The Impact of White Silence — Revisited
By Keith York
I read a blog post from a neighbor of mine in Boise today. ‘The Impact of White Silence’. Charlene Taylor is not a neighbor that I know, but a neighbor all the same. Boise is still a small town, especially the neighborhood in which we both live, and her blog post struck a chord. I encourage anyone reading this to stop and read it first, but I’ll warn you, it might be a little uncomfortable. Don’t be discouraged, though. Read it. Uncomfortable is good. It’s usually the catalyst for change.
I’ll wait while you read it……… (click on the link above, or the one under the pic below)
Ok, assuming you’ve read her post now, I’ll start by saying I’m not wasting any energy on the red-neck who called her a ni****. I suspect it was a young red-neck who was just trying to get attention. The truth is — we’re never going to change him, especially with righteous indignation. My energy is self-directed because I, like the people I want to talk to, am white and live on the spectrum of whiteness that doesn’t call black people ni****. Sadly, for some people that’s almost enough.
I’ve drawn a picture of that spectrum to aid the discussion. The spectrum is very wide. The left side of the spectrum is the KKK and the right side is…I don’t know… It’s evolving. (This isn’t political and 60 yrs of programming says up and to the right is better). I’m somewhere on the right but I’m not sure where.
I’ve been somewhat quiet lately during all the protesting and I’m struggling with why that is. Charlene’s experience helped me understand it a little better. I feel like us ‘progressive’/’woke’ white folk are focused largely on the people left of center on the spectrum. They are easy to spot and easy to judge. It’s easy to believe that as long as we protest their extremist beliefs and help eradicate some of the policies and systems they’ve built, that we’ve solved the problem. “Cool — they stopped killing unarmed black people. “High Five!”.
With Charlene’s story we find a group of white people that are further right, possibly even right of center (they were in Hyde Park after all), who represent the more subtle yet possibly even bigger issue. Often, they (we) wrap ourselves in a protective blanket of denial that there’s more to be done, more to be mad about. (Anger is tiring after all). “I’m not racist”, or, my favorite, “I don’t see color” (please, see color) are their way of saying “I’m not part of the problem”. Hence, the ‘white silence’. Sadly, because they (we) feel ‘woke’ we fail to see, or will even deny, the deeper and more systemic biases in our society. We view the under-funded schools, declining property values and mass incarceration that plague black communities as the ‘unfortunate’ symptoms of poor life choices rather than the results of policies created decades ago to ensure that very outcome. We fail to acknowledge that the things we see as cultural norms (how to speak, how to dress, how to wear our hair) aren’t THE norm, they’re the White people norm. We fail to stop and consider that maybe that young black girl (or boy) doesn’t WANT you to touch her hair without asking.
‘Not Racist’ is not a destination at which we arrive, pat ourselves on the back and then get off the train. I’m not even sure ‘Not Racist’ is a destination to which we should aspire because I think it’s impossible. We all have biases triggered by observable differences. If you don’t acknowledge the bias, you can’t observe it and choose to change it. That’s why I hate the phrase “I don’t see color”. Please — see color. There’s tremendous beauty, and growth, to be observed by acknowledging cultural differences.
Lastly, and I think this might be at the root of some of my discomfort, none of us is ‘woke’. In a way, I feel like people think my wife and I are special in some way. (Ok — she is). We have two adopted black kids. There’s a response we get sometimes (only from white people) when we tell them (or when they see) we’ve adopted black kids. The response is words, or simply an expression, to the effect of “You’re such wonderful people. You’ve given those poor kids a better life. You’re woke”. No!, white people, that’s not it.! At all! Adopting black kids, going to protests, responding to a blog post about a black woman being called a ni****, it’s not about us. It’s not about proving to the world we’re woke. It’s about humanity.
We all need to do what’s most effective, whether we’re seen or not, and we do it, often, one person at a time. Protests are great but I’m afraid they’re ineffective. Our real opportunity is to help move one person on that spectrum, wherever they are, including myself, a little further right, every day.
