I am often surrounded by well-intentioned white people. My white friends are a collection of spirit centered hippies, activists, and social justice scholars. Most of them have studied race or at the very least thought about it a lot and have come to some critical understanding about who they are in the broader context of the world. If they feel guilt, they have learned not to talk to me about it. If they feel ashamed, they have therapists to work that out. If they feel moved to act, they navigate their own contributions toward social justice. It’s lovely. It’s comfortable.
I come from the Midwest; Madison, Wisconsin to be specific. I grew up in a university town filled with this specific kind of white person. They were polite, friendly even. If they had issues with my race or any part of my identity, they did the good uptight Nordic/Scandinavian thing and kept it to themselves. There were no cross burnings, no attack dogs or fire hoses. I am not saying that I never experienced racism. There was the father of my first boyfriend who over lunch suggested I was a black whore there to service his son, but again in Wisconsin he didn’t use those words, but the sentiment remained. That was one of my more overt encounters. Mostly racism came in the form of people touching my hair or placing me in a lower reading group, because it was assumed I would not be as strong academically.
But recently, since Obama was elected the first time, my little utopian bubble has popped. It’s like somehow in having a black president as evidence that black people are equal members of society, many white people have become very uncomfortable and this discomfort has manifested itself as some kind of spike in overt racism. I mean, am I the only one who is in shock over the fact that they literally shut down the government for the purpose of having a tantrum that a black man managed to come up with a solution that will provide millions of Americans who would not otherwise have access to affordable healthcare? If that isn’t some racist shit, I don’t know what is. Even John McCain, the Maverick himself, had to admit that this didn’t make sense. But the truth is, it makes perfect sense in a really terrible, fear of a black planet kind of way.
I digress. The other day a friend of mine, who happens to be person of color, posted on her Facebook page that she needed to hear some stories about white people out there doing something about racism in order to restore her faith in humanity. This came on the heels of being called a nigger. It was also within days of Halloween during which another Facebook friend of mine reported seeing white people in black face dressed as Trayvon Martin. All of this happened in liberal Seattle.
I guess I’m not sure which is worse; that I have become comfortable with the low level racism that surrounds me always or that the white supremacist have decided to remind us all what real racism looks like. Is this progress? Is this one of those “it has to get worse before it gets better” situations?
Do you still have hope for humanity? What keeps you believing that racism will ever get any better? I could use some inspirational stories about now.
Reagan Jackson is a writer, artist, YA fiction aficionado, afro-punk, international educator, and community organizer based in Seattle, WA. You can find her most Tuesdays at the Seattle Poetry Slam or maybe just being nerdy at her favorite bookstores.
