Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

by Michael Eric Dyson

Of course it is hard to undo an entire life of innocence and the privileges it brings. And so you play a game. You pretend that by accountability we mean that you are guilty in a very specific way of some heinous injury. For instance, when we speak of affirmative action, we are not saying that you are individually responsible for the bulwark of white privilege on which it rests. We are saying, however, that you ought to be honest about how you benefit from getting a good education and a great job because you’re white. To twist that into the attempt to prosecute a case against all of white privilege through your individual story is an irresponsible ruse, and you know it, and yet you continue. There is a big difference between the act of owning up to your part in perpetuating white privilege and the notion that you alone, or mostly, are responsible for the unjust system we fight. You make our request appear ridiculous by exaggerating its moral demand, by making it seem only, or even primarily, individual, when it is symbolic, collective. By overdramatizing the nature of your personal actions you sidestep complicity. By sidestepping complicity, you hold fast to innocence. By holding fast to innocence, you maintain power.