A White Test: Are You A Racist?
Shortly after I joined Google+ in 2014, I decided to help white folks figure out if they were racist by listing traits that might be racist but might not be and those that are definitely racist. I had noticed that whites seemed to be more worried about being called racist than they were about actually being racist. Since I wrote that list when Obama was still President, I used him as a measure of extreme racism. I said that if people thought the only (half)-black President was the worst President ever, that the President who had been raised by his white mother and maternal grandparents hated white people, that the President who had been born in Hawaii and had met his father only twice was a Kenyan or thought like a Kenyan, they should put on their white sheets and pick up a burning cross because they were extremely racist. Three years later, as I have watched people like Hugh Hewitt claim that the man who took out expensive ads in New York newspapers calling for the execution of teenage boys accused of raping an adult white woman (she was badly injured but survived, and they were later exonerated), the man who raised his political profile by falsely accusing Obama of not being born in America, and who opened his political campaign by calling Mexicans rapists and claiming that he would build a wall and make Mexico pay for it is not racist, I have decided that it's time to update my list of "you might be a racist" traits. Although this test is for whites only, nonwhites can use it to decide if they are ignorant self-haters, which would make them even worse than racist white folks.
1) If you use racial slurs, you may be racist or you may just be politically incorrect, a provocateur, a disrupter.
2) If you use subliminally racist language like "black sheep," "dark (meaning corrupt, dirty) money," and "darkness of hate," you may be racist, or you may be brainwashed like the darkest anchor on MSNBC, Joy Reid, who used the first two phrases, and the darkest of the one hundred Senators, Republican Tim Scott, who used the last one to describe white haters. Let's face it, we all use subliminally racist language, so let's turn light into dark; let's follow Richard Wright's lead and make the white cat the scary one.
3) If you are more frightened of unarmed black men than you are of unarmed white men, you may be racist, or you may be brainwashed (see #2) like the black police officers who shoot their unarmed brothers or like a bad-ass black woman (i.e. me) who will stare down a big, mean-looking white man, even if he's bald and has multiple tattoos, but will try to look pleasant if she encounters a big, mean-looking black man and hopes he loves his mother, grandmother, sister, or wife, depending on his age.
4) If you are more frightened of unarmed black men than you are of armed white men, you are racist and a fool. The most dangerous people on earth are armed white men; they are much more dangerous than armed black men. If I see an armed white man coming toward me, look back and see an armed black man (or any other colored man) behind me, I will run toward the black man and hope he will save me from the crazy white man with a gun. If the armed white man is wearing a uniform and the armed black man isn't, that will be a dilemma. I will probably hit the ground and hope they shoot each other.
5) If you picture white folks when you hear the word "American" and nonwhites when you hear the word "foreigner," you are brainwashed, racist, and ignorant. It is 2017 when the white First Lady is foreign and the white President didn't have one grandparent born in America. The previous First Lady was blacker than her half-white husband, but she is more American than he is and is the most American occupant of the White House since George and Laura left.
6) If you picture whites when you think of doctors, lawyers, professors, and politicians and picture blacks or Mexicans when you think of thieves, drug dealers, and rapists, you are as racist as Donald Trump and Gloria Allred and need to watch reruns of Bill Cosby's old eighties show. While you're watching, ask yourself why Cosby went to trial for giving mostly white women drugs, which they took, and then pawing them, while Trump went into the White House after crudely bragging about pawing women. Ask yourself why Cosby gets ostracized by the so-called liberal Hollywood community while Woody Allen, who at the very least (I'm not sure about the child molestation charges; Mia might be nuts too and/or smart enough to know that people would be more bothered by a man who molested his white adopted daughter, so she might have brainwashed that daughter) had sex with and married his Asian surrogate daughter, gets lifetime achievement awards and standing ovations. You can console yourself with the knowledge that you may be racist, but you are among some "fine people."
7) If you can talk about class, religion, politics, gender, and sexuality all day but become tense and grow silent when the conversation turns to race, if you think racism would end if we just stopped talking about it, or if you think Hillary and the Democrats lost in November because they focused too much on race or what you might call "identity politics," you are racist, and you need to stop talking until you stop being racist.
8) If you can understand and sympathize with the anger of the small-town white losers who voted for an insane, incompetent white man because they're upset about their jobs leaving or they don't like the elites who think they're stupid, but you can't understand or sympathize with blacks who are angry that unarmed men and occasionally women and children are being murdered by the people who are supposed to protect and serve them, then you are racist and need to work on your empathy skills.
9) If you voted for an insane bigot because you thought he would stop the browning of America, you are an unpatriotic racist and loser. Trump can't stop the browning of America even if he's successful in banning Muslims, building a wall on our southern border, deporting every undocumented nonwhite person, and increasing the number of nonwhites killed by emboldened cops. America will turn brown, and you will be in the minority. Live with it or die before it happens.
10) If after seven months of chaos, you believe that Donald Trump is a better President than Barack Obama, who is the best President in my lifetime, you are a racist and almost as crazy as Trump is. You are also on the wrong side of history and will be seen as a villain by future generations the way the Nazis and KKK are seen by most of us living today.
