Five Things White People Need To Stop Doing
Dear Persons of Color and non-whites in general: You can skip this article. These behaviors, while the result of truly astonishing mental gymnastics, sadly, will be nothing new to you. I reckon you have better things to do with your time that be reminded that white skin apparently gets in the way of basic human empathy. This is my attempt to tell my fellow crackers to stop acting like crackers.
However, if you are a regular user of the narcotic that is white privilege, I must encourage you to read on, because I have observed you fucking up and I would like you to stop it. The first reason, before I get to the rest of this list is this: The concept of whiteness robs EVERYONE of his or her identity. That means you, too. You are not Scandinavian, English, Irish, German, French, Syrian, Afghani, Kenyan, Egyptian, Libyan, Israeli if you are too light-skinned. You’re white. Does that suck? Hurt a little bit? Yeah, it’s like that for non-whites but 350% worse, dig?
5. Justifying Police Brutality When It’s Convenient to Your Point
This one drives me insane, because every time a police officer unloads an entire magazine into a non-white, someone will first say “It’s not about race” and then turn around and post a story about an alleged black criminal who killed a white person with a shrill “this isn't being reported! This is being CENSORED!" which is so often not true it's absurd.
Now, I’m not one of those Luddites who thinks the internet is evil, but I do know you can find pornography based on 8-bit characters and actual 8-bit characters IN pornography in very little time.
So it won’t surprise me that you can find a news article - some of which are horrendously re-written to emphasize race - about a black citizen killing a white citizen.
You know the difference don’t you, my lily white friend? Yes, it’s that a black person murdered a white person is not backed by a state entity in the U.S. Further, I do often note that on your bad days you will post a video of some crazy red-neck open-carrying a rifle having his rights verbally questioned by a cop and thus will shrilly declare that “THE POLICE ARE OUT OF CONTROL.”
At least you are right about that, but it actually is all police all the time, not just the ones trying to take your assault rifle with double ammo drums.
4. Saying “Not All”
And when I say “all police,” you will backtrack and say “well, not ALL of them.”
Now, I know quite a few police officers and they’re "good people." However, they are the first to admit they are compromised by murderous demon people who wear the same uniform.
Law enforcement institutions, for reasons I’m not quite clear on*, cover for these monsters wearing human faces. So when these institutions cover up for their worst members, they do indeed all become complicit.
Now here's the weird part: at some point before we were all born, police forces became more about sustaining themselves than they were about supporting and protecting the community. Now it's about securing power and money through politics, and that attracts a certain personality type.
The fact is, the cop hassling Whitey McStickofButter in Alabama is the same class of person as Officer ShootAllTheBlacks, but he won’t just dump a clip into a white citizen because the second amendment has way more lobbyists than the thirteenth.
If you've never been shot by the police and you are in the White Crayola Crayon to Taupe range of epidermal hue, I have news: you enjoy white privilege and you are probably ignoring it.
3. Ignoring One’s Own Privilege
Ever shop lift? Ever get angry in a public place? Ever commit a felony or even just be a jerk to a law enforcement officer? Well, if you are white and did any of those things or a countless others, you’re probably still alive today because you are white.
There is an incident after incident of black or Latino people being either arrested or shot for doing things that would get a finger wag and a citation from police had they had the good fortune to be white.
Looking through your pockets in front of your own house can get you shot. Trying to get into your own house can get you arrested. Not shooting someone but firing a warning shot can get your jail time. All if your are black.
To understand your privilege, consider this: when was the last time you asked to condemn the actions of the Ku Klux Klan or Westboro Baptist Church or Ted Bundy or Charles Manson? After all, they are white and your are white, you must have something to say as a white person, right?
And the thing about privilege? It doesn't just keep your safe from persecution from law enforcement agencies that are armed well enough to invade Somalia, it affects the very way you perceive the world.
2. Building a House out of Fundamental Attribution Errors
The Fundamental attribution error is a psychological term that states that you believe yourself to be making decisions rationally and correctly, while everyone else, even when doing the exact same thing, is utterly selfish and horrible.
You see this all the time, and with riots over race and justice, I see countless white people looking down their nose “why are they destroying their community?” However, when white people do it due to the loss or win of a sports team, oh, that’s just us being us. It’s totally okay.
That’s how white privilege allows you to not see what’s really going on. If your every movement and action must be so calculated as to avoid scaring people because scaring people can be fatal, you are not free. But if you were to fight back against it you’d call yourself a Freedom Fighter as you waved your Don’t Tread on Me flag.
If a black man does it, he’s a thug. If an Arab does it he’s a terrorist. A Latino? An illegal immigrant. Where are all these gun-toting, not recognizing the authority of government types when riot cops bear down on minority communities? They are at home, watching it on the news and acting like they have nothing in common with oppressed people.
After all they have their guns.
1. Acting like you are not somehow racist.
Now, this may be similar to number 3, but I’ll level with you, my melanin impaired brother or sister, I am racist. I KNOW I am racist. Being racist as a white person is like genital warts. You may not be showing it today, but you carry it with you all time.
However, like any person afflicted with a disease, that part is not your fault.
The part that is your fault is not getting “tested,” not “treating the disease” or even not acknowledging this disease exists. What you must do - and don’t gimme any lip about “I’m not obligated,” trust me, ya are - is to manage and cure this awful plague that gets my fellow Americans murdered in the streets.
The reason why you have a responsibility – at the minimum – to not be racist is because this is America. Yeah, life’s not fair, yeah you need to be your own person, but racism is you actively making life harder for other people for no goddamned reason.
