I Am A Racist

This is a repost of an article I wrote in 2020 during the Black Lives Matters movement after the murder of George Floyd.  It is even more relevant now than ever before. Take a moment to read this and see if you can see yourself or some people you know in this.    

My parents were racists, too.  No, they didn’t burn crosses in yards or wear white hoods.  They didn’t actively hunt down black people to hurt them. But we were racists all the same. 

I am a baby boomer. I was born in 1961 to white parents. I was raised in Davenport, IA in the 60’s  We lived a modest life with my 4 siblings and my parents in our 1,000 sf government subsidized home that we moved into in 1969, the year after MLK was assassinated.  I don’t recall any black people in the neighborhood.  I went to the public elementary school which may have had a handful of black people in it, but I don’t recall any of them either. 

Why racism is systemic

Racism is subtle.  It doesn’t take much to learn it.  My parents never overtly said anything, but my dad was afraid of black people. He didn’t say it, but he didn’t need to. Every time he saw a black man on the street he would tense up and even move to the other side of the street.  You learn about fear inherently by those who raise you.  When they see a threat, they don’t need to tell you for you to learn it’s a threat. When they say demeaning things about people, even if it’s subtle, you just believe it. This set the stage.

As I grew up, I had no black friends. It wasn’t intentional, but when 97% of your school is white, the odds are against it.  My friends and family told racist jokes.  They involved punchlines with derogatory terms for minorities.  They were accepted as the norm.  My dad’s hidden stash of mimeographed jokes from the factory contained dirty jokes as well as racist jokes that we would revel in because they were for adults. 

My friends and school mates were racists in the same way.  It wasn’t that we actively hated black people.  We just didn’t understand the damage our upbringing had on us.  The fear was ingrained, passive, sitting there to influence our choices and trigger a reaction whenever we saw someone who wasn’t like us.  Here were the roots of white privilege before the term was coined.  When we made choices about who we wanted to work with, who we wanted to date, who we wanted to associate with, we instinctively avoided black people. 

How I became aware of my racism

As I grew up, I started learning about the movements like the KKK and about discrimination.  The KKK was still very active during this time.  Mr. Byrd, my only black teacher that I know of, was my middle school social studies teacher.  He taught us a lot about other cultures and we thought he was great.  He also taught us about discrimination.  But in our minds he was the exception to the rule.  To the ingrained fear.  We knew him, so he was ok.  This is the danger of passive racism.  I can’t be a racist if I have a black teacher.  Or a black friend.  Or a black relative.  Or a black neighbor.  I hear that all the time now.

Through the 70’s, 80’s and into the early 90’s as I moved from Davenport to Chicago and then to Sacramento I found I wasn’t alone.  As a white heterosexual male I was “safe” to talk around.  About blacks, Hispanics, gays and other non-white or non-hetero people.  In the 70’s and early 80’s I shamefully joined in with jokes and other derogatory comments.  But as I moved to larger cities and started taking on a broader world view, I began to understand how wrong that was.  For awhile I would listen, but not participate until I decided that by just sitting there I was being complicit in their racist and bigoted views.  

By the time I hit my 30’s I had dissected my upbringing and began unwinding my inner racist. When my mom made derogatory comments about Hispanics, I stood up to her.  When friends would comment on gays, I stood up to them.  When colleagues would talk about black people, I stood up to them.  I wanted to let them know that not all white people were on their side.  I started forming a different view.  One that reset my upbringing and allowed me to try to understand how it happened and how insidious it was. 

Acknowledging you have a problem is the first step 

It’s been a long journey.  I’m still working on it. I recently figured out what “white privilege” really is.  I thought I knew, but I didn’t really.  It’s the simple reality that the rules of society are inherently stacked in the favor of the white people.  Why?  Because of people like me who have never realized how racist their upbringing was.  How ingrained it is to prefer white people over people of color. 

I founded and ran an Amazon last mile delivery company in 2018.  During that time I had 100 drivers working for me.  Of those anywhere from a third to a half were black.  Out of tens of thousands of routes my drivers ran, the only people who ever had the police called on them, got threatened or had guns pulled on them were black.  And it happened way more than you would think. These were hard working people just trying to do their jobs and their reactions were “well, that just the way it is”.  They didn’t complain.  Many didn’t even report it because this IS their daily life.  This NEVER happened to a white driver despite them all driving the same routes in the same areas.

White privilege doesn’t mean your life isn’t hard.  If just means that the color of your skin didn’t make it harder.  It doesn’t take away from your accomplishments.  It just means that you had opportunities you wouldn’t have had because of your skin color.  It means that I can deliver packages and not fear having the police called or being threatened with violence.  And accepting I have benefitted and continue to benefit from white privilege doesn’t make me less of a person.  And working to end white privilege won’t make my life harder or detract from it.  It will just make life better for all those who weren’t born with white skin.

The next step is to education people about your journey

So, why am I writing this now?  Because of people like George Floyd.  Like Ahmaud Arbery.  Like Breonna Taylor and many others.  I hope that maybe I can reach those like me.  Those racists who don’t even realize they ARE racists, but continue to discount the inequity of being black in America.  Who rationalize everything by thinking racial equality actually exists and there is no problem here.  Who have black friends or relatives, so they think racism is overstated.  For those who hear about these atrocities, think for a passing moment how sad it is and then go back to their world of white privilege because it has no actual impact on their life. For the Black Lives Matter Movement.

I’ve entered into the Facebook battles with my high school friends who are talking about the atrocity of the violence of the riots.  I try to tell them that they are focusing on the wrong thing.  The best description of white privilege I have seen was this quote from someone on Facebook.   You keep saying “It’s horrible that an innocent black man was killed, but destroying property has to stop” instead of saying “it’s horrible that property is being destroyed, but killing innocent black men has to stop”.

I know I still can’t understand what black Americans live with every day.  But I know there are two different sets of rules in our country.  I know that had I been born black instead of white. I would have been riding in the back of the bus, swimming in black only pools, drinking from blacks only water fountains and not sitting at whites only counters.  And I know that’s not right.  It’s past time to fix this.  It’s past time to end white privilege. 

The challenge, should you choose to accept it

So my challenge to the white people who read this is, if you haven't already done it, to finally accept you HAVE white privilege .  To begin to understand that black Americans live in fear of doing so many things that we take for granted.  To see that this isn’t just about one man, but about the never-ending string of atrocities against black people and that it will only stop if enough of us SPEAK OUT.