Systemic Racism is NOT an attack on your Whiteness

Before I begin I need to give a shout out to Patrick Moreau for consistently urging me to share my story. I believe I’m in a unique position to get my foot into doors that many others cannot, and the people behind those doors are the ones that most need to hear what we’re saying.

Back in the late 80’s I attended Williamsville Central School District in Western New York. This district was one of the highest rated in the country. Every morning my mother would make my sister and I a healthy breakfast before we caught the bus to school. We lived in a large air conditioned house with an in ground pool and a beautifully landscaped yard. Almost everyone in our community was successful and intelligent and I always felt safe no matter where I went.

As a teenager I played ice hockey with the Amherst Hockey Association. We all had cool custom made red and black jackets that we wore with pride. My family bought me all the hockey gear I needed and my father was an active member of the coaching staff. I played for many years but I never really consider myself a jock, I was and always have been a gamer. In my late teens I became obsessed with a collectible card game called Magic the Gathering and a miniature war-game called Warhammer 40K. My friends and I would spend days laying on our carpeted floors shuffling our decks and moving our armies around a virtual battlefield. In the summer we ran around the neighborhood splashing each other with super soakers and when we were done playing a warm dinner was always on the table.

After high school I attended college where I studied film. For the first two year I live in the dorms, but in my junior year I moved into an on campus apartment with several friends. I had my own large bedroom and bathroom and there was a spacious living room that we all played video games in. I ended up graduating on time and without any student debt, which was nice. I didn’t have a scholarship or anything my parents just paid for my classes, all my food and housing. I actually remember having to write checks back to my father from my college fund because he had set aside too much money for me. 

Fast forward to right now. I have a low stress job that pays well. I’ve got money in bank accounts, brokerage accounts, a 403b, a separate retirement and very good health insurance. I own a house in a safe neighborhood that’s close to many well known stores and restaurants and my mailbox is a constant stream of Amazon packages. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even remember what I bought for myself most of the time.

I’m telling you all this to give you a window into my life. It’s pretty much always been great and I know that I’m a very lucky person.

Now that you know all that, I want to tell you something else about me. For some reason I have always been very interest in race and racism. I’ve read history books, scientific literature, I’ve listened to countless podcasts, watched documentaries and conversed with many people who don’t look like me or have a life like mine. I’ve wondered things like, what makes me different from black people? Is it my skin color or is it something biological? Did humans beings create the concept of “race” or does it exist in nature? Were the terms “white” and “black” a thing before the United States became a country? Finding answers to all of these questions has given me great perspective, and I’m finding this perspective especially useful to understand what is happening in our country right now.

Ever since the protesting started I’ve had countless conversations with fellow suburbanites. Their news feeds have been flooded with pictures of destroyed storefronts, videos of protestors clashing with police and images of buildings being set on fire.

The most consistent thing that we end up talking about, is also a very triggering term for many people. And that term is…“Systemic Racism”.

Systemic Racism is a form of racism expressed in the practice of social and political institutions. It is reflected in disparities regarding wealth, income, criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power and education.

Okay, now by simply defining that, I can literally feel your blood starting to boil and can hear what you’re thinking. “They’re poor because they’re lazy. All they want to do is complain and blame other people for their problems instead of taking responsibility for themselves. I’m successful because I worked hard and got an education and a job and nobody ever helped me”!

This is a very common response that I’ve heard my entire life, and I think it’s important for my white friends to understand that “systemic racism” merely seeks to describe how structures and policies in our society afford different opportunities to different groups of people. It doesn’t have anything to do with you as an individual or your skin color. It doesn’t seek to make you feel guilty for having light skin or want you to feel responsible for societies racial problems.

Here’s an example that illustrates what I’m talking about.

Imagine you are a teenager living in an area that is not close to a supermarket. Your parents have a car but they can’t afford to drive far from home, or maybe they don’t have a car at all. The only place for you to get food is a gas station near your house or dollar store that’s a little further down the road. So most of your food comes from these places and it has a very negative impact on your mental and physical health.

Now let’s imagine you’re a teenager that lives pretty close to a supermarket. Your parents have a car and they can afford to drive to the store and buy groceries. You eat fresh fruits, vegetables and protein all the time and as a result you have great mental and physical health.

Alright so my spidey sense is going off again, I can feel you getting frustrated. “Well that teenager is not my fault Rob. I don’t control where supermarkets go and I didn’t make him and his family poor”!

You know what? You’re right! You don’t control the system or its structure, this isn’t your fault. Like I said early, systemic racism is not an attack on you or your light skin. The biggest problem is that there’s no single person or entity responsible for it and that’s what makes it so hard to solve. But, there’s no denying that it’s much harder for our first teenager to access avenues of health and prosperity simply because of the family he was born into and were he lives.

Protestors are saying they’re fed up with education disparities, implicit bias, generational wealth, police brutality, food desserts, income inequality, health disparities and mass incarceration.

People are scared and confused and just tired of having to have these same conversations. The same arguments we’ve had our entire lives at dinner tables and on social media.

Why do we have to keep talking about all this stuff?

Why can’t the topic of race and racism every just go the hell away?

Well I’ve got some good news, it can and will go away. But only when people like us see these problems as something that we need to solve, rather than a black issue that we should empathize with.

Now if I could speak directly to my fellow liberals, I have some words of advice.

I grew up a conservative Christian from the suburbs so if there’s one thing I know, it’s conservative Christians from the suburbs. They hate Colin Kaepernick, they say “all lives matter”, they might use the N-word in private and they’ll probably call you a socialist if you disagree with them. The easiest thing in the world to do is call these people racists and completely dismiss them, but if we’re ever going to solve systemic racism, I mean really solve it, we’re going to need them as allies. We need to understand why making large scale changes to this country is such an unsettling idea to them. We also need to meet them where they are, not where we would like them to be. We need to educate ourselves so that we have good answers to their tough questions. We definitely need to resist the impulse to attack them when they present ideas that are antiquated or offensive. Because If we can’t talk with them, we’ll never be able to bridge the gap between the country clubs and the poor black communities we claim to be advocating for.

Both sides need to stop thinking of things in terms of “white vs black” or “liberals vs. conservatives”. Because what we really have in this country are people who want to dismantle systemic racism vs those who really don’t want to do anything.

Stay Lovely