The voices of enraged white guys like me are echoing from every artificial wall of social media and blogs (like this one). White people are pissed. I’d caution against taking any of them at face value.
After all, our disgust at the current state of racial affairs in this country still hasn’t had us own up to having benefited from decades of American oppression we now protest against.
This hypocrisy is why I say to be wary of the white guy.
Yes, beware of the white guy who cries when he hears George Floyd’s pleas on the news, but has never had a black voice at his family’s dinner table.
Beware of the white guy that pulls up in front of his safe, suburban home after attending the Black Lives Matter protest and doesn’t feel shamed that redlining prevented generations of black people the ability to do the same until the late 1970’s.
I’d caution anyone to beware of the white guy that understands the massive wage gap between blacks and whites, but claims that, by virtue of his hard work alone, he is closer to the American Dream.
Be wary of the white guy that shakes his fist at the over-policing of traditional black neighborhoods, but assumes most of the crime happens there. That white guy is damn glad he doesn’t live there.
Beware of the white guy whose office is adorned with Martin Luther King’s powerful words, but whose kids don’t understand that Dr. King’s dream was born 100 years after slavery was abolished. This white guy certainly doesn’t know that segregated schools existed in Mississippi as recently as 2016.
Beware of the white guys raising black kids that generate self-esteem for having saved their kids from the circumstances they were born into – thank God this boy will have the same advantages that we enjoy.
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Someday we will come around. And, when we do – by owning our personal responsibility in racism, when we teach our kids about the REAL history of this imperfect nation, when we call each other out for uncouth jokes, when we hang out with other dudes that don’t look like us, when we demand that systems set up to give to some and not to all are as racist as the N-word itself – we will truly be friends and neighbors.
White dudes like me can help.
We have to.
We want to – and I know how to start.
The next time you need a haircut, all white dudes NEED to go to a black (or brown) barber shop – where time doesn’t exist and only opinions do; where you don’t tell your stylist what you want, they tell you; where any white dude will enter an unsure stranger and leave a brother.
Getting a fresh cut doesn’t right the wrongs of the past. It sure as hell doesn’t solve the deep issues that exist between minority communities and the police forces that brutalize them. A barber can not shape more inclusive legislation.
The barber shop does, though, unapologetic-ally demand opinions, fosters pointed discussions and forces one to build the fortitude to violently disagree without hate, vengeance or hurt.
When a white guy walks into a black barber shop, they fully own their identity – the good and bad, the known and assumed.
Beware of the white guy that won’t.
