Ten Ways (not all!) White Liberals Perpetuate Racism

[F4lconF16]

8. Another comment...

I was in a park a while back when a couple of Mormons wandered by. They said their usual crap, I was with my rather religious girlfriend, so I played nice, and they moved to three black guys sitting a couple feet away on the bench.

This proceeded to become quite hilarious as one of them tore the missionaries a new one for their depiction on Jesus as white. It would have been uncomfortable except for the fact that I really don't need your religious bs when I'm trying to have lunch on a sunny day, and I really like watching them squirm (no sympathy, you proseletize, you gotta be able to answer tough questions).

Now, I have a tendency to not keep my mouth shut when I should, but I happened to have the picture NatGeo assembled of Jesus as a middle eastern dude on my phone. Since they were just talking to me and only moved a foot to my right since, I figured I could pop in and rejoin the conversation.

It was a stupid idea. No sooner did I do so than the guy rounded on me, cussing me out for trying to fight his battles, talking about how whites always think they know what's right. He made a couple of (rather inventive) disparaging remarks about me involving his black on top white on bottom nikes and I backed off, partially since he was pushing up in my physical space too. (The mormons gtfo as soon as they saw an opportunity, a pity.)

I've visited that incident a few times since in my mind, and I know I screwed up. The other two guys there didn't care they actually asked to see the picture after the rant was over, but the other guy was still pissed.

It took me a bit to understand what pissed him off so much. It wasn't my comment, it was my inserting myself where I didn't need to be. He wasn't looking for white validation, or even my thoughts at all. He knew exactly what he wanted to say to them, and I wasn't a part of that. I should have shut up and enjoyed the show.

But one of the best things I did in that moment was to back off and shut up. If I hadn't, I would have gotten defensive, and probably would have walked away without learning a thing. Thinking about our actions, even if we don't apologize until we understand what we did, is far better than lying to ourselves and to those we've hurt/angered/etc. I'm happy enough that the other guys gave me the space and that chance to talk with them for a few seconds after.

Figuring out our privilege is much more than figuring out what we did in that moment. It's looking back on it again to learn from it again, remembering it. This isn't to say we need to guilt trip ourselves, but we can't forget those moments and those lessons.

Fighting privilege is not an apology or an understanding. It's a lifelong struggle to realize our mistakes and our differences, and overcome them. Everything in this article is going to happen to us all at one point or another. We have to understand that, and constantly check ourselves.

Most importantly, we have to be honest about when we fuck up.