All white Americans are racists. All cis-gendered heterosexual men are sexists.
Sounds messed up right? It’s true.
However, there’s levels to this shit, and before you think I’m calling you out, give me a second to get my Kevin Hart on andLet Me Explain.
What I’m NOT saying is all white people hate everyone who isn’t white. I’m not saying all men have an irrational distain for women. I’m not telling my brothers, sisters and others of color to be on alert every time you see any white person because they hate you. I’m not saying anything of the sort.
What I AM saying, is that people tend to look at things from their perspective. The way you grow up, the people you grow up around, exposure (or lack thereof) of different ethnicities, nationalities and cultures all shape our world view. This doesn’t make anyone bad or good, it just is what it is.
Now, as a straight black male, I have come to realize that I have certain privileges that my LGBTQ+ comrades do not. In the state of Arizona where I live, it is still legal to fire someone based on their sexual orientation, as gender identity and sexual orientation are not protected classes. I understand that since I present myself in a masculine way and identify as the gender/sexI was born (man/male), that I am not going to be treated negatively or looked at as strange by the non-LGBTQ+ community like people who live outside the hetero-normative spectrum are.
Also as a man, taking ethnicity out of the equation, I also have certain perspectives that aren’t necessarily fair to women. For example, I think all straight men sexually objectify women. We don’t do it to be monsters or to make women feel uncomfortable, the problem is we don’t see a lot of what we do as wrong. We think it’s normal to walk up on a random women at the club and start grinding behind her without so much as a hello. We think it’s cool to tap our homie when we’re walking through the mall and point at the woman with the fat ass and make loud comments about it. I’ve seen men get upset at women who don’t want to have sex and never speak to them again, completely shunning them, and even sometimes going as far as to tell other men “Hey don’t even waste your time with her, she ain’t talkin’ about nothin”, which basically means “She isn’t down for sex, so there is no other reason to treat her like a human being.”
I ask my homies of the Caucasian persuasion to examine your own perspective as well. Just because something doesn’t happen directly to you or you’ve never seen it in person, doesn’t mean that an entire community is making it up. People of color are not creating a false narrative, but sometimes it’s hard to except that you are a part of the group that is responsible for most of the evil against the group making the complaint.
Has every white person participated in slavery/Jim Crow/extra judicial police killing of unarmed people of color? Of course not, but it is an institution run by white people. So yes, you are a part of the group that is causing the problem. In fact, we have several statistics to back our claims up. Here’s a few articles for you if you want the information.
So, all I’m asking is for people to check their perspective. If we immediately think of things from our own perspective rather than that of the person telling the story, we will never develop the empathy needed as a nation to finally get along.
UPDATE: The following link is a perfect example of a lack of understand/empathy leading to racism. A lawyer who was scared to send his 14 year old son to his neighbors with a misdelivered package because his neighborhood is predominantly white and there have been numerous stories of black kids being shot as a result of knocking on doors, asking for directions, etc. Just look at the comments. His own fear for his safety somehow makes him the real racist, an asshole and a punk. SMH.
https://www.facebook.com/lawhumorist/posts/10212273273932624
UPDATE: The following link is a perfect example of a lack of understand/empathy leading to racism. A lawyer who was scared to send his 14 year old son to his neighbors with a misdelivered package because his neighborhood is predominantly white and there have been numerous stories of black kids being shot as a result of knocking on doors, asking for directions, etc. Just look at the comments. His own fear for his safety somehow makes him the real racist, an asshole and a punk. SMH.
https://www.facebook.com/lawhumorist/posts/10212273273932624
Sounds like an accurate description of the US to me.
ReplyDelete