Dear Friends: Yeah, You’re Kinda Racist.
Let’s talk about our racist friends and family, because we damn sure haven’t been doing enough of that in white America.
I had a discussion with someone I once called a close friend. He knew my stance on racism in America, which he vehemently refuted. Keep in mind this is someone who once told me “It’s called the White House for a reason.”
(Even as a joke, that’s fucking racist, FYI.)
In the course of our talk the idea of racism as a system came up, as well as the fact that my friend was a bit more acutely racist than just everyday, run-of-the-mill racism we participate in as white people.
His response—and I wish I was kidding: “So if I’m at a club and a black guy walks up to me and says, ‘I want to stick my big black dick in your wife,’ and I punch him, does that make me racist?”
A quick crash course for the uninitiated: you can’t be racist against white people because racism is a social system. It’s reinforced by legislature and government organizations and societal influences. It’s not just individual prejudice.
You can be prejudiced against white people, which is bad, but you can’t be racist. And racism against people of color far outshines even the most virulent anti-white prejudice.
We passively participate in racism when we deny it exists.
We passively participate when we tend to ostracize black coworkers and don’t make efforts to draw in black people who may be at the fringes of our social circle.
Hiring managers passively participate when they subconsciously favor resumes from applicants named Steve over those named Jamal.
All these things are problematic and should absolutely be addressed. They are part of the oppression black people face in America, and just because they are mostly subconscious decisions doesn’t make them any less harmful.
The ultimate solutions are complicated, but a good start is to actively look for subconscious racism and stamp it out wherever we find it.
But acute racism also exists—that is, specific, directed acts of prejudice. And more people participate in acute racism than would willingly admit it.
The racist jokes they tell at private parties, double-checking over their shoulder to make sure no one’s listening.
The way they clutch their bags a little tighter when they pass a black man on the street, or keep an eye on a black man who enters a retail store.
The way they warn other people about “those neighborhoods.”
In these cases, they try to tell you that that’s not real racism. They try to tell you it’s harmless.
It’s not harmless.
Because an oversized Cheeto was on all our televisions saying he wanted to stick his big orange dick in our wives.
And my friend, who is no longer my friend, didn’t punch the Cheeto. He voted for it.
