I had an incredibly real conversation with my best friend yesterday. It’s important to note that she is white, and I of course am black. She woke me up yesterday morning with a rather lengthy text, and it read,
Hey, I just wanted to tell you I love and appreciate you and our friendship. I know this seems random, but I just finished reading an article about George Floyd, and I feel disgusted at how messed up the United States still is regarding racism. It makes me angry and sad and scared, and I just want you to know that I’m here if you ever want to talk about any of it. I’m sorry I’ve never offered that before or let you know outright that I’m outraged with you. I know I’ll never fully understand, but I do understand that you’re one of my very best friends, a sister to me, and I want you to know (in case I’ve never said it before) that I see our differences, I celebrate them, and I LOVE that we’re friends.
I teared up as I read it because I know that everything she wrote came straight from her heart, and she meant every word. At first I was unsure of what to say in response to her because on one hand this was my opportunity to explain to her all that I have been feeling lately, but on the other hand I was afraid she wouldn’t understand what I was saying and I would end up hurting her. I ended up telling her just that. These were my words to her.
I love you too, and I have never doubted your love and dedication to our friendship. I think you have more than proven it over the years of our friendship. Do I keep things and conversations to myself regarding the subject of race sometimes? Absolutely! Not because I don’t think you stand with me, but because a lot of the time I don’t know how I’m feeling about it, and I don’t want to hurt you in trying to express my feelings about it. Sometimes I feel like there is no right way for me when it comes to this. On one hand I have the black community yelling in my ear that I can’t trust white people as a whole because in the core they all think the same, but I know better. I have experienced better! So then I feel inauthentic because I have never personally experienced hate due to racism so I feel shut out by my own community sometimes.
Thinking back on this conversation today even as I write this post there is something that I said to her that I am questioning. I said that I had the black community yelling in my ear that I couldn’t trust any white people because they all think the same at their core, and I said that I knew better. Is that really true? Do not get me wrong I do not mean to imply that I lied to my friend because I certainly did not. However, I do believe that through no fault of their own white people have this subconscious tendency to dehumanize black people. There was a study done at Yale University with preschool teachers. These teachers were told that they would be monitoring children for bad behavior. There were 4 children involved in this study, a black girl, a white girl, a white boy, and a black boy. The catch of the study was that there was no bad behavior, but instinctively the teachers set their focus on the little black boy as the one who was misbehaving. The experimenters told the teachers this because they needed to fully disclose the nature of the study in order to be able to publish it, and the teachers were in disbelief of what had happened. So you see it is deeply rooted into the culture of western civilization. White people innately look for the bad in black people. This need to dehumanize is true of racism in any form. For example, the Nazis justified the killing of millions of jews by classifying them as rats. You see? People can readily kill a rat more so than they could a human being.
This past week I have constantly been trying to figure out what I am feeling about everything that is happening in America right now. Obviously I am feeling anger and heartbreak, but I am also feeling the need to educate. I have seen so many posts about the George Floyd situation, but the one that I have seen the most is Black Lives Matter. This statement or movement within itself is not what stood out to me. What stood out to me the most were the comments of other people who are responding to these posts. Those responses read something like “well all lives matter”. Now I understand what is meant by that statement, but I am not sure that the people who are saying it do. Black Lives Matter does not mean that other lives do not matter. It is a call to action to wake up and understand that an entire race of people is considered less than human and has been throughout history.
You see in the minds of a lot of people, black people are still viewed as something other than human. I know a lot of white Americans would argue with me and say “I don’t think that way”, but yes you do. You may not knowingly think it, but you do. The reason I know that is because of all of the comments that are like “well let’s wait and hear all of the facts” What facts do you need to see? Think of it like this: This girl has been enslaved to sex trafficking for the majority of her life, and she finally gets the opportunity to get out and she has been out for let’s say 20 years and now she is ready to tell her story. In trying to help her transition away from that life, would you say to her “let’s go see what the man or men holding you captive have to say about that?” Honestly think about that, would you? Would you tell her to just move on because it happened so long ago? If you answered yes, then I have nothing more to say to you because we just are not going to be able to agree. If you answered no, then why on earth would you ask that of a group of people who are experiencing their own trauma? Let’s talk about the word trauma for a second.
Trauma is defined as “a deeply distressing or disturbing experience” and I want to add onto that definition and say that it changes how you view the world and the people you encounter within it. Going back to the woman who was freed from sex trafficking, if the people who were helping her were all men and she was uneasy around them, do you think they should be offended? Do you think they would understand the amount of trauma she has suffered throughout her life and respond to her accordingly? It is the same thing when it comes to this idea of racism in the United States. Until black people are wholly seen as human beings, then no real change can happen. If no change occurs, then no healing will happen and this perpetuating cycle will continue.
Inexpressible Identity 