Dear Black People

Three things I’d like you to know

We’ve always been in this together. [Image by Anja from Pixabay]

I’ve been reading the things you’d like to tell white people. The lists aren’t long. They don’t ask much of us. Just stop acting like what The Root journalist Michael Harriott calls “Wypipo” — a meme for whites who, by their actions and words, display the snuggly-wrapped, cozy cocoon of white privilege.

The purpose of this list isn’t to refute, on the one hand, the truths I’ve read over the past two weeks. On the other hand, I don’t aim to tack on to and appropriate the requests of black people so that I can show how woke I am.

I’m not. I’m just an ordinary white person with a few friends, some of whom are black. As a not-very-likeable person anyway, I don’t have many friends, but still. No, the purpose of this list is just to share things I think you should know. (As if you don’t already, just saying.)

1. Most likely, I will not really understand “black culture.” There are two reasons for this. One, I am not black, so it stands to reason. Two, I don’t even understand my own English-Scots-German heritage, so my insight into culture is limited anyway. I mean, haggis? But here’s the point. I don’t have to understand black culture to know racism is wrong, all the time and everywhere. I just have to be a breathing person.
2. It is not your responsibility to help me understand black culture. You are not the Tour Guide in the All Things Black museum. You may be nice enough to tell me about things in a way that deepens my appreciation of them but it’s not required. [For example, dear reader, ask a member of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church about its origins. It is an amazing story and will also inform your understanding of Charleston.]
3. You don’t have to be grateful when I do appreciate elements of black culture. You don’t owe me anything if I like rap music, or understand “Letters from a Birmingham Jail”. It doesn’t make me special and you don’t have to act as if it does. It also doesn’t mean anything about my ability to appreciate anything else. See #1 above.

It is a feature of white privilege (or “white advantage” if you’re Wypipo) to act as if black culture is something that needs to be explained, or if, somehow, understanding black people would help them stop being racist. Making you beholden for our understanding is racist in and of itself.

In closing, I’d like to paraphrase the great Stevie Wonder:

Lovers, keep on lovin’. Believers, keep on believin’. Wypipo, stop wypipoin’ Cause it won’t be too long.

Oh, no.

Till we reach the highest ground.