I think that much of this thinking is subconscious.

Like thoughtlessly “dining” instead of “eating,” white people often carry prejudices about slavery without realizing it. That is why the white refrain of “slavery was a long time ago, get over it” falls on deaf Black ears. It’s not Black people holding on to slavery, it’s white people, carrying the prejudices in their culture.

It’s a difficult problem to address. To paraphrase George Orwell, white people have prejudices about people of color because American culture has normalized whiteness, but the fact that people of color act “differently” further entrenches the “obvious correctness” of a white cultural norm.

Why is it normal to eat with a fork instead of chopsticks?

Why is it normal for a man to wear a suit to a business meeting instead of a loose, colorfully printed robe?

Why is it normal to sit in a chair instead of on the floor?

Why is a woman in a long gown and a bonnet accepted — archaic, perhaps, but accepted? Why is a nun wearing a black gown and habit accepted? Why is a woman in a burka and hijab somehow threatening?

Why do we teach the way we do? Write our laws the way we do? In short, why is our society the way it is?

All of these questions have the same answer: Because we live in a Western European society that was built by Western Europeans for Western Europeans to live in. This culture is so normative that most white people never have to think about it or even know it exists, because everything they do naturally fits the norm.

Being normal makes everything else “abnormal”

Damn near everything that Black people do is already outside the white norm. Black people talk too loud, they don’t do what they’re told, they “act out,” they stand too close, they have weird hair, they dress funny, they shake their butts too much (which is fine if Taylor Swift does it).

When a white person says “It’s not about race,” they are pretty much always saying it when a Black person, or a Latino person, or a Muslim person is not acting the way a white European would act or wants them to act.

And so Black women having fun get kicked off a wine tour for “acting disruptive” when they were doing the same thing White women do every day. But it’s not about race. If it’s not, then it’s about them not obeying the cultural expectations of white people — which amounts to the same damn thing.

“If you see something, say something” works really well when everyone looks and acts the same way. When they don’t, you have an Italian mathematician getting kicked off a plane because a white woman is scared he’s an Islamic terrorist.

All this simply because people of color have a different cultural foundation. Because they are not allowed to act within their culture.

If a white person can still “dine,” can still carry the European culture of a thousand years ago, then surely a Black person can carry some West African culture of a few hundred years ago. Surely a Muslim can carry the culture of her parents.

This is the subtext I talked about.

This is why I sat in a discussion group on race and was angry that a white man was telling me we should “rise above emotions” and “get to the heart of the matter” by talking about race intellectually and avoiding emotions.

Why do we need to center a discussion about racism in the white cultural experience? Why do we need to communicate using Western cultural norms? So, we can talk about race, but we shouldn’t talk about race the way a Black person carrying West African culture would talk about it? We should avoid their anger and pain? It would be “better” to talk about it in a way that Western Europeans will be comfortable talking about it?

In other words: “Let’s make sure everyone is speaking our language and knows who’s in charge.”

And I’m sure he didn’t even know he was doing it, because he can’t see that white culture is normative. Every single thing white people do and say is done in the context of normative white culture, which they don’t have to think about.

Why do Black people think everything is about race?

Because everything a person of color does is done while knowing they are not part of normative white culture. We have to think about everything we do and every word we say. Am I saying this too loudly? Do I look like I might be stealing? If I complain about these working conditions, will they call me lazy? Why did this teacher tell me I can’t be an engineer when I’ve got a 3.8 GPA? Why am I being pulled over when I did nothing wrong?

We think about this all the time — so much that it’s mostly unconscious by the time we’re teenagers. But we don’t talk about it because when a conflict comes up with a white person that is “not about race,” it would take too damn long to explain all of this to them. And we’d have to explain it over and over to every white person we meet hoping they will “get it.”

And most of the time, they won’t get it. Most of the time, they can’t see their own culture, much less someone else’s, meaning they have no idea what the hell we’re talking about anyway. So either we get angry, or we just close our eyes, nod our heads, and say things like “Yeah, using the Socratic method to talk intellectually would probably be a good way for us to discuss systematic racism.”

“Yeah, let’s do it your way.”

lead image captured by kwesi abbensetts