I don’t usually do this but...
After these past few weeks, especially after the tragic deaths of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota, then the shootings in Dallas, my heart is heavy. I’ve had the opportunity to reflect on these events with a lot of different friends, and as one of them pointed out, maybe it’s something that we’re affected enough to talk about it, almost compulsively, trying to make sense of it because with all of the violence that we’ve been witnessing in the media lately it’s hard not to become desensitized.
However, in one of the conversations I was having with a co-worker recently, in which we were kind of jumping around but generally talking about the Black Lives Matter movement at one point, I brought up the powerful Jesse Williams BET speech, thinking (naively) that generally most people saw that speech for what it was--moving, relevant, empowered, educated, and courageous--and yet, this co-worker, who is a very kind person, pointed out that she felt the speech had less impact because Jesse Williams is both Black and White, he is mixed race, biracial, whatever you want to call it. I was really caught off guard when she implied that his voice and his speech were incapable of representing Black people because he was only “half Black.” As someone who is also mixed race and biracial, I was dumbfounded. How much blood does it take to make me or Jesse Williams fully human?
I don’t know what to do with this conversation. I don’t know if this co-worker has really ever thought about the rabbit-hole she is actually referring to when she implies that a person’s ability to represent and speak on behalf of a racial or ethnic minority is dependent on the “purity” of their blood. I don’t think most White people have to think about this, I’m guessing it never comes up. But there isn’t a day in my life that I am not questioned about my heritage and the legitimacy of my presence in a place, the degree to which I belong. And I wonder, in what space would she allow me to speak? Am I only allowed to have views that represent a fraction of myself? Can I represent and voice my whole self in a public space without my racial heritage being brought into question? The answer is, probably not. But why can’t Jesse Williams speak as a Black man? I am guessing from the way he represents himself, the way he articulates his experience, that he definitely knows what it is to be a Black man in the United States. It’s interesting that a White person gets to question his “Blackness.” Who gets to be the authority on “Blackness” and the legitimacy of someone else’s “Blackness”? Apparently White people. Where Whiteness is the measure of what it means to be a person, I guess even degrees of “Whiteness” and “Blackness” are ways in which systemic oppression is subtly perpetuated.
On a final note, may I say how heartbreaking it is to experience this kind of subtly expressed racism from a coworker that I otherwise like and respect? I really think it’s the very fact that this kind of racism, so ubiquitous, (but expressed in what I believe is utter ignorance) is responsible for the kind of sentiments that are behind the current state of extreme xenophobia and paranoia that is haunting the US and the current election. It’s really horrifying that someone I work with, in education no less, has these beliefs, speaks these beliefs, and I’m assuming has either no idea about the full implications of her beliefs, or is aware of them and still believes them.
I could write a whole lot more about the burden of responsibility and difficulty of confronting everyday ignorance and/or racism, especially while trying to navigate the delicate White fragility, but honestly, I’m tired of this. My point is best summarized in what Jesse Williams said during that revolutionary speech:”... the burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander — that’s not our job, alright? Stop with all that. If you have a critique for our resistance, then you’d better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest in equal rights for Black people, then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down.”
Thank you Jesse Williams.
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