I have, at several points during my 41+ years of existence, said the racist word, “n****r.” I’ve never said it with enmity or hurled it as a curse. I’ve said it ironically, like a “good white liberal,” or to shock people, like an inconsiderate white wiseass. I say this to say that I too am guilty.
Yesterday, I called out a family member on Facebook for sharing a racist joke that made fun of the way a subset of non-white immigrants sometimes have trouble enunciating particular letter combinations in English, and while the joke was funny enough for what it was, I felt obligated to call it out as racist.
Like me, my family member is not an overt racist, but like millions of white people, we were raised in a milieu that denigrated nonwhite people with unconscious effort, allowing individuals such as us to grow up as good Kennedy Democrats at the same time as we grew up as unconsciously systematized protectors of a predominantly white, predominantly English-speaking majority.
As good Kennedy Democrats, this was not our fault. The twentieth century was the twentieth century, and so many of us were victims of our colonial and imperial upbringings. We have all made mistakes, but we can all be forgiven.
What is our fault (and what will continue to be our fault) is if we allow that racist milieu to continue to exist.
Going forward into the third decade of the twenty-first century, white people such as me and my family member have to police ourselves. We have to be aware of what we say, how we act, what agendas we advance, what rights we defend, and what we call out for the racist bullshit it is.
Not because our words and actions may offend politically-correct “snowflakes.” But because our words and actions ought to be directed toward creating a better world where every individual feels valued and welcomed.
I am not upset with my family member; I hope they are not upset with me.
What I am upset with racism in all its forms, myself included. And that’s why I felt and feel obligated to call out racist bullshit for what it is, and to demand that we all, myself included, do better.