Thursday, September 23, 2021

Old Times There Are Not Forgotten

These people are full-bore insane. They are also quite  familiar to someone who grew up in the south 60 years ago. White people been passing on “how to be white.” It never stopped; it never slowed down. Ruby Bridges is my age. Everything she accomplished, everything she started, these white women want to stop, to undo. And most of them look young enough to be my daughter, rather than my contemporary. "White is raceless." It's true. It’s what these people think. Nice way to blame everyone else for your racism, and never be racist yourself. I wasn’t taught the true horrors of slavery in school, but I remember a CBS special on American history and race when I was a child which would have some today screaming about how bad it made the children feel. (It’s always the children. The fundamental dynamic of family law cases: the children are the battlefields, not the true object of concern. No one thinks of the children, they can only think of themselves.) I did read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. That was enough to make me feel bad in high school. But feeling bad can be the beginning of understanding truth.

 I met a very angry black woman in seminary, who made me feel many things about myself, including anger and shame. She taught me many things I needed to know about “whiteness,” about race in America, about racism. She taught me to understand her anger.

 I understand myself as a racist now, not because I am irredeemable or full of hate, but because American culture is and has been racist since Columbus landed and started enslaving the natives. I was raised in that culture. I don’t hate myself, I don’t think I’m evil, but I know I see people in racial categories, through a racist lens. It’s the way I was raised to understand the world.  Understanding that has helped me understand how not to be a racist.

But I’m not a racist the way these people are. “American Girls” is racist because some of the dolls are not “white”? These people don’t deserve the respect of an audience. Frighteningly, they are getting one. And I don’t mean just on Twitter.

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