Why All White People Need To Be Accountable
I’ve been writing this blog for a few days. It should be easier to write. I’m ashamed that it isn’t. It’s taken time to process what I’m feeling and why I’m feeling it. I know that what happened to George Floyd is abhorrent. I feel sick when I look at that police man kneeling on his neck with such little regard for human life, that he doesn’t even care that he’s being filmed. The arrogance, the entitlement and the hatred all combining to fuel his belief that he has a right to treat a human being in that way because he is white and the man unable to breathe beneath him is black and until today, there’s been a fear in me of saying the wrong thing or worrying that I’ll offend, upset, anger.
But that fear has gone because I’ve always known what to say - I know what’s right and what’s wrong but that’s not enough. I’ve thought about little else since the murder of George Floyd and I understand now. I wasn't fearful of saying the wrong thing, I was terrified of the implications of saying those things. I had to accept that on some level, as a white person, I’d played a part in allowing this to happen.
Because - and here’s the hardest sentence I’ll ever write - I am more like Derek Chauvin, the policeman that killed George Floyd than I am like George Floyd and that makes me feel such burning shame that I want to turn away from it. I want to pretend it isn’t true. I want to deny it till I die. I want to prove that I am nothing like that horrible man, but the fact is, my skin colour means that I inhabit the same world as Chauvin and it’s not the same world that Floyd lived in. This blog hasn’t taken days to write because I don’t know what to say. I know what to say but saying it means that I have to own my own part in this and, if you’re white, you do too.
For Derek Chauvin and I, our skin colour has never made our world harder, less accepting, limited in opportunity. Chauvin and I are able to benefit from a world that enables the irreverent murder of George Floyd to happen. Our life is easier because racism is still rampant in the veins of our society. Sure, we can all say, “I’m not racist,” but there are two quotes that have popped up across social media time and time again in recent days. The first is from Desmond Tutu who said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor,” and the second from Angela Davis, “In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist. We must be anti-racist.”
It’s Davis’ quote that struck me the most because here’s the thing: when she writes ‘we’ need to be anti-racist, what she really means as a black woman, is white people need to be anti-racist but she can’t say that because well, she’s a black woman. When black women challenge the prejudices of white people and stand up for themselves, we call them angry. When black men challenge the prejudices of white people and stand up for themselves, we kill them. The use of ‘we’ is, in itself, an attempt by a black woman to bend and fit, to not offend, to not challenge, to not say what really needs to be said.
And what needs to be said? White people - stop what you are doing and listen. Give space to the criticism, to the challenges without being defensive because our best friend is black. Do better. Our role is not to save, but to fight alongside. We need to be allies. We need to challenge other white people on their privilege. We need to condemn, swiftly and unequivocally, those who do the wrong thing. There should be no argument about what happens to Derek Chauvin and every other cop involved. Uniform or no uniform, those men murdered George Floyd in broad daylight, confident they would be untouchable and didn’t even take a minute to consider they may be doing the wrong thing.
“I don’t see colour,” is not the goal. The goal is to see colour clearly - to see black and white and to learn, read, listen, research so that we can fully understand what both of those things mean. It’ll be ugly and uncomfortable. It’ll make us feel shame but it’s essential because that’s how we fight back, that’s how we stand alongside people of colour: through understanding and education. We cannot rely on black people to educate us - that’s lazy and arrogant. We have to do the work. White people must acknowledge the systemic and institutionalised racism that undermines black men, women and children on a daily basis in a million different ways. We must admit that, while we don’t and can never understand, we stand alongside. The longer we remain neutral in a world that benefits us disproportionately, no matter how many black friends you have or how liberal and inclusive you are, black men will continue to fall.
To support George Floyd’s family, donate to the George Floyd GoFundMe.com page by clicking here.