There was a guy called Joshua Solomon in 1999. He changed himself from black to white
This is him.
He was one of those tough talking white dudes "black people get hand outs" "black people need to stop whining"
He grew up in Maryland. He had black friends and did not believe them.
So what did he do ? He went to a doctor who gave him pills to turn his white skin brown. He shaved the hair off his head but dressed the same, acted the same, talked the same. He had the same money and education. It was just his brown skin and bald head that were different.
After one week he was done.
Even though he was going to do it for about four months and visit different parts of the country.
As a white man he looks and smiles at white people and they smile back. But as a Black man whites look away, lock their doors, assume he is dangerous or up to no good.
The police would stop him even though he was just walking down the street minding his own business.
Restaurants would tell him they were full, even when they were not, restaurants where nearly everyone sitting down was – White.
White respect and friendliness that he took for granted was gone. Instead Whites regarded him with disdain, even fear. He met a homeless White man, blond hair, blue eyes, who had almost nothing in this world: even he looked down on Blacks.
By his second day in he was in tears (Yup - This big brave hard talking white man)
Oprah did a programme about it.
And the thing is. That’s the easier part of racism. As I say, real racism is when you can deny people jobs, housing, health care, decent educations, or their physical freedom via the justice system, thereby wrecking their lives and that’s something this guy avoid, instead fell apart at the first hurdle.
This is why it goes in one ear and out the other when people try to shame black people for speaking about racism. They can't handle racism for a minute
Not to mention that one would think that dealing with poverty, racism, crumbling schools and dilapidated housing, as is common for some (Not all) black people would be pretty stressful.
Yet why is it whites who are more likely to drink alcohol, use drugs, or smoke cigarettes ?
It's their lack of coping skills.
Not to romanticize racism or but what many studies show is that the folks ppl have been taught to fear have more self-control b-coz as the old saying goes, the fish tends to rot from the head down.