Do not point to more obviously racist persons or entities and say “Well, I’m not as racist as that.” That’s not having a standard, that’s making an excuse. Being not as racist as the Ku Klux Klan isn’t an achievement, it’s merely the average that’s why they are called “extremists.”
*It's white supremacy
However, if you are a regular user of the narcotic that is white privilege, I must encourage you to read on, because I have observed you fucking up and I would like you to stop it. The first reason, before I get to the rest of this list is this: The concept of whiteness robs EVERYONE of his or her identity. That means you, too. You are not Scandinavian, English, Irish, German, French, Syrian, Afghani, Kenyan, Egyptian, Libyan, Israeli if you are too light-skinned. You’re white. Does that suck? Hurt a little bit? Yeah, it’s like that for non-whites but 350% worse, dig?
5. Justifying Police Brutality When It’s Convenient to Your Point
This one drives me insane, because every time a police officer unloads an entire magazine into a non-white, someone will first say “It’s not about race” and then turn around and post a story about an alleged black criminal who killed a white person with a shrill “this isn't being reported! This is being CENSORED!" which is so often not true it's absurd.
Now, I’m not one of those Luddites who thinks the internet is evil, but I do know you can find pornography based on 8-bit characters and actual 8-bit characters IN pornography in very little time.
So it won’t surprise me that you can find a news article - some of which are horrendously re-written to emphasize race - about a black citizen killing a white citizen.
You know the difference don’t you, my lily white friend? Yes, it’s that a black person murdered a white person is not backed by a state entity in the U.S. Further, I do often note that on your bad days you will post a video of some crazy red-neck open-carrying a rifle having his rights verbally questioned by a cop and thus will shrilly declare that “THE POLICE ARE OUT OF CONTROL.”
At least you are right about that, but it actually is all police all the time, not just the ones trying to take your assault rifle with double ammo drums.
4. Saying “Not All”
And when I say “all police,” you will backtrack and say “well, not ALL of them.”
Now, I know quite a few police officers and they’re "good people." However, they are the first to admit they are compromised by murderous demon people who wear the same uniform.
Law enforcement institutions, for reasons I’m not quite clear on*, cover for these monsters wearing human faces. So when these institutions cover up for their worst members, they do indeed all become complicit.
Now here's the weird part: at some point before we were all born, police forces became more about sustaining themselves than they were about supporting and protecting the community. Now it's about securing power and money through politics, and that attracts a certain personality type.
The fact is, the cop hassling Whitey McStickofButter in Alabama is the same class of person as Officer ShootAllTheBlacks, but he won’t just dump a clip into a white citizen because the second amendment has way more lobbyists than the thirteenth.
If you've never been shot by the police and you are in the White Crayola Crayon to Taupe range of epidermal hue, I have news: you enjoy white privilege and you are probably ignoring it.
3. Ignoring One’s Own Privilege
Ever shop lift? Ever get angry in a public place? Ever commit a felony or even just be a jerk to a law enforcement officer? Well, if you are white and did any of those things or a countless others, you’re probably still alive today because you are white.
There is an incident after incident of black or Latino people being either arrested or shot for doing things that would get a finger wag and a citation from police had they had the good fortune to be white.
Looking through your pockets in front of your own house can get you shot. Trying to get into your own house can get you arrested. Not shooting someone but firing a warning shot can get your jail time. All if your are black.
To understand your privilege, consider this: when was the last time you asked to condemn the actions of the Ku Klux Klan or Westboro Baptist Church or Ted Bundy or Charles Manson? After all, they are white and your are white, you must have something to say as a white person, right?
And the thing about privilege? It doesn't just keep your safe from persecution from law enforcement agencies that are armed well enough to invade Somalia, it affects the very way you perceive the world.
2. Building a House out of Fundamental Attribution Errors
The Fundamental attribution error is a psychological term that states that you believe yourself to be making decisions rationally and correctly, while everyone else, even when doing the exact same thing, is utterly selfish and horrible.
You see this all the time, and with riots over race and justice, I see countless white people looking down their nose “why are they destroying their community?” However, when white people do it due to the loss or win of a sports team, oh, that’s just us being us. It’s totally okay.
That’s how white privilege allows you to not see what’s really going on. If your every movement and action must be so calculated as to avoid scaring people because scaring people can be fatal, you are not free. But if you were to fight back against it you’d call yourself a Freedom Fighter as you waved your Don’t Tread on Me flag.
If a black man does it, he’s a thug. If an Arab does it he’s a terrorist. A Latino? An illegal immigrant. Where are all these gun-toting, not recognizing the authority of government types when riot cops bear down on minority communities? They are at home, watching it on the news and acting like they have nothing in common with oppressed people.
After all they have their guns.
1. Acting like you are not somehow racist.
Now, this may be similar to number 3, but I’ll level with you, my melanin impaired brother or sister, I am racist. I KNOW I am racist. Being racist as a white person is like genital warts. You may not be showing it today, but you carry it with you all time.
However, like any person afflicted with a disease, that part is not your fault.
The part that is your fault is not getting “tested,” not “treating the disease” or even not acknowledging this disease exists. What you must do - and don’t gimme any lip about “I’m not obligated,” trust me, ya are - is to manage and cure this awful plague that gets my fellow Americans murdered in the streets.
The reason why you have a responsibility – at the minimum – to not be racist is because this is America. Yeah, life’s not fair, yeah you need to be your own person, but racism is you actively making life harder for other people for no goddamned reason.
Do not point to more obviously racist persons or entities and say “Well, I’m not as racist as that.” That’s not having a standard, that’s making an excuse. Being not as racist as the Ku Klux Klan isn’t an achievement, it’s merely the average that’s why they are called “extremists.”
*It's white supremacy
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