Sorry, White People, We Don’t Get to Call It

The airwaves have been abuzz with talk of the controversy created by Don Imus’ comments about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team. Many have called for his firing, few have defended him.

And no doubt, he said some stupid, racist shit.

And having used the word racist, I have joined the controversy (like anyone pays any fucking attention to my rantings!).

What has my hackles up is listening to my available Air America feed that plays “liberal” talk radio. Certainly, none of the hosts are defending Imus. But some hosts, and quite a few callers, have shown discomfort at the contention that Imus’ comments show a media, and even a nation, that is inherently racist. This does not go down well at all with white listeners, even on leftist talk radio. The lament from white, liberal America – can’t we just let this race stuff go?

Sorry white America, we don’t get to make this decision. Not on our own.

Full disclosure is warranted here – I am about as white as they come. I am from English, Irish and German stock. I can trace my family in America to mid-Nineteenth Century European migration. I am pasty, hairy, I can’t jump, and I can’t dance worth a shit. I married a white Norwegian girl, live in the burbs of a city that is over 90% white in a Western state that is over 80% white. I am as white a motherfucker as you are likely to meet.

Even so, I am shocked at how few white folks get it. We don’t get to choose when to let the “race stuff” go.

All the talking heads, all their callers, all asking the question “is this really racist?” African American guests or callers interjecting “uh, yes!” And they should know. As Chris Rock said on the Bill Mahr show, “do you have to shoot Medgar Evers to be racist?”

What is said matters, and it matters especially who says it. And yet white caller after white caller, and even some hosts say “what about rap music? They say ‘ho’ don’t they?” And, of course, the classic: “but they call each other nigger all the time!”

Let me make this clear, white folks: the “N” work is a racially charged word. It matters what race you are when you say it. It does. Period. If that is not fair from a free speech standpoint, tough shit! Its use for centuries by white people as an epithet to dehumanize an entire segment of our population is not fair either. So, when African American artists, comedians, sports figures or regular folk use certain language without the backlash that white people get, it doesn’t mean that they are just as racist as whites who say it. Yet that is the argument I hear being made. Over and over again!

And this argument is bullshit!

How does a white-as-milk guy like me know it’s bullshit? Because I was told so. I can’t experience it, but I have been convinced. I was convinced by a gentleman named Glenn Singleton, who holds seminars for organizations on the institution of racism. And when considering what he shared, and reading further, and applying it to a career in public education, I am convinced that racism is a one-way street. Lemme’ explain:

Racism is a system of oppression applied by one racial group to another. This system of racial preference and denial of power is applied across all of the institutions of the society. Racism is institutional. To be racist, you have to have the power to affect the lives of those of other races.

You have to be part of the dominant culture.

In America, the dominant culture is the white culture. It has been since the Europeans first arrived. White Americans wiped hundreds of native cultures off the map, with scarcely a look askance. Genocide, really. Do we think about who was there before us on our 1/3 acre lots in the burbs? No, because we don’t have to. We helped depopulate the continent of Africa, and held its children in bondage for 250 years, then systematically segregated and abused their African descendants for another 100. Does that impact our lives in a way we have to pay attention to? No, we don’t have to think about it if we don’t want to. Not until it intrudes on our favorite media outlet, anyway.

We don’t worry about cops shoving a broomstick up our asses because we are white. Maybe because of our hairstyle, or our t-shirt slogan, or some other factor we can control, but not our race. Likewise we don’t worry if the store owner will follow us around to prevent theft, or if we will get the apartment, or the job we want, or be allowed on the golf course because of our race. We don’t have to deal with shit like that, so we generally don’t think about it. Until we are called racist. Then we complain about “reverse racism” because we don’t get to say “nigger.”

My white brethren, listen to me – there is no such thing as reverse racism. Certain individuals may be bigoted against whites, but the only racism that exists in America is institutional white racism – and if you are white, you have benefited from it. No other racial group in our history, or at this time, has had the power to impact the lives of white people for that other group’s benefit. From a material and comfort standpoint – we have done well. From a moral or ethical standpoint, well…this is probably why we don’t think about it much.

There have been white people who have worked hard throughout the centuries to end racism. In the last decades, millions have supported changes to laws that have righted some of the historic wrongs. Most Americans of all colors would agree that the last 50 years have seen large strides for the better (and a few steps backward at times) where race relations and the actions of our institutions are concerned. African Americans have professional, educational, financial and social mobility where they didn’t have it a few decades ago. For many white people, this makes them say “see, we fixed it; let’s get rid of that Affirmative Action,” which many states did. I would guess that many African Americans think, “that was a nice start, if 300 years too late, but damn, don’t take shit away when we still have so far to go.”

Imagine going to the doctor and saying, “jeez, doc, my head is killing me.” The doctor says “here, take half an aspirin, it’s a pain killer.” Then the doctor hands you the bill and says, “we fixed it!” Now, you’re thinking “my head feels a little better, but what I really need is two or three fuckin’ Tylenol.” But the doctor says, “since I’ve taken such good care of you, we’re going to take some of the benefits out of your health insurance.” I perceive this as the type of disconnect between black and white perceptions of racism today. And white people, we are wrong!

We are not the racially oppressed. We don’t know how it feels. We don’t get to decide when it’s not racist any more. And we hate that, ‘cause we have been the deciders in North America for 350 years and counting. However, we are incapable of knowing when it’s over, because we don’t experience it daily.

Don Imus lost his job. But Rush, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, and don’t forget Bill Bennet, regularly push racist agendas, or use racism as a divisive political tactic. We fall in lockstep with them when we demand racial equality with the oppressed culture, for use of language that causes them so much pain. We don’t get to decide this one, white people. Our non-white fellow citizens will let us know when America is no longer a racist country. And they’re the only ones who can.