White America, It’s Not Always About You
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Feb 9, 2016
It's Black History Month again, and this is the first post on this blog where I'm mentioning it. It might be the last; it might not be. Doesn't really matter since I'm liable to talk about race relations and diversity issues all times during the year. It's time to talk about it now; let's see how many people I scare this time around.
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As most people know by now, one of the performers at this year's Super Bowl was Beyonce. As always, it was quite the performance, a great routine with background dancers, and along with Bruno Mars and a group I'd never heard of called Coldplay, they all made halftime pretty enjoyable.
Then came Monday morning, and, in my opinion, the most irrelevant man in America who keeps saying some of the stupidest things, especially as it relates to race, had to have his say; to whit:
"I thought it was really outrageous that she used it as a platform to attack police officers who are the people who protect her and protect us, and keep us alive,†he said. “What we should be doing in the African-American community, and all communities, is build up respect for police officers."
No, he wasn't kidding. On his own, he was able to take a dance routine and turn it into a racial issue and, of course, an attack on the police... again. He keeps doing this sort of thing, as he had something to say about the #BlackLivesMatter campaign when it formed in Ferguson MO and once again when an unarmed black man was killed in NYC. It's never the fault of the police; it's always the fault of black people in his eyes.
About 5 1/2 years ago I wrote a post here titled It’s Always About Race. In that article, I said that all one had to do was search Google for the phrase “it’s not always about race†and you’ll find that every entry was written by someone who’s not a person of color. I'm not sure if that still true today, especially since I mentioned it in that post so it has to come up somewhere along the line (it actually comes up at position #57).
So, if it's not about race then why is it only white people are writing about it? For that matter, why is it that every time they start writing about it they have to mention their "black friend"? If it's not about race, isn't it just another friend of theirs?
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It's probably been said by others already but it's now my turn to say this; white America, it's not always about you. This article is only partially about you, but it's mainly for you on purpose. Let me educate just a little bit if I may...
When the musical The Wiz came out last year on NBC, I was watching it while participating on Twitter using the hashtags #TheWiz and #BlackTwitter. Overall we were enjoying ourselves. Yet we kept getting interrupted by stupid statements that kept bordering on this: "How come there aren't any white people in The Wiz? Isn't that racist?"
Really? Folk wanted to call out The Wiz for this false thing known as reverse racism? Did black people complain when there were no minority faces in Sound of Music? Were there a lot of black faces in last week's Grease, or any at all (I ask since I didn't see it)?
When the nominations for the Academy Awards came out, there were a lot of complaints about the lack of diversity in them. People came out of the woodworks to have their say, and some people were using as a defense "You have the BET Awards that never have anyone white nominated." That turned out to be untrue because not only have white acts been nominated but have often won.
Once that argument was lost it switched to "well, you have BET." Let's see... there are 2 channels geared towards black people in America, both of which are owned by white companies. First of all, there are more channels in the states geared towards Asian and Hispanic viewers than black people, though I don't know who owns them. Second, combine all the networks in this country geared towards minorities and it still comes to less than .5% of the market. This is something to complain about?
Back in September I wrote a post talking about what I called guilt by word association, where I talked about the concept where people read or see something, assume it's about them, and feel compelled to argue against it by saying they're not like that when all they had to do was ignore it if it had nothing to do with them. I often feel the topic of race is the same.
Look, I'll own up to the fact that everyone reacts to things that may not have anything to do with them at one time or another. We either react to the way something is written if it's written badly or we have our own interpretations of what we've just seen.
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I remember my first day at the high school in the town where I now live, starting my junior year after moving here from Maine, and having a kid call me a "brownie". After I went after him and a bunch of other kids grabbed me to keep me from hurting him, the explained what that meant at that school; not a racial term at all... for them. I learned over the next couple of years that this school used a few other terms that I knew were racial epithets elsewhere, but at this school they had totally different meanings and none of the kids knew the other meanings.
That's what can happen when schools, or businesses, aren't diverse enough to know better. Yet, when you bring it up, instead of folks understanding why they maybe should think about their choice of language, they turn it around and blame you for instigating things. Absolution of guilt by making yourself the victim... ties back in to Guiliani in my opinion.
Let me try to clear this up before I go. The #BlackLivesMatter movement isn't about white people. The protest against the Oscars isn't about white people. Beyonce's dance wasn't about white people... or even cops! Muslims trying to live in peace or, gasp, who might decide to run for political office isn't about white people. Undocumented aliens coming to this country looking for work that, strangely enough, white people don't want, isn't about white people. Refugees fleeing countries that are at war that, gasp, turned out to NOT mainly be Muslim, isn't about white people.
None of it is about you. Please, PLEASE, stop making other people's problems about you. If you want to help, do so. If not, don't. Just stop protecting yourselves from something that has nothing to do with you. Might it affect your life? Probably not unless you're on the lowest rungs of society already.
If a minority gets a job you didn't, it's possible that they were just a better fit or candidate than you were instead of "trying to hold the white man down", as someone who was part of a crew doing work on my house happened to say without realizing I was in earshot. Someone who happened to be part of a crew of 7 young men... all white.
But I didn't complain...
