To all my fellow white folks who use the phrase Not All White People (NAWP):
Do you have trouble when people won’t call you an ally simply because you say you are? Do you get upset when you hear “white people” in conversation & then feel the need to distance yourself from the nasty parts of whiteness? Wow, my loves. That is not how this works.
Let me break this down.
After centuries of trauma & hardship, Black, Brown, Indigenous & Melanated (BBIM) people (especially Black people) are speaking their truth, & frankly, they have every right to say that white folks are pretty fucking terrible overall. After countless harms & betrayals over generations, every person who isn’t white has every right to look at every one of us with mistrust. If you feel badly about being lumped into some big, white monolithic group, just imagine how it must feel for anyone marginalized to have dealt with the same (& far, far worse) for generations.
BBIM people have watched you benefit from systems built to hold back, harm & even kill their people & their cultures. They’ve had to fight for their very survival & are still fighting to this day to be seen as actual human beings because of who, again? Are you catching my drift?
They've watched as, generation after generation, the vast majority of white folks either actively try to harm them or passively look away from injustice. Still other white folks resort to bullshite sayings like "just cooperate", "be nicer", "try harder", "get over it" or even worse - "I didn’t do that to you, don't blame me". And now, in the 2024 US election, white people have once again demonstrated that they don’t believe Black lives matter. POTUS-elect no. 47 is a self-avowed Hitler fanboy, with a cabinet of die-hard bigots behind him. How the hell would you expect BBIM folks (& other marginalized groups) to react??
Sure, you as a white person may not have caused terrible historical harm, but even if you’ve been kind &/or voted for the right candidates &/or been an outright civil rights activist, you don't get to choose when to/not to associate yourself with whiteness. Is your identity really so fragile that you always need to hear “oh, but you’re one of the good ones” ? If it’s always about you & your feelings when someone else is trying to voice their trauma, I recommend seeking professional help. That level of fragility & self-centeredness ain’t healthy.
In the end, it's up to white folks to calmly put on our big kid pants & learn to understand & own the many facets of our whiteness, as individuals & as a group. Only then will we be able to grow beyond whiteness, help make a better world & become truly worthy of the title of ally.
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