I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

by Austin Channing Brown

I can’t let go of my belief in Church—in a universal body of belonging, in a community that reaches toward love in a world so often filled with hate.

“Doing nothing is no longer an option for me.”

White fragility protects whiteness and forces Black people to fend for themselves.

This conversation was not about my safety, my security, my authority. Not about my feelings, but about his.

I call it the Relational Defense. It happens in the media all the time. A government official, teacher, pastor, or principal is caught on tape saying something that is clearly racist. But rather than confess and seek transformation, the person defends their “goodness” by appealing to the relationships of those who “know” them.

White people desperately want to believe that only the lonely, isolated “whites only” club members are racist. This is why the word racist offends “nice white people” so deeply. It challenges their self-identification as good people. Sadly, most white people are more worried about being called racist than about whether or not their actions are in fact racist or harmful.

But I am not a priest for the white soul.

Our only chance at dismantling racial injustice is being more curious about its origins than we are worried about our comfort.

Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change…Anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification.

More often than not, my experience has been that whiteness sees love as a prize it is owed, rather than a moral obligation it must demonstrate.

It is pushing back, even though my words will never be big enough, powerful enough, weighty enough to change everything. It is knowing that God is God and I am not.