I applaud this article but it won’t make a bit of difference. America and its history really prevents most of us from truly being able to appreciate anybody else’s opinion or experience. I was told recently that it is easier for a black writer to get work in Hollywood than a white writer when I know for a fact –based on all of the statistics provided by Hollywood institutions–that it isn’t true. But because of the success of Shonda Rhimes and Lee Daniels people all of a sudden think two black people in Hollywood are taking all the white guy’s jobs. That simply isn’t true. So, it all boils down to perception. If people believe something is about them, then that is their reality. Few of us are able to step outside of ourselves long enough to appreciate anybody else’s opinion.
Great share Yasmin. I know the phrase “perception is reality” is pretty good most of the time, but there are instances where it’s just so far left of correct that it’s disturbing. It’s like people saying all black people have the same opportunities to be rich because of Oprah… who’s still only one of 12 black billionaires… which I’ll accept because there used to only be one.
You so scary, Mitch.(Not.)
My only comment about Beyonce and â€Formation†was expressed in a share on Twitter the other day, from a blogger who reluctantly jumped in with some thoughts on it that pretty well covered (and went well beyond) mine: radfag.com/2016/02/10/my-apparently-obligatory-response-to-formation-in-list-form/
I do think you’re wrong (to some degree) in saying that these things aren’t about white people. Would these issues exist without white people? No? Then you have to involve white people and say â€Yeah, this really is about you, too, and how what you do hurts us and affects us.†Because as you pointed out about the kids at school, some don’t know. And SOMETIMES, they have no reason to know, no way to know, unless you tell them. You can say, â€It’s not my JOB to educate white folks,†and you’re RIGHT, but I’d argue that sometimes that attitude isn’t helpful in effecting change. You say â€it’s not about you†and that just tells many people â€you’re off the hook.â€
Here’s another thing, when it comes to slang terms and regional insults – when a group invents slang, it’s usually SPECIFICALLY to keep people on the outside in the dark. So those of us on the outside of a group cannot be expected to magically discern the in-group’s meaning. (I’m old enough to remember when â€gay†meant happy and â€queer†meant strange – you cannot expect me to keep up with daily trends in slang. I think that people should always give others the benefit of the doubt – at least once or twice – till it’s clear they don’t deserve it.)
P.S. Have I mentioned lately that your comment system sometimes makes me wonder if it’s even worth it? I hope, by the time I get your bouncer to let me post, that it has added sixten backslash escape characters to every apostrophe – and I hope you know I didn’t put them there, but I’m not editing them out, either.
First, let me say how brave you are to respond to this post… even if you put it on the wrong post initially. lol
Second, your debate about these issues not existing without white people could just as easily be said about mothers… none of these things would exist if women stopped having babies. You might not like that particular comparison but, I’m sorry, not everything involves white people that black people do, say, or complain about. A protest against the police may or may not be against white people, although truth be told if there was more minority representation in police forces across the country it might minimize some of this (I say that because we have a black chief of police here, who followed a guy who was the first black police chief…).
Actually, I didn’t think my words were letting anyone off the hook; it certainly wasn’t my intention. My intention was to say that if folk are freaking out about something and it doesn’t pertain to them, they have a bigger problem than they realize. Maybe their minds aren’t in the proper place. There’s no need to jump in and say “it’s not how I feel” because, truthfully, that doesn’t help advance the conversation one bit. Don’t remake the issues others have as a way to assuage your guilt and make it about you and what “we” need to do to make you feel better. That was the point of the article, the point of the words “it’s not about you.” How Guiliani sees a protest against killing black kids an attack on white people in general… please!
I do agree with you on slang, but it’s also a young people thing. If I didn’t know enough young people to ask what some of the newer terms meant I’d be totally lost.
Did I post it on the wrong post? See? I read your stuff – lots of your stuff – and fortunately we understand one another well enough that you knew where I MEANT to put it and fixed it for me! Thank you, Mitch.
No, I get what you mean. I think that saying “It’s not aimed at YOU, dammit – but if you THINK it is, maybe it should’ve been!” might make more sense, if you’re talking about people getting defensive and weird about stuff that really has NOTHING to do with them. I wasn’t hearing it in the exasperated tone of, “For the fiftieth time, I’m not talking ABOUT you, but about all those other folks this IS about.”
That happened with the backlash from #YesAllWomen, too. There was an immediate countering (from both men and women) with #NotAllMen (duhhh!) and it seemed like some of those folks were less about sticking up for good men than about being defensive and trying to turn it around and blame women for whatever their issues were with men. Or trying to get them to shut up about it by making them out to be whiny b******.
But when I see “It’s not about you” I tend to hear a certain tone – I tend to think of the song, “I’ll Bet You Think This Song is About You” – implying that I want to bring the spotlight onto me, me, me and make myself the center of attention. Nothing could be farther from the truth (for me). So my reaction goes something like, “Okay, then I’ll just take myself on out of the conversation, so sorry to have butted in…” And as a communicator, I think conversations are necessary and valuable.
The truth is, you shouldn’t need white people protesting disproportionate police violence against black people, because that disproportionate violence shouldn’t exist in the first place. And when it does, black voices should be ENOUGH without needing the added vote from white folks. Wrong is wrong. But if the world worked like it should… well, then, there’d be no problems. So it CONCERNS us, in the sense that “no man is an island” and we’re not off the hook just because we’re not actively discriminating against anyone. “All that’s needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Great points! Diversity definitely isn’t embraced nearly as much as it should be in today’s media, and with the few programs geared toward people of color comes backlash from white viewers.
Which makes absolutely no sense truthfully. Diversity means diversity, not handouts and then complaints. Thanks for your comment Heather.