It’s Time for White People to Really Pick a Side

As an immigrant, before Trayvon Martin, I was naively unaware of the disproportionate number of Black men who died at the hands of the police. Sure, I had heard of the Rodney King riots, but like my White friends, I told myself that that was a thing of the past - America had learned and moved on. The death of Trayvon Martin followed by the acquittal of George Zimmerman and the subsequent deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and on and on and on...landed on me like punches to the gut. It became quite clear that this criminal abuse of power has been happening for an extremely long time and through the advent of camera phones, we are now seeing how heinous and widespread this practice of using deadly force is. And yet, when making this obvious point, I was met with extreme pushback from my White friends. People who said, "well you can't tell what's happening in that picture/video" to "all lives matter" to "look at the statistics, White people are killed more" (completely disregarding population makeup and the fact that Black people are only 13% of the general population so if the number of deaths are close to that of White people, they are disproportionately affected). Not to mention that if the police are killing that many people at all, this point in itself should register as a problem to you…No?

Anyway, I digress, the point is, it took the death of George Floyd, after 7 years of video proof from too many other instances, for some White people to suddenly recognize it as the systemic problem that it is, that it stems from an entire culture built around exclusion and to educate themselves on how not to, at the very least, be a part of the problem. Good job liberal and on-the-political-fence White people. But I sense a lack of commitment to the cause from some of you.

Months of protests, phone calls and emails have pushed the needle toward systemic change ever so slightly, and now it seems, as was expected, that the fatigue has set in. A reminder that you literally have no skin in the game and can turn your caring on and off as needed for your own wellbeing, while some of us have no other choice but to be consumed by injustices against us, since our skin color is not exactly something we can escape.

Adding to this, is the fact that some of you cannot seem to cut your racist, homophobic, climate change-skeptic, Covid-denying, Q Anon-believing friends out of your lives. This one cuts deep for me. Numerous conversations and observations have led me to recognize that some of the same friends who are claiming to be anti-racist allies are also completely fine staying friends with these aforementioned types. Thus demonstrating how little they are personally affected and that their allyship was merely performative in the first place. I know you are probably thinking that it’s silly, maybe even immature to unfriend someone over a difference of opinions. Well, that’s how I can tell that you definitely don’t get it. Again, no skin in the game. I am so happy that you can appease your Black friends AND patronize your crazy friends. I mean, would not want to disrupt your lives in any way if you don’t have to, right? But what message does that really send to your Black friends, the ones you vowed to protect, the ones for whom it’s not simply a matter of a difference of opinions? As though human rights are debatable. What are you really telling yourself?

After months of fighting for the rights of the underserved, you should by now know that the problem with your White supremacist friends leads to a larger stagnation or even repellation of many laws that offer equality for others. Call it “trickle up politics” because as long as there are people who think like this, there will be people in government to serve them. It doesn’t just start with voting, although that is important. But who are people voting for and why? Imagine a world where there is no more racism, lgbtq+ people had equal rights, women’s bodies were not governed over and people believed in science. How can we achieve this? I have had a few discussions with friends about this recently and they explained to me that it’s not that simple to cut people out of your lives. There is a grey area where people feel like they need to maintain certain relationships whether it was personally or for work in order to preserve their lifestyles. Well I disagree. I hate to make it so black and white, but there are some things that are all or nothing for me. I understand if they’re family and you have no choice but how can you claim to be anti-racist yet have racist friends? I’m so happy that you are satisfied with being so two-faced in order to save your own ass but what about TRUE EMPATHY? A virtue that I’m afraid many straight White people lack for this election. What will the race/gender breakdown of the votes reveal this time? Because last time it showed that a racist molester was not a deal-breaker for you to maintain your status quo. Well now he’s added on a few more undesirable titles. Have you changed? In any case, true allyship doesn’t end at the election, no matter who wins. It’s an ongoing commitment.

I need my White ally friends to demonstrate that they don’t tolerate certain behavior. Imagine what would happen if we as a society shut out the stubborn people so they had no one to scream their incoherent garble to but themselves. Don’t you think that if we starved them out socially that they would either become social hermits or realize that only an open mind, education, empathy and a willingness to live on behalf of the common good, would grant them re-entry into our new society? This may sound binary, but that is what I am willing to do for real change. I have no choice, living in the beautiful skin I’m in. It is not an option for me to continue to be friends with and work with (or for) racists and if that is an option for you, you can take yourself off the ally list.