After A Whole 51 Years of De Jure “Equality”, America Has Gone Nowhere
Essentially this is going to be a rant from the point of view of a white teenager up to her neck in politics living in a diverse community in the 21st century. You all know where this is going so run while you can.
I’ve crossed the line from indifference to ignorance and now to anger at the way white people handle modern racism. How do we handle it? We don’t.
A Raisin In The Sun is scarily applicable to things I hear about in the news RIGHT NOW. in 2019. The END of 2019. And what’s scarier is the fact that it’s not surprising at all. A lot of us are entirely oblivious to the way that people of color are treated, or we tend to pull a Lindner and write it off as “just the way things are”. Khloe Kardashian declared herself colorblind and people commended her for it; commended her for blatantly and outwardly displaying her ignorance of the strife that people of color STILL EXPERIENCE.
To be clear, I am a minority. I am a member of the LGBT+ community and a female. And as part of a minority, there’s nothing that irks me more than people asking me why my community still needs pride parades, or telling me that, because same sex couples can get married legally, the need for an LGBT+ movement has expired. Men will ask why women are still fighting for equal pay, saying that we “prefer to be home with our children” or that “women are biologically incapable of doing the same work men do and therefore should be paid less, because that’s how it is”.
I knew about those struggles. But being white, I was entirely oblivious to the seemingly perpetual ignorance that people of color experience in America to this day, and because of that I was confused as to why people of color were still fighting. I found myself thinking about things as “now everyone is equal, they’re still fighting and it’s not getting any better so they should stop.”
That’s true. It isn’t getting better. But that’s not because people of color are finally being treated fairly, or given the same opportunities. It’s because they have done everything in their power to improve life in America, and they need the rest of us to recognize their efforts and to join them in fighting for the rights they they have on paper, but not in life. White people will say that people of color “get an inch and take a mile”, but we haven’t even given them the full inch yet. It’s not up to minority groups alone. We begin movements, like the sit-ins or the pride parades. We fight for recognition in our families, friend groups, and schools. What more could we need?
Right now, Pete Buttigieg is the first openly gay man in the presidential election, and I have seen articles declaring that the United States just “isn’t ready” for a gay president. Those people will undoubtedly say that they support him, but that the public is just naturally opposed to having Pete in charge of the country. Those people, like Lindner, are just as racist and homophobic as- never mind i won’t name names.
Anyways, white people, including myself, need to step it up. We need to recognize the extent to which societal racism is rooted deep into the very dirt of land that was tended by African American slaves in the 18th century. It is present in the metal of the scissors used to cut the braids of Native American schoolgirls in the 19th century. It is present in the asphalt onto which the blood of those killed in the riots of 1968 was spilled. We are a country that was founded on, and continuously plagued by racist practices, and because of that, white people need to understand that the only way to eradicate racism is to hold ourselves accountable.
Much like a romance, this effort must be two-sided. Reciprocated. White people cannot leave people of color to do the fighting, to lead the marches, to threaten the lives of their loved ones and of themselves. White people must be willing to take responsibility for what was done by our ancestors, our parents, and likely our own selves. My mom says to me constantly that apologizing does not fix anything. Discontinuing the undesirable actions is what fixes things. We must open our arms to people of color. Take their hands. We must unify as one country, one society, aware of the ever-present difficulties that people of color face and determined to discontinue our racist practices.
In short, i’m disappointed in the efforts of my community to recognize societal racism and to stop it. I could (and would) talk for over 10 hours about how disappointed I am. Sometimes I wish we could just see people as people, but we can’t do that until equal opportunities are provided to everyone. There needs to be a balance between the efforts of POCs and white people, and many ignorant jerks will say that people of color need to take it down a notch because they have their rights. However, it’s not the action taken by of the community of color, it’s the inaction of the white community. It’s unfortunate that many people still don’t recognize that.
I’ve crossed the line from indifference to ignorance and now to anger at the way white people handle modern racism. How do we handle it? We don’t.
A Raisin In The Sun is scarily applicable to things I hear about in the news RIGHT NOW. in 2019. The END of 2019. And what’s scarier is the fact that it’s not surprising at all. A lot of us are entirely oblivious to the way that people of color are treated, or we tend to pull a Lindner and write it off as “just the way things are”. Khloe Kardashian declared herself colorblind and people commended her for it; commended her for blatantly and outwardly displaying her ignorance of the strife that people of color STILL EXPERIENCE.
To be clear, I am a minority. I am a member of the LGBT+ community and a female. And as part of a minority, there’s nothing that irks me more than people asking me why my community still needs pride parades, or telling me that, because same sex couples can get married legally, the need for an LGBT+ movement has expired. Men will ask why women are still fighting for equal pay, saying that we “prefer to be home with our children” or that “women are biologically incapable of doing the same work men do and therefore should be paid less, because that’s how it is”.
I knew about those struggles. But being white, I was entirely oblivious to the seemingly perpetual ignorance that people of color experience in America to this day, and because of that I was confused as to why people of color were still fighting. I found myself thinking about things as “now everyone is equal, they’re still fighting and it’s not getting any better so they should stop.”
That’s true. It isn’t getting better. But that’s not because people of color are finally being treated fairly, or given the same opportunities. It’s because they have done everything in their power to improve life in America, and they need the rest of us to recognize their efforts and to join them in fighting for the rights they they have on paper, but not in life. White people will say that people of color “get an inch and take a mile”, but we haven’t even given them the full inch yet. It’s not up to minority groups alone. We begin movements, like the sit-ins or the pride parades. We fight for recognition in our families, friend groups, and schools. What more could we need?
Right now, Pete Buttigieg is the first openly gay man in the presidential election, and I have seen articles declaring that the United States just “isn’t ready” for a gay president. Those people will undoubtedly say that they support him, but that the public is just naturally opposed to having Pete in charge of the country. Those people, like Lindner, are just as racist and homophobic as- never mind i won’t name names.
Anyways, white people, including myself, need to step it up. We need to recognize the extent to which societal racism is rooted deep into the very dirt of land that was tended by African American slaves in the 18th century. It is present in the metal of the scissors used to cut the braids of Native American schoolgirls in the 19th century. It is present in the asphalt onto which the blood of those killed in the riots of 1968 was spilled. We are a country that was founded on, and continuously plagued by racist practices, and because of that, white people need to understand that the only way to eradicate racism is to hold ourselves accountable.
Much like a romance, this effort must be two-sided. Reciprocated. White people cannot leave people of color to do the fighting, to lead the marches, to threaten the lives of their loved ones and of themselves. White people must be willing to take responsibility for what was done by our ancestors, our parents, and likely our own selves. My mom says to me constantly that apologizing does not fix anything. Discontinuing the undesirable actions is what fixes things. We must open our arms to people of color. Take their hands. We must unify as one country, one society, aware of the ever-present difficulties that people of color face and determined to discontinue our racist practices.
In short, i’m disappointed in the efforts of my community to recognize societal racism and to stop it. I could (and would) talk for over 10 hours about how disappointed I am. Sometimes I wish we could just see people as people, but we can’t do that until equal opportunities are provided to everyone. There needs to be a balance between the efforts of POCs and white people, and many ignorant jerks will say that people of color need to take it down a notch because they have their rights. However, it’s not the action taken by of the community of color, it’s the inaction of the white community. It’s unfortunate that many people still don’t recognize that.
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