The Little Things

The hardest things for me to understand as I began to truly understand what white privilege were the little things. Sure, it was easy for me to just ‘get’ a lot of it. Don’t use the N word. Referring to people of color as colored people, despite my conditioning, is ok. The basic, clear cut stuff was easy to understand, even though perhaps I had never articulated these ideals, they fell under my general idea of what racism/sexism was, and it was easy for me to adopt them if necessary.

Here are some of the things that I have been recently told that I was doing or how I was being:

“You require everyone you interact with to think the same way you do. If they don’t, you refuse to interact with them”

First, this is partially true as it is with literally everyone.  You need some sort of common ground intellectually to interact with people, but that’s not what this particular discussion is about.

There have been people in my life that I have chosen to no longer have in my life, not because they mirror my thoughts and opinions, but have offended me personally and have not, at my request, at the very least not say that garbage near me. People I know and interact with say terrible things from time to time, but will not say these types of things around me when I ask them not to, because it offends me. The conversation could end right there, they can easily say: “I am sorry that you were offended by what I said. I will try not to offend you in the future.”

By saying this, the person who offended me doesn’t have to admit fault, and gives them an out if they happen to say something else offensive to me. This is really all that I would require to maintain even the most basic relationship with a person (Depending on what was said, of course). Sure, the conversation can turn into something where the offender asks why, and I explain why/how I feel, and we all hold hands and skip off into the sunset, but this is not a requirement, and I expect it would rarely happen.

No one is saying that you don’t have the right to have your own opinion, and you don’t have the right to express it. I have the right to ask you to stop, and I have the right to call you an idiot, and I have the right to never talk to you again.

“You and I have the same overall goal, but we choose to use different tactics to achieve this goal”

Here is a tactical argument I am willing to discuss: Self Love vs. We’re Just Like You in terms of overall effectiveness and how quickly milestones can be reached.

Here is a ‘tactical’ argument that I am not willing to discuss: If white people use the N word, it takes away the strength of the word!

By saying that you and I are fighting to reach the same goal, but are using different tactics, you aren’t really addressing the problem, just reinforcing it because you are taking the stance that you aren’t wrong, that you can’t be wrong, and at best we are both right. It’s important, especially when you are on the side of privilege, to be ready and willing to admit you might be wrong.

“You are misinterpreting what I said”

This can happen. Sometimes people can use words incorrectly, or use the incorrect word and it can change the whole meaning of what was said.

More often, I have seen people use this to defend something that I took offense to. It can suck for someone to hear something that they have said offended people. I can remember tying to explain my way out of something like that before.

What I didn’t grasp is that just because I said something that was insensitive, it doesn’t necessarily make me a racist. This is an important thing to understand.

“You have no intellectual standards in your argument”

Fuck you. We aren’t talking about which Back to the Future movie is the best (It’s II).

It’s important that people just begin to listen and understand. It’s the only way to move forward.