of to relate to you is to talk about the newest Blake Shelton album (because don’t all white people like that music) or maybe tell you about that one white person they were friends with that one time (because they want to make sure you know that they’re not racist).
Or imagine that everyone you meet avoids you beyond a simple nice to meet you, because they’re afraid of saying something that’s not political correct, so it’s easier to just ignore you
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Now, maybe you’re telling yourself that this is all exaggerated. Maybe this happens every once in a while, but it can’t really be as bad as they say it is. After all, the statistics say that racism doesn’t exist anymore (which is whole different rant, because statistics don't always mean what we think they do). Well, I can tell you that I work as a 911 Dispatcher in a large city. We receive upwards of 40,000 calls a week. Want to guess how many of those calls involve black suspects? Would like you to guess how many “suspicious” calls I received this week, where the “suspect” wasn’t doing anything more suspicious than walking down the street? I would gladly tell you about all of the blatantly racist calls that I get (if doing so wasn’t against my contract). The fact that you haven’t seen any of this for yourself doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist; it just proves how far removed you are from the real issues. It’s a sign of our privilege as white people that we don’t have to see this every day, yet alone experience it for ourselves.
And even after you have imagined all these scenarios, take a moment to realize that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Racism isn’t numbers and statistics. Racism is something that affects every moment of every day for a large part of our population. And yet, as White people, we feel that if we admit to the existence of racism, we are admitting to our own failure; that we are admitting that it’s our fault. So we post pictures and memes and quotes to prove that we are exempt. That we are among those whites who have risen above the errors of the past, without ever realizing that we don’t understand what any of this really means.
It’s time that we put down our phones, and stop looking to Facebook, or studies, or politicians to fix the problem and start looking to our neighbors. If you really want to understand what racism means, ask someone who’s experienced it. Forget about being politically correct, and start being honest and open with the people of color around you. And once you’ve done that, take a moment to realize that you will never understand. Not really. You will never really know what it feels like to have the color of your skin affect your daily life. You will never really know what it feels like to watch your son walk out the door and worry that you may never see him again, not because he’s a bad kid, but just because he’s black. You will never really understand what it means to be black (or Asian, or Latino, or any other race for that matter) in America.
And once you realize that, maybe we can start to understand what racism really means, maybe just a little. And then, maybe we can start breaching the gap within our own communities. So the next time you see someone of color, instead of locking the doors to your car, try reaching out to them, try saying you’re sorry for any discrimination they may have had to suffer. And maybe then we can get to a point where all lives really do matter in America.
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