Hanging out in your dorm room, paid for by your parents, your feet encased in your parents' shoes, kicked up on your parents' coffee table, tapping away on your Mac Book Pro, you see something that just irks your stomach: racism.
You were just having a good day on Twitter, reading about #kittens, catching up on your favorite porno-star's personal life, you know, reading
Vox articles about poorly designed porn-studies, chuggin' some Keystone Ice, you know, just having a good college night. But then, like, you saw this guy, and he's all like, "White people..." and you don't bother to read past the ellipses because you're horrified.
That.
Fucking.
Racist!
Fury billowing in your McDonald's-fed face, you're just, like, so fucking pissed that some black guy has the nerve to say something about white people...all white people. Like white people are all the same! You posted a bastardized excerpt from MLK's Dream Speech on MLK Day, you totally have black Facebook friends...how dare this black person make a generalized statement pertaining to the jar-of-mayonnaise tone of your skin? Doesn't he know he's judging you?
So, like
the Flash! you pounce on your keyboard, calling his
bigotry out for what it is,
bigotry.
"Isn't saying "all white people" racist?" your heart is pounding, your dick is a little hard, so you keep on typing on: "Ur stabbing equality in the face!"
You did it. You just made your mark, promoting equality. He's going to take your well-reasoned words to heart, and he will never not think about his word choice again.
You open a new tab, rub one out real quick to relieve the aforementioned half-chub, and after you finish off your half-empty can of piss-beer, you jump back on Twitter, expecting apologies. To your dismay, he didn't apologize.
He did not apologize?
He.
Did.
Not.
Apologize?!
Think about the WHITE PEOPLE!?!
Now it's on, and you just say it, "UR RACIST!!!! #ALLlivesMATTER" Send. Slam the laptop closed, and you're off to stew in your newly found victimhood.
You're that guy. You're the white guy who takes it on as his personal burden to right every racial injustice you see, well, every explicit generalization you see on Twitter, well, at least on your anonymous account. You just care so much that everyone sees everyone as equal; you just want everyone to be color blind. You don't follow racist white people (or you don't take the time to realize how they are racist), but every now and then, one of those racist blacks pops up on your feed, talking about police brutality.
More below the fold, or check out the original post (with pictures!) at the
Blog.
You're a white victim, perpetually longing to be oppressed, to cast off your white guilt, to just get to racial harmony and stay there, no effort necessary.
You think that affirmative action is racist, because you can't get a full-ride scholarship, so your parents have to pay your tuition, which means you only get a used BMW for your graduation present. If only you weren't white, then you'd be able to get full-ride scholarships, and that's just not fair.
You get mad every time a black person says "White people." You hate the word "cracker" except as it pertains to food. You can't even eat tuna fish sandwiches anymore because the word "mayo" makes your skin boil. You just know that you're the victim of racism. Black people are being racist against you, and you just want it to stop. You just want equality!
You need to stop right here and examine yourself. Not in the mirror, but your soul. What reason could you possibly have to be offended at a person making a generalization about white people? Is that generalization causing you any sort of harm? If it applies to you, why are you offended and not trying to self-reform, and if it doesn't, why don't you just let it slide? You have that luxury. Your privilege confers it upon you. A black person in America does not have the luxury of brushing aside stereotypes and generalizations from white people, because white people are so dominant in every aspect of American society that each and every instance of outright micro-aggression towards non-whites by whites reinforces and maintains a system of white supremacy. Turn on the television (the pinnacle object casting shadows against the wall of the Cave that is American society), you're likely to see a group of white people at the center of all programsâeverything from live-action sitcoms to cartoons. There are a few exceptions, but they're relatively new and few between. Hell, even when there's a cartoon where the central characters are black, the titular character is voiced by a white guy in a not-so-subtly-racist caricature where blackness is the punchline.
Point is, when white people express racial prejudice, it actually reinforces racism! That's because racism isn't just the Google definition.
To the contrary, Google is really defining
racial prejudice. It is actually wrong about what racism means in a sociopolitical context, which is the only relevant context when discussing racism in America. Perhaps a psychological dictionary might define racism in the same way as Google, but it is not the end-all-be-all of the word.
Racism is the systematic oppression of a particular race by the dominant race in a society, which, in America, means racism is the systematic oppression of non-whites by whites. If a black person calls a white person "Cracker" it is neither racism nor reverse-racism. It may be a symptom of racial prejudice, but why should one individual's racial prejudice bother you? Because it threatens your treasured privilege.
Because you identify as white and you treasure your own whiteness. You don't like the value of your whiteness being called into question, so you try to silence it. You take on the role of the white cop policing black thought. You see people who
embrace their blackness, and you take that as an
assault on whiteness. So you try to reassert your dominance, your superiority, your white supremacy, by way of focusing the conversation on you and your white experience.
If you want to support equality, which you clearly do not, prop up and amplify black voices. Do not spend your time trying to whitewash the experience of non-whites by lamenting about black people being racist. Simply put, white people can
never be the victims of racism in America. We dominate wealth, we dominate culture, we dominate government and business, because we usurp it, steal it from others to preserve our own privilege. We are cultural, financial parasites feeding off the lives of others. Even if a white person were killed by a non-white person because of the color of his or her skin, the white person would, at worst, be victim to racial prejudice (well, and murder), because non-whites do not have and maintain
supremacy in our world;
whites do.
If you want to target racism, target the source: white people. Police the language of white racists. At least you're on the same playing-field in terms of privilege. Condemn racism at its source by critiquing the micro-aggressions of your white friends, or of other white people, if you can't get over your super-hero-to-the-rescue-complex. Otherwise, shut up and stick to your #Kitten videos.