You have not or will never see me say all whites have it easy. But no whites have faced the racism whites put on others. Now that is a fact and not an excuse. And the Great Society has not spent trillions on blacks. I am a black man and have lived as a black man and will die a black man. I have worked in the black community with people dealing with serious problems. And when you get down in the trenches to find out the cause, you find that it is rooted in white racism. Now as you are white and seem to think racism is a simple thing, let me help you understand what it really is.
Racism is a form of abusive behavior based upon the belief in the superiority of you race. This abuse involves, physical, psychological, emotional, plus there were especially in the past, sexual abuse.
“Bryant-Davis and Ocampo (2005) noted similar courses of psychopathology between rape victims and victims of racism. Both events are an assault on the personhood and integrity of the victim. Similar to rape victims, race-related trauma victims may respond with disbelief, shock, or dissociation, which can prevent them from responding to the incident in a healthy manner. The victim may then feel shame and self-blame because they were unable to respond or defend themselves, which may lead to low self-concept and self-destructive behaviors. In the same study, a parallel was drawn between race-related trauma victims and victims of domestic violence. Both survivors are made to feel shame over allowing themselves to be victimized. For instance, someone who may have experienced a racist incident may be told that if they are polite, work hard, and/or dress in a certain way, they will not encounter racism. When these rules are followed yet racism persists, powerlessness, hyper vigilance, and other symptoms associated with PTSD may develop or worsen (Bryant-Davis & Ocampo, 2005).”
Racism must be looked upon as what it is if there is ever going to be a true and logical reduction in the behavior. This is mainly due to white refusal to accept that certain behaviors done by nonwhites are caused by white racism. But if you study abuse, it has been shown that specific types of abuse can cause different types behaviors ether positive or negative. We must go beyond the simpleton view of racism which has been largely manufactured by whites to allow them to escape the reality of the complete damage whites have done to those they imposed the system of white supremacy upon.
I have held all types of conversations in social and other settings about race as well as the impact of racism from the perspective of being black. What I discovered is that a lot of whites really don’t have much of a clue about what racism really is and what it can do to a person. For example, you try explaining to a white person that blacks riot in their communities because of white racism and the first thing you hear is, ’Come on man white racism did not cause that.” Now here we have a person who has not experienced the first second of what racism does to a person talking about what they believe cannot happen.
Yet if you talk to this same person about child abuse, sexual abuse or other types of abuses, they are more than able to talk about the behaviors that can result. But racism, well that’s just something you can easily get beyond. Meanwhile every other abuse is a lifelong struggle for the person who must deal with it.
There has been tremendous psychological damage caused to nonwhites because of the racist policies and individual actions by whites in America and worldwide. But what some whites seem to think is that racism is simple and that it carries no psychological consequences to those who are the victims of it. And they do so because they see nonwhites coping the best way they can with it. Secondly, they tend to look at things from only the white perspective, meaning that when they see blacks acting violent they look at it from the white perspective meaning they never factor in the damage at every level caused by past and continuing white racism.
“On occasion, the emotional weight of racism can lead African Americans to engage in maladaptive coping, such as remaining in denial, engaging in substance use, aggression, self-blame – even in extreme cases suicide (i.e., Black Lives Matter activist Marshawn McCarrel) and terrorism (i.e., Dallas shooter Micah Xavier Johnson). These responses are harmful and lead to negative, long-term consequences.”
Monnica T. Williams Ph.D.
All whites see is the end result then they try judging us. Our culture gets blamed for what white racism has done to us as people and if we try even mentioning that white racism is a problem we get messages like what you have posted. Criticism is fine but lies are not. There are no excuses to be made for negative behaviors, but what you need to understand as a white person is that these negative behaviors will not stop until the root cause for that behavior stops.
