Really it’s sorta funny, ya know? To be accused of hating white people just because you
speak out against white privilege and white racism. I mean, think it through with me:
if being against white racism makes a person “anti-white” then doesn’t that mean that
racism is like the essence of being white? Doesn’t it mean that being pro white racism is
somehow the only way to show your love for white people? Doesn’t it mean that white
people and racism are pretty much synonymous? Or at least like an old married couple?
Messed up, dontcha’ think? I mean, seriously, have you ever considered that? How ass-
backwards it is to basically decide that we are collectively so evil, you and me, that we
just can’t help ourselves, and that trying to break free from the conditioning we’ve been
exposed to is somehow to betray one another?

I may be wrong in this, but I think you’re better than that, that we are. I’m convinced
we have choices. I know we do, because I’ve seen people exercise them, and even made
some myself. I know that for every Andrew Jackson—land stealing, Indian killing
bastard that he was—there’s a Jeremiah Evarts standing up against him and saying
no. For every John Calhoun, defending the system of enslavement, there’s a John Fee,
challenging it, refusing to provide communion to parishioners in his church that owned
other human beings, and willing to be defrocked for his insolence. For every Bull Connor
there’s a Virginia Durr; for every George Wallace a Bob or Dottie Zellner. And yes, I
know that for most of you, these names I mention in praise, and in contrast to the others,
won’t even be recognizable. There’s a reason for that, and it’s one you ought to ask
yourself about from time to time.

Ask yourself why you know so well the names of those whose lives were defined by
the cruelty they meted out to others, why you know the names and maybe even the
biographies of the worst amongst us, but almost nothing about the best, almost nothing
about those in our little tribe who placed their humanity—ours—above the conceit of
skin alone. And trust me when I tell you, once you allow yourself to really think about
why you know the one but not the other, the answers that will come to you won’t be
the comforting kind. They’ll be answers you might wish you’d never known. The kind
that make you realize that somewhere, along the way, whiteness tricked you too. In this
case, it made you identify with the perpetration of injustice, and to jealously defend your
own reputation from critique, even as you had these other role models all along, right
there waiting for you to join them, to follow in their footsteps. And had you joined them,
your reputation wouldn’t be half as sullied as it is now by virtue of your silence, your
defensiveness, your denial.

So are you ready then? Are we ready to choose again, and this time, perhaps, get it right?
Ready to choose again and this time to live in this skin differently? Ready to relinquish
the bonds that we have placed around our own bodies and minds, thanks to white
supremacy? Ready to join the circle of humanity, but this time merely as equals, rather
than as lords and masters?