I found it’s just a waste of time.
Are you calling me a racist? This is a question you ask me. Even though I’ve not called you anything and ascribed no name to your being.
When this question comes up, it feels as though the reality that you could be a racist is more overwhelming to you than a reality where racism crushes and ends black and brown lives — the very lives of people we both profess to know and to love. The idea that you are racist, appears to trouble you so that it overrides your natural tendencies to show sincere care.
In all honesty, this is what I wish we could talk about — about why being called a racist seems more upsetting than racism. The thought of you being a racist, gets in the way of you and I truly connecting and coming together to examine the problem of racism and white dominance. I wish we could talk together about the reality of racial inequity without it devolving into an argument about whether or not someone is racist.
Please remember this about me, I don’t divvy out concrete labels to other people — more specifically people that I know and that I love. Here’s why, it’s unhelpful. Doing so cements the idea that complex problems are about simple binaries — black and white, good and bad, love and hate, us and them — racist or not racist. This overly simplistic perspective pigeon holes us into all-consuming facile categories.
It fails to account for the complexity of how who we are intersects with who the world says we are. It doesn’t help us see how we’ve been and what we’ve done that is participating in or enacting harm. When I attach being a racist to another person’s identity, it can make them feel as though that is the only way that I or anyone can experience them. I want to leave space for people to change and grow.
When you ask me if I’m calling you a racist, it’s often when I’ve told you how your attitudes, beliefs, and actions around race impact me and my non-white loved ones. It’s when we’re talking about something you’ve said or something you’ve done related to race and how me and my mixed race family experience it. I’m only telling you these things because I desire vulnerability, accountability, and relationship with you. Race, racism, and whiteness are critical in my life, the fact that I’m talking about these things with you, speaks to how much you mean to me and how much I desire our closeness. I can’t let these things go unspoken and feel close to you.
In these moments, I’m not judging your character. I’m not trying to say that you are one thing or another. I know that, overwhelmingly, you show up as genuinely kind, loving, and incredibly generous. I’m telling you that how you’ve been with race isn’t aligning with how I know you to be. I’m trying to call you back to yourself and back to us. It’s just that whiteness gets in the way.
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