Even the best person does bad things. The shame is in not telling the truth about those things. The damage results from the keeping of those secrets.
Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency, I’ve watched and listened as White Americans feign shock and surprise that this is the America we live in. We seem to have become experts at looking at reality and detaching it thoroughly from any of our choices and actions. Maybe it comes so easily to us because we’ve had generations to perfect our skillfully crafted artifice.
I was nine years old when my father shamelessly screamed at the car radio, ‘if they don’t like it, they can just go back to where they came from.” I knew then that his words were hateful and wrong. I knew that he was a racist. I knew the word. I knew what it meant.
I knew in high school that the war on drugs wasn’t about my drug habit or my brother’s thriving drug dealing business. I knew that those laws were racist. I knew they were intended for Black and Brown Americans.
I knew when I was in college and the debates over pending three strikes laws led every news cycle, that those laws were racist.
Deep down I knew. But I allowed myself to be distracted and lied to. Worse yet, I allowed myself to believe that the White men leading our government, running our corporations, sitting on our school boards, and overseeing our police departments didn’t know.
I let myself believe that everything was fine. Everything was getting better. We were progressing as a country, as human beings, as Americans. That’s the great con. That’s the lie that has brought us to this point. That’s White supremacy in action. That’s my part in it. That’s my truth.
We all come at it differently. But we all ended up accepting the same lies. I believed the Democratic Party when they said they would represent the interests of Black Americans because they told me that they were the good guys. I believed them because my racist family hated them. If those people are on the other side, I reasoned, then this must be my side — the good side.
Still, in 2020 America, our overwhelmingly White male elected officials, corporate leaders, school administrators, and police chiefs continue to deny the truth. We enable them. When it is the good side telling the lies, we let them go unchallenged. We protect our own fantasy world. And we continue to pretend to be surprised by the outcomes.
We say Donald Trump is to blame for what is happening in America.
I say no.
I say it is us, all White Americans, who are responsible. I say it is us who are responsible for the racism in this country — the racist systems that have been killing our Black brothers and sisters and denying them their economic, educational, and political due as American citizens; and the racism that has always existed in our families and neighborhoods, that has been bubbling under the surface for generations just waiting for Donald Trump to take the lid off. That is our truth. And until we admit it, nothing will get better.
I say it is us who ignored the injustices perpetrated against our Black and Brown brothers and sisters as long as we felt safe and our pockets were being lined.
I say it is us who allowed Donald Trump’s America to manifest every time we ignored the racist joke our parent, or sibling, or coworker, or teacher told.
I say it us who are responsible for the entitled White men and boys proudly displaying symbols of hate, walking our streets with guns, and killing people.
I say it is us who are responsible for the children in cages and the families ripped apart.
I say it is us who are to blame for the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and every other Black American murdered by the racist system we’ve allowed to fester because all the while we were safe, because we were being served and protected.
I say it is us who allowed all of this to happen when we voted over and over and over again for leaders at all levels of government who unleashed and propped up powerful corporations and repeatedly cut any ties meant to hold them in check or make them accountable.
I say it is us who should be ashamed. And that the only way out of our shame is to admit what we’ve done and try with all our might to do better.
I say that the only way out is to listen to and believe our Black brothers and sisters.
The only way out is to do what we’re told without asking for credit.
The only way out is to follow without seeking acknowledgement.
The only way out is to learn without becoming defensive.
The only way out is to try, and when we fail, because we will, to get up and try again.
For any real change to take hold, a bright light must shine on the truth. And while our Black and Brown brothers and sisters are the only ones who can lead us out of the mess we’ve created, it is on us to tell our truth. They can’t do that for us.
It doesn’t matter if we meant to do it.
It doesn’t matter if we are good people.
It doesn’t matter if we were ignorant.
It doesn’t matter if we were taught wrong.
It doesn’t matter if we were willful in our complicity or were duped by the con.
All that matters is that we stop pointing to anyone we can label as “them” as the source of this country’s problems.
My White brothers and sisters, you don’t have to accept blame for Donald Trump’s America. But you must accept responsibility for it.
We all have to find a way to look inward and finally say, “I am responsible.”
Say it. Say it now.
