I was reluctant to sign up for this blog project. Lots of reasons, but three big ones:
- I’m a middle-aged, middle-class, middle-American white guy. What do I know about race?
- For a guy like me, talking about race is like running blindfolded and barefoot through a field full of cow poo. You’re probably going to step in something.
- What’s the point? Why would a racist ever read a blog about racism?
We’re about six months in now. I’ve spent dozens of hours reading about race, talking about race, and surfing some of the darkest corners of the internet to see some of the craziest opinions you’ve ever heard on race.
Ten things I’ve learned so far:
- Almost no one sees themselves as racist.
- White supremacy is not just a belief system held by wing-nuts in Northern Idaho. It is a social and societal reality in most Western countries. Intentional or not.
- There’s no such thing as the “black point of view.”
- I don’t know if minorities can be racist, but they can certainly be ignorant and hateful.
- The Pope is right.
- Fun experiment: Ask three whites and three blacks what they thought about Al Sharpton’s comments at Michael Jackson’s funeral.
- Very few people (perhaps including this site’s steadily-shrinking list of bloggers) are interested in carrying on an ongoing, balanced conversation about race.
- The Republicans I know are kind and decent people who see racism as either ignorant or evil. That is not exactly the impression one gets from Republican media, leadership or activists.
- There is an inherent weight in being a minority that whites can never truly understand. It is this idea of otherness, and for many I have talked to, it is heartbreakingly heavy.
- Kids are about the only ones who get it right.
