Today I am inspired by the writer who creates the anonymous Twitter and Facebook accounts called Son of Baldwin (as in James Baldwin). He posted this to Facebook:
You know what I'm tired of?"Black people don't make everything about race. White people made race about everything."
That when a black person shares their experience with casual racism, folks can't wait to come into the discussion to implicate the black person.
"You sure you're just not being too sensitive?"
"How do you know it was racism? You don't know that lady's heart!"
"Why do you have to make everything about race???"
"You sure you're just not misreading the situation? I mean, if you look for racism, you're sure to find it."
Yeah, well, you're sure to find it because, in America, it's ALWAYS THERE.
Like Melissa Harris-Perry said:
"In a nation with the racial history of the United States I am baffled by the idea that non-racism would be the presumption and that it is racial bias which must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. More than 100 years of philosophical, psychological and sociological research that begins, at least, with the work of W.E.B. Du Bois has mapped the deeply entrenched realities of racial bias on the American consciousness. If anything, racial bias, not racial innocence is the better presumption..."
Black people don't make everything about race. White people made race about everything. This is THEIR invention. THEY were the ones who blanketed it over everything living and not. They can't get mad at black people for noticing the blanket. Well, they can get mad; and they can stay mad, but it doesn't at all alter that irrefutable truth....
Racism in America is as pervasive as air, and as natural a response for racists as breathing.
Racists don't even have to think about it. It's automatic.
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