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

by Austin Channing Brown

But instead of offering empathy and action, whiteness finds new names for me and offers ominous advice. I am too sensitive, and should be careful with what I report. I am too angry, and should watch my tone when I talk about my experiences. I am too inflexible, and should learn to offer more grace to people who are really trying.

yet, I had no desire to be the Black spokesperson. It felt too risky. I wasn’t sure that my classmates had earned the right to know, to understand, to be given access to such a vulnerable place in my experience. For me, this was more than an educational exercise. This is how we survive.

It is often expected—both by the other students and by the teacher—that Black students will have no problem acting as the race experts for their classrooms.

whether we’ll be safe when the subject comes up—or if we even have the right to speak on behalf of all Black people.

Our teacher completely froze as the tension climbed. But more concerning was that four years at a racially diverse school hadn’t been enough to challenge my classmate’s belief that whiteness, on its own merit, made her more deserving. Our school’s “racial harmony” might not have created that assumption, but it didn’t help her unlearn it either. A lack of confrontation had done her no favors. As high school came to an end, I took this lesson with me and became determined always to question what looks like unity at first glance.

Somewhere along the way, I picked up the unspoken belief that I was made for white people. That might sound weird, but it’s true. Much of my teaching (and learning) managed to revolve around whiteness—white privilege, white ignorance, white shame, the things white folks “needed” in order to believe racial justice is a worthy cause.

I worked as if white folks were at the center, the great hope, the linchpin, the key to racial justice and reconciliation—and so I contorted myself to be the voice white folks could hear. It’s amazing how white supremacy even invades programs aimed at seeking racial reconciliation. Just when I was about to lose myself to whiteness in an entirely different way, along came the second Black teacher of my life.

being invited into the process of “being part of the change.” The role of a bridge builder sounds appealing until it becomes clear how often that bridge is your broken back.

8:58 A.M.: I set my purse down in my cubicle. The white co-worker who was walking behind me stares in shock. She has never seen me with my hair in a pineapple fro. She reaches out to touch my hair while telling me how beautiful it is. When I pull back, startled by the sudden act of intimacy, she looks hurt and isn’t sure what to do next. The message: I am different, exotic. Anyone should have the right to my body in exchange for a compliment.

After talking with them for a little bit, I feel like I can breathe again. Even though we don’t work in the same departments, they are the reason I’ve survived here this long. I return to my office.

“Sure,” I respond. “I noticed that you wear your headphones a lot in the office,” she says. “It sometimes feels like you don’t want to be around us.” I take a deep breath. Because we work in cubicles, many of us wear headphones when we need to focus. Mine aren’t on more often than anyone else’s. The message: My body is being scrutinized in ways that others are not subjected to, and the worst is being assumed of me.

Our life hacks include finding a cohort, a girlfriend, an ally—someone who is safe. Someone

As a Black woman working in white spaces, my perception of racial dynamics has been questioned, minimized, or denied altogether. Over time, the experience of not being believed, especially by people I thought were my friends, wore away my sense of self. As I entered the professional world and sensed this happening to me, it became vital to remind myself daily of why I love being a Black girl:

This is partly what makes the fragility of whiteness so damn dangerous. It ignores the personhood of people of color and instead makes the feelings of whiteness the most important thing. It happens in classes and workshops, board meetings and staff meetings, via email and social media, but it takes other forms, too. If Black people are dying in the street, we must consult with white feelings before naming the evils of police brutality.

I don’t know where this belief comes from, but I do know it has consequences. When you believe niceness disproves the presence of racism, it’s easy to start believing bigotry is rare, and that the label racist should be applied only to mean-spirited, intentional acts of discrimination. The problem with this framework—besides being a gross misunderstanding of how racism operates in systems and structures enabled by nice people—is that it obligates me to be nice in return, rather than truthful. I am expected to come closer to the racists. Be nicer to them. Coddle them.

Even more, if most white people are good, innocent, lovely folks who are just angry or scared or ignorant, it naturally follows that whenever racial tension arises, I must be the problem. I am not kind enough, patient enough, warm enough. I don’t have enough understanding for the white heart, white feelings, white needs. It does not matter that I don’t always feel like teaching white people through my pain, through the disappointment of allies who gave up and colaborers who left. It does not matter that the “well-intentioned” questions hurt my feelings or that the decisions made in all-white meetings affect me differently than they do everyone else. If my feelings do not fit the narrative of white innocence and goodness, the burden of change gets placed on me.

But I suspect that white people really don’t want to believe that we (people of color) know them, too. They want to believe their proximity to people of color makes them immune. That if they smile at people of color, hire a person of color, read books by people of color, marry or adopt a person of color, we won’t sense the ugliness of racism buried in the psyche and ingrained in the heart. White people don’t want to believe that we sense the discomfort, hear the ignorance, notice the ways they process race, our bodies, our presence. We know them; we know they are racist.

I feel anger. Even more frustrating, there are so few acceptable occasions for my rage to be expressed. Because I am a Black person, my anger is considered dangerous, explosive, and unwarranted. Because I am a woman, my anger supposedly reveals an emotional problem or gets dismissed as a temporary state that will go away once I choose to be rational. Because I am a Christian, my anger is dismissed as a character flaw, showing just how far I have turned from Jesus. Real Christians are nice, kind, forgiving—and anger is none of those things.

Tone policing takes priority over listening to the pain inflicted on people of color. People of color are told they should be nicer, kinder, more gracious, less angry in their delivery, or that white people’s needs, feelings, and thoughts should be given equal weight.

But we cannot negotiate our way to reconciliation.

Too often, dialogue functions as a stall tactic, allowing white people to believe they’ve done something heroic when the real work is yet to come.

But reconciliation is not about white feelings. It’s

Love, for whiteness, dissolves into a demand for grace, for niceness, for endless patience—to keep everyone feeling comfortable while hearts are being changed.

I am not interested in love that is aloof. In a love that refuses hard work, instead demanding a bite-size education that doesn’t transform anything. In a love that qualifies the statement “Black lives matter,” because it is unconvinced this is true. I am not interested in a love that refuses to see systems and structures of injustice, preferring to ask itself only about personal intentions.

This aloof kind of love is useless to me.

I need a love that chooses justice.

may be grieving the murder of Trayvon Martin and at the same time dodging the inquisitive fingers of a white woman reaching to touch my hair.

bag. I may have just heard about the latest racist words spewed by a white talk-show host, actor, or politician on the same day when I’m trying to claim my space in the classroom or on my college campus.

It doesn’t lay the best fertilizer for hope to grow.

And so hope for me has died one thousand deaths. I hoped that friend would get it, but hope died. I hoped that person would be an ally for life, but hope died. I hoped that my organization really desired change, but hope died. I hoped I’d be treated with the full respect I deserve at my job, but hope died. I hoped that racist policies would change, and just policies would never be reversed, but hope died. I hoped the perpetrator in uniform would be brought to justice this time, but hope died. I hoped history would stop repeating itself, but hope died. I hoped things would be better for my children, but hope died.