White People : It's Not About Us
Over the course of the past few days, I’ve spent hours in front of my computer, trying to come up with content for a new blog post … to no avail. Every topic I come up with feels superficial, insignificant, irrelevant, within the context of the greater world.
Who the fuck cares about island life and our small little bubble of a distanced reality when innocent black people are being murdered, repeatedly, for nothing more than existing on this earth … the answer should be no one. Nothing else matters right now.
And so, instead of forcing a cursory post about beaches, veganism, the home that our white privilege allows us to own, I’ve decided to pause and reflect on what actually matters in the world: humanity, fucking humanity, life, and this other pandemic, which has ravaged America for far longer than coronavirus: racism.
The words that follow are me voicing my anger, frustration, and personal opinion. It is me sorting through my emotions, as genuinely and authentically as possible.
Watching the video of George Floyd’s arrest, I feel angry and disgusted. A compliant, unarmed black man lies motionless, gasping for air, while a white officer kneels the weight of his armed and protected body on the victim’s neck, squeezing the last bits of life from his lungs. I feel horrified, but not shocked. The shock factor is gone; we’ve seen instances like this occur too many times to feel shocked anymore.
What. The. Fuck.
And all this just hours after Amy Cooper’s call to the cops in Central Park, claiming that Christian Cooper was an “African American man threatening her life” for asking her to put her dog on a leash (per regulations), so he could enjoy the simple pleasure of bird-watching.
What. The. Fuck.
I am horrified, sickened … but, you know what, it doesn’t matter how I feel. Because how I feel, as a white woman, isn’t the point. How I feel, as a white woman, isn’t what this is about.
This conversation should be centered around those who are directly impacted by racism and the violence inflicted and perpetuated by the oppressor (white people). By that I mean, we, as white people, need to un-center ourselves in these conversations; it’s not about us or how these repeated demonstrations of pervasive racism make us feel - whether that be shame, sadness, anger, defensiveness that “not all white people are racist,” etc. It’s not about whether or not we repost anti-racist sentiment on our Instagram stories to make us feel like we’ve done our part by engaging and sharing our values on a public platform. It’s just simply not about us.
It’s okay to feel all the emotions mentioned above (good, even, as it demonstrates a basic level of empathy), and it’s okay to demonstrate our support on Instagram, but we need to remember that how it makes us feel isn’t what matters; it’s about people of color, about mamas, soon-to-be mamas, like myself, but who have to worry that, no matter how mindful and polite to authority they raise their children to be (to say “yes sir,” to comply, even when they’ve done nothing wrong), their babies may be beaten, shot, strangled to death, simply for being. It’s about the president of the United FUCKING States labeling black boys and men as “thugs” in senseless and harmful Twitter posts. It’s about the pervasive history of racism in this country, the prevalence of which is just as tangible today as ever.
White People: it’s not about us.
It’s not about us because we can enjoy an afternoon of bird watching in the park without worrying that we’ll be assaulted (Christian Cooper); we can exist comfortably in our own homes (Breonna Taylor & Botham Jean); we can write a check without being afraid that the cops will come and murder us (George Floyd). We can go jogging (Ahmaud Arbery), sell CDs (Alton Sterling), take out our wallets (Amadou Diallo), breathe (Eric Garner), without fearing for our lives. These are just a few names from a long list of innocent victims - the only “crime” committed being the color of their skin.
White People: it’s not about us.
By internalizing these individual instances, or this pattern of ongoing occurrences, within the context of how we feel as white “allies,” it places us, yet again, at the center of a conversation that is not ours to dominate, stripping victims of their voices, once again, in favor of a white spotlight.
Absolutely, not all white people are overtly “racist”, and, hopefully, most of us would have behaved very differently were we in Amy Cooper’s or one of the many abusive arresting officers’ positions. But the fact is, we’ve all benefited from an inherently racist system, and we need to acknowledge that.
In fact, I see acknowledging our white privilege as the bare minimum of what our role in society necessitates. We need to take it a step farther and un-center ourselves from the conversation.
White People: it’s not about us.
Instead, I’d like to say to my friends, and people of color in general, I see you, I hear you, and I am so sorry.
That feels insufficient, and that’s because it is. Nothing is sufficient. When people are living in fear of their lives because of fucking white people … nothing we can say is sufficient. But let’s not make it about ourselves, about how we feel.
White People: it’s not about us.
** I’d like to end this by saying, first of all, thank you for reading this piece. This is my opinion, and I understand that others may feel differently. I am often uncomfortable sharing my personal opinions on a public platform, but, again, writing about anything else today felt shallow and just straight-up wrong. On this blog, we like to be a respite from the craziness of the rest of the world by documenting our lives on the island; sometimes, however, escaping the real world just isn’t possible. Today was one of those instances. Thank you for allowing us space to be true to ourselves as we, too, navigate this crazy and fucked up world.
Lots of love, Isabel & Kevin
