#so brownie points for going with a healthy outlet first i guess?

[bippityboppitybibuck]

I know this post will likely go no where but in the midst of everything happening in the news (especially with coverage going down on the protests) and the understanding that not being racist isn’t enough and that we all must be anti racist and the fact that white people are raised into a society that is inherently racist and as such we internalize things we don’t even realize and then have to actively go about unlearning those things, I felt like I had a story I could share.

I am white, and middle class, and who at the time of this stories events identified as a straight, cis woman, who was considered neurotypical.

I was 15, in tenth grade, in a good school with a good group of friends, I was the poster child for ‘healthy upbringing’.

I had also had twitter for about a year. Through Twitter I learned what the n-word was, I have no memory of knowing it before that age (something that is a direct result of my privilege). Though twitter had taught me the word it didn’t teach me its meaning. For a long time it was just another word for me. However I eventually came across the “what is your first memory of being discriminated against” post where POC retweeted with their stories of being called atrocious names at an age where I was dealing with nothing more than not understanding why my friends liked Barbie dolls but I liked plastic dinosaurs.

Of course as you could probably guess the N-word was a common part of that thread. I believe that was the first time I realized the word was far more damaging than twitter had led me to believe. For context this happened almost 7 years ago in early 2014 possibly even late 2013. If you remember anything about the twittersphere for teens in 2013/14 you understand what I am talking about in this story.

One day at school I was with my friend at our lockers getting our books, I have no idea what we were talking about but at one point I thought it right to use the n-word, I didn’t though, I got as far as ni- before I switched the word and said my friends name (her name started the same way). I can’t say with certainty why I thought it was right to say the word. It’s easy to blame it on the content I was exposed to on twitter, but I stopped myself from saying and that proves that I already knew it was not a word I should say (not as in it was a curse word equivalent of fuck or shit because I was already saying those).

I’m not writing this to get brownie points for being a ‘good white person’ and not saying the word, I’m writing this to show any white person who thinks they are above the system we were raised in that you aren’t.

I’m a vocal proponent of the black lives matter movement, (despite my location) I march in gun control marches, I march in women’s rights marches and I attend pride with a sign that reminds people that we didn’t always have the freedom we have now. I vote so far left I’m essentially a socialist, I advocate for proper representation in the media for all underrepresented and marginalized groups, I do this and more.

I have spent years unlearning my bias, unlearning the engrained influences that the media I grew up on instilled in me (POC are always the bad guys, mug shots for POC and family portraits for white people- trying to convince me that POC are inherently more dangerous) the fact that this happens shouldn’t be news to anyone because this tactic is in every single facet of media that you can see in normal cable, satellite, the internet. It’s disseminated through everything, you have been exposed to it from infancy (all of your books featured white characters didn’t they? Even that is part of this system)

I took the time to understand what I had been raised in and how it hurt communities that I valued, for some it may start as an understanding that it hurts a friend instead of realizing the broad and overarching scale of the damage done. And I may be putting my foot in my mouth with this but as long as it starts somewhere right? (this is in the same vein as understanding women shouldn’t be harassed but only because you have a daughter, no woman should be harassed no matter her relation to you- you shouldn’t examine your biases because you have a black or brown friend no POC deserves to be a victim of your bias but if having that friend causes you to examine it all a little harder then at least you are examining it).

I knew at the time that the word wasn’t one for me to use at least to some degree, and yet I was going to use it. My friend asked me about right after, wondering if I was about to say the n word and I said no, because in that moment I knew that it was so far past wrong for me to say it that I was ashamed I almost had.

To any white person reading this, you are not above how we were raised, you are not above the system that overwhelming benefits you and those like you. My parents did a hell of a job raising me, but I know they were raised into the same world, and I know that because of that, biases they hold/held were projected onto me as a child, it takes time to unlearn everything, for anyone who suffers/ed from internalized misogyny who has also gone about unlearning it, sometimes you slip up and think that a woman wearing revealing clothes is below you because she’s a ‘slut’ and you know that when that thought crosses your mind you stop it in its tracks and reevaluate.

It is a never ending process, and it is one you must engage in. Listen to black voices, listen to brown voices. Engage in black and brown spaces but understand that it is not a place for you to look for a damn pat on the back for not being a racist, it is not a time to get on a soapbox and wax about how not racist you are - don’t make it about you, you are there to learn that is all. I am a white person I can not speak on what they have experienced at the hands of a system I have taken for granted all my life. If anyone is wondering I have never said the n-word, not in songs, not in memes I’ve read aloud, not ever.

In the same way a man who has never assaulted a woman isn’t somehow an exceptional man I am not an exceptional white person for never saying that word. It is the bare minimum for you to not use the words that are so often hurled at POC as insults, insults that have centuries of history of oppression and genocide behind them. This goes for any word of that caliber, any. They are not yours to use, if you hear someone say them that does not give you a pass to say them as well, if you see a person who shouldn’t be using them use them make it known that that shit doesn’t fucking fly, never has, never will.

Too often we see people apologize for their behaviour only after they’ve received backlash for it. But this only feeds into the system. No one and I do mean no one knows this story except for me, not the friend who was part of it, not my therapist, not a soul. I could have taken this to my grave and no one would be any wiser about it. But that benefits me and me only. And that is part of the problem. Our re-evaluation of our past transgressions shouldn’t come only when people bring it up. Yes you can do it without sharing it like I am but you must do it. It’s one of the first steps into the long long (never ending) process of unlearning things you aren’t even aware you’ve internalized.

It’s 2020, this conversation should have been happening at this scale (in terms of how big it’s been on media outlets) for decades now, but it is happening now, and as such we should all take the time to participate in it.

Hey white people, do me a favour and read this, thanks