Teachers in an Illinois high school were bemused to be given a list of racist things they were guilty of, and on the taxpayer’s dime to boot. You’re probably guilty too, so grab a pencil and jot these things down; they are terrible crimes against humanity:
- Snow shoveling (which we covered last week)
- Public education, which is “based on a foundation of whiteness”
- Being white
- Spiritually murdering high-school students
- Using the phrase “Make America Great Again,” which is a dog whistle used by KKK members that really means the n‑word
- Columbus Day
- White privilege, white fragility, white culture, whiteness
- Any form of school discipline: Suspension, detention, extra homework, zero tolerance for, well, anything (does that mean students can start bringing guns to school?)
- And finally, treating everyone with respect
Wait, what? Treating all people with respect is racist?
Yep. Stay with me here: A racist person treats folks non-white people differently than other white people (and by the way: Only white folks can be racist. If you’re not white but you hate white people because they’re white, that’s not racism).
So if you treat everyone equitably and identically regardless of race, you’re not racist, right?
Wrong! If you aren’t thinking, saying, or doing anything racist, you’re still racist. You have to be anti-racist before you can say you aren’t racist.
Bottom line:
- If you’re white, you have white privilege, which means
- You’re part of the systemic and institutional racism that pervades, well, everything, and because of that
- You’re loaded with unconscious bias, which means
- You’re racist but you don’t know it. Therefore
- You’re a slave owner, even though slavery has been illegal since 1865, and
- There’s nothing you can do about any of it.
Yep! It’s like The Matrix: Racism is everywhere, but it’s also nowhere.
It’s not totally hopeless, though: If you hire a WWP, at great expense, to scold you for a couple hours, and then you make hefty donations to the WWP or some other person or organization authorized to grant absolution, you’re…
…well, you’re still racist. But we’ll pretend you aren’t, as soon as your check clears, and right up to the point at which we’re going to need another hefty donation.