I am tired of having the “national conversation/debate about race.” As a student of African-American history and literature, it is readily apparent to me that Black people across the Diaspora have been talking about race for centuries. It’s not a conversation but a monologue at this point. I don’t need to say another single word about racism, really, when James Baldwin slayed so magnificently. Yet, here we are “conversating” on race again because White people have never stopped needing it.

Sigh.

The other day, a person who does not matter to me said on Facebook, “Being White is tough.” She was replying to this Huffington Post video that showed Halle Berry tearful over winning an Oscar for Best Actress. The girl went on to say this:

I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks with white, black and spanish privilege [sic] staring me in the face. Opportunities that I witnessed others getting, I was denied…simply because I was white and poor. […] Money is the name of the game and to see Halle Berry crying her eyes out over a golden icon fashioned by the same people who have supposedly held back women of color is a slap in the face to women of color!

Gonna be a chilly day in Hades before a White woman will know more about the Black experience than a Black one, Miss Ann. It took all of the control I could muster not to “bless her heart,” ya’ll. So glad I gave up educating ignorant White people for Lent. But this viewpoint is one I have seen often:

Black people cannot possibly experience racism because [insert name of representative] has perceived advantages over me!

Kanye West even mentioned class division as taking precedence over racial division at his Oxford lecture recently. Never mind the obtuseness of ignoring how gatekeepers have also historically controlled class barriers using race. It’s a similar tone echoed by all the New Blacks. Race doesn’t matter. We should all be one great proletariat and overthrow the rich 1%.

I get it. It’s hard for poor (or formerly poor) White people to hear generalizations about “White people” and “White privilege” when you don’t feel particularly privileged in your Whiteness. Affirmative Action can have poor White people looking at Halle Berry like, This rich Black woman has everything I don’t. Where’s my privilege again? My parents had nothing and I worked hard to get where I am. It’s only laziness and excuses that stop other poor people from making it like me.

Being poor is tough, period. But being White? In a country where the people on the money are White, where you can effectively hide your poor White background with enough money, where the history narratives are spun daily to make people who look like you into gods? No, honey. Being White in America is not tough. You’re still the majority here.

You know what the problem is? Poor White people miss the spectacle of racism. They see it as a mythology they learned in a history book full of distant and fantastical tales of terrible Whiteness. But those monsters have been vanquished in their minds. There are no more crosses burning and so they believe Martin Luther King, Jr. divested Black folk of all the crosses they had to bear. They see Affirmative Action as “privilege” or “entitlement” rather than justice for decades (let alone centuries!!!) of wrongdoing. But Black people feel the effects of racism in myriad ways poor White people do not see. (Or do not care to see.)

The New York Times recently published an article revealing the results of a Department of Justice probe into the Ferguson, MO police department. In a nutshell, the Ferguson PD disproportionately targets Black people and uses the criminal justice system to fund the city. And water is wet. Or if you needed more receipts, take this Wells Fargo lawsuit alleging the bank pushed unethical loans on Black and Hispanic customers. And this study finding that Black children are more likely to be more harshly disciplined than their White counterparts for the same infraction. Black people of all ages also suffer from health disparities, regardless of class, but largely due to a disproportionate wealth gap.

A poor White woman statistically has more “privilege” than a poor Black woman. But. I. Am. Sleep.

The studies, reports, probes, receipts, proofs, and pudding stretch on for miles and miles. Some part of me wanted to feel vindicated at the emergence of the Ferguson report. It’s what activists and journalists have alleged for months. But I couldn’t take much joy in it. Black people already know these disparities exist. The vindication is that we finally have a reliable source (read: White institution) verifying our claims.

To be Black in America is sometimes to feel the entire country is gaslighting you about your experience here.

It’s another reason why I am torn about the constant celebration of Black firsts. Focus on marginal representation makes it easy to gloss over the deep inequalities in this country because we see a few doing well. American exceptionalism transposed onto 12.3% of the United States population yields an incomplete picture of who Black America really is, in totality. We are not all Barack Obama. We are not all Kanye West. Sometimes we are Mike Brown and Tamir Rice.

I did not respond to ole girl because she did not deserve a rehashing of the age-old, one-sided “conversation on race” that would consist of me testifying and her disbelieving me. On second thought, I deserved better. Being Black is too glorious to spend this existence forever validating pain to White people.

But on a positive note, I do believe in speaking things into existence. Maybe if enough poor White people believe Black people as a whole are privileged over them…it’ll actually…turn out…to be true.

How would you have responded to the statement that “being White is tough?” .Gifs are welcome here.

Share this: Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