White people who are concerned about not being racist should be pleased if they say yes to only the first three traits. If they say yes to only one of traits four through six, they should be worried but not too disturbed. A few weeks of quiet contemplation, watching MSNBC, especially Joy Reid, Ari Melber, and Lawrence O'Donnell (some white folks know how to talk about race), reading some nonwhite writers, and discussing race openly with some nonwhite friends or acquaintances might cure them, wake them up. If they say yes to more than one of those traits or to traits seven and/or eight, they will need more intense therapy, but they can still be saved. Those who say yes to either nine or ten or to all of the traits probably need to join David Duke and the other deplorables in the margins of our society. They cannot be saved. We will have to move forward toward a more perfect union without them.
RIP Dick Gregory.
1) If you use racial slurs, you may be racist or you may just be politically incorrect, a provocateur, a disrupter.
2) If you use subliminally racist language like "black sheep," "dark (meaning corrupt, dirty) money," and "darkness of hate," you may be racist, or you may be brainwashed like the darkest anchor on MSNBC, Joy Reid, who used the first two phrases, and the darkest of the one hundred Senators, Republican Tim Scott, who used the last one to describe white haters. Let's face it, we all use subliminally racist language, so let's turn light into dark; let's follow Richard Wright's lead and make the white cat the scary one.
3) If you are more frightened of unarmed black men than you are of unarmed white men, you may be racist, or you may be brainwashed (see #2) like the black police officers who shoot their unarmed brothers or like a bad-ass black woman (i.e. me) who will stare down a big, mean-looking white man, even if he's bald and has multiple tattoos, but will try to look pleasant if she encounters a big, mean-looking black man and hopes he loves his mother, grandmother, sister, or wife, depending on his age.
4) If you are more frightened of unarmed black men than you are of armed white men, you are racist and a fool. The most dangerous people on earth are armed white men; they are much more dangerous than armed black men. If I see an armed white man coming toward me, look back and see an armed black man (or any other colored man) behind me, I will run toward the black man and hope he will save me from the crazy white man with a gun. If the armed white man is wearing a uniform and the armed black man isn't, that will be a dilemma. I will probably hit the ground and hope they shoot each other.
5) If you picture white folks when you hear the word "American" and nonwhites when you hear the word "foreigner," you are brainwashed, racist, and ignorant. It is 2017 when the white First Lady is foreign and the white President didn't have one grandparent born in America. The previous First Lady was blacker than her half-white husband, but she is more American than he is and is the most American occupant of the White House since George and Laura left.
6) If you picture whites when you think of doctors, lawyers, professors, and politicians and picture blacks or Mexicans when you think of thieves, drug dealers, and rapists, you are as racist as Donald Trump and Gloria Allred and need to watch reruns of Bill Cosby's old eighties show. While you're watching, ask yourself why Cosby went to trial for giving mostly white women drugs, which they took, and then pawing them, while Trump went into the White House after crudely bragging about pawing women. Ask yourself why Cosby gets ostracized by the so-called liberal Hollywood community while Woody Allen, who at the very least (I'm not sure about the child molestation charges; Mia might be nuts too and/or smart enough to know that people would be more bothered by a man who molested his white adopted daughter, so she might have brainwashed that daughter) had sex with and married his Asian surrogate daughter, gets lifetime achievement awards and standing ovations. You can console yourself with the knowledge that you may be racist, but you are among some "fine people."
7) If you can talk about class, religion, politics, gender, and sexuality all day but become tense and grow silent when the conversation turns to race, if you think racism would end if we just stopped talking about it, or if you think Hillary and the Democrats lost in November because they focused too much on race or what you might call "identity politics," you are racist, and you need to stop talking until you stop being racist.
8) If you can understand and sympathize with the anger of the small-town white losers who voted for an insane, incompetent white man because they're upset about their jobs leaving or they don't like the elites who think they're stupid, but you can't understand or sympathize with blacks who are angry that unarmed men and occasionally women and children are being murdered by the people who are supposed to protect and serve them, then you are racist and need to work on your empathy skills.
9) If you voted for an insane bigot because you thought he would stop the browning of America, you are an unpatriotic racist and loser. Trump can't stop the browning of America even if he's successful in banning Muslims, building a wall on our southern border, deporting every undocumented nonwhite person, and increasing the number of nonwhites killed by emboldened cops. America will turn brown, and you will be in the minority. Live with it or die before it happens.
10) If after seven months of chaos, you believe that Donald Trump is a better President than Barack Obama, who is the best President in my lifetime, you are a racist and almost as crazy as Trump is. You are also on the wrong side of history and will be seen as a villain by future generations the way the Nazis and KKK are seen by most of us living today.
White people who are concerned about not being racist should be pleased if they say yes to only the first three traits. If they say yes to only one of traits four through six, they should be worried but not too disturbed. A few weeks of quiet contemplation, watching MSNBC, especially Joy Reid, Ari Melber, and Lawrence O'Donnell (some white folks know how to talk about race), reading some nonwhite writers, and discussing race openly with some nonwhite friends or acquaintances might cure them, wake them up. If they say yes to more than one of those traits or to traits seven and/or eight, they will need more intense therapy, but they can still be saved. Those who say yes to either nine or ten or to all of the traits probably need to join David Duke and the other deplorables in the margins of our society. They cannot be saved. We will have to move forward toward a more perfect union without them.
RIP Dick Gregory.
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