Speaking the Unspeakable

Opprobrium Ensues

I am not racist.

I am a white woman, and I am not racist.

I am a well-educated, successful white woman, and I am not racist.

I’ve worked exceedingly hard for everything I’ve accomplished, earned every last bit of it, and I am not racist.

But I can’t say any of these things, can I? Not these days. Not without a viciously rageful cohort screaming that I am racist, that I am so unthinkingly entrenched in my own privilege that I don’t even know it. That I must submit to bizarro-world struggle sessions in which I grovel, cower, confess my sins, though I dare not ask for forgiveness because submitting to hatred is my only just punishment. I am, by the mere fact of my white existence, a terrible person.

Ridiculous, absurd. Pure fabrication.

I am introspective, fully aware of my thoughts, motivations, and actions, and can say unequivocally that I am not racist. What do I believe about people? I believe that each is born with his own unique creativity and talents. Each faces her own unique challenges. And each collects, as the years go by, a unique set of experiences. Categorizing any one person as any one thing—whether race, religion, gender, culture, language, politics, or beliefs—defining that person in any superficial, two-dimensional way, is, to me, sheer insanity.

I believe that every person I meet has something significant to teach me. In every encounter I try to learn what that lesson might be. And I allow each person to tell me exactly who she really is. Because never before, in the history of humanity, has anyone else like her ever existed.

These last two paragraphs? My refusal to categorize people by skin color? My belief that each and every person is a unique individual worthy of respect and consideration? Proof of racism, many would say.

Shocking racism can indeed be observed these days, spewed forth by the very people who claim to be proactively anti-racist, as follows:

It is racist to claim that these things are white supremacist—education, hard work, rational thinking, self-reliance, delayed gratification, intact families. Hideously racist. Why? Because this directly implies that people of color are ignorant, lazy, illogical and irrational, dependent, spoiled, and products of broken families.

It is racist to say that all people of color have the same beliefs and worldview.

It is racist to say that all people of color have had the same life experiences.

It is racist to assert that people of color are incapable of succeeding without special assistance, lower standards, and reduced expectations.

It is racist to look at people of color and see nothing but a uniform mass of humanity, indistinct from each other.

It is racist to say that a person’s skin color is the very most important thing about him.

I could go on at length, continue to itemize, but will instead summarize. The “anti-racism” that is infecting this country is virulently racist. Racist, divisive, scorched earth destructive. Against the very people it claims to support. And because an entire generation of children is learning this nonsense, it might very well become accepted truth for the rest of our lifetimes.

How has it come to this, and so quickly? How is my insistence that I’m not racist become a dangerously fraught political statement?

That is why I say it, right here, right now. I am not racist. Because such dangerously fraught statements must be uttered. Truth must be spoken. Resistance isn’t yet futile, I hope.

Please join me. Please stop allowing people to call you racist. Stop remaining silently passive when accused. Stop allowing the perpetuation of lies and racism.

Speak. Now. And loudly. A dangerous act, indeed, because these days a person can lose so very much simply by speaking the truth about himself. But speak anyway. Please, I beg you. Please stop allowing racist anti-racists to define you, your children, and everyone around you. Because in the end you will lose so much more by staying silent.