Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man

by Emmanuel Acho

the longest-lasting pandemic in this country is a virus not of the body but of the mind, and it’s called racism.

it would take some next-level self-deluding to discriminate against someone you respect enough to listen to.

I suggest reading writer Tom Smith’s essay “Changing Racial Labels: From ‘Colored’ to ‘Negro’ to ‘Black’ to ‘African American.’” And check out Kee Malesky’s “The Journey from ‘Colored’ to ‘Minorities’ to ‘People of Color,’” published on npr.org.

you’re responsible for your biases, if for no other reason than that there are ways to make them more conscious. And when an idea is conscious, you can change your mind.

Again, unconscious prejudices can manifest as racist actions, that’s the whole problem. But I think it’s important to start here, with the fact that you don’t even have to know you’re racist for the damage to be done.

LBJ said it best: “You can’t shackle and chain someone for hundreds of years, liberate them to compete freely with the rest and still justly believe that you’ve been fair.”

And white privilege is about the word white, not rich. It’s having advantage built into your life. It’s not saying your life hasn’t been hard; it’s saying your skin color hasn’t contributed to the difficulty in your life.

I’ll be the first to admit that systemic racism sounds like a conspiracy. But guess what: if there is anything in America that fits the definition of a national conspiracy, it’s systemic racism. Racism is a form of oppression, a.k.a. those with more power putting their thumbs on those with less power. And oppression is as old as civilization.

It wasn’t that black people had all of a sudden become criminals; it was that the laws began to criminalize black people.

To that I say, what’s fair? If you ask me, fairness can only occur between equal parties, and black people have never been treated as equals in America.

The thing is, one can never just judge racism on an individual level alone. It’s also historic and systemic—remember, white people will always have that several-century head start.

White people have always been esteemed in this country, have always been celebrated. Black people have had to push to celebrate themselves and their culture in public. (It’s also why we often refer to each other as black kings and black queens. After a history of white society tearing black people down, it’s about intentionally lifting each other up.)

Novelist Jason Reynolds does a wonderful job of expanding on the reasons why: If you say, “No, all lives matter,” what I would say is I believe that you believe all lives matter. But because I live the life that I live, I am certain that in this country, all lives [don’t] matter. I know for a fact that, based on the numbers, my life hasn’t mattered; that black women’s lives definitely haven’t mattered, that black trans people’s lives haven’t mattered, that black gay people’s lives haven’t mattered … that immigrants’ lives don’t matter, that Muslims’ lives don’t matter. The Indigenous people of this country’s lives have never mattered. I mean, we could go on and on and on. So, when we say “all lives,” are we talking about White lives? And if so, then let’s just say that. ’Cause it’s coded language.

Is America really a democracy? The short answer is no, it’s technically a republic, or what some people term a representative democracy. Our laws are made by representatives we have chosen (in theory), who must comply with a constitution that was built (in theory) to protect the rights of the minority from the will of the majority. But the truest answer is that America has never been a republic for everyone who lives within its borders.

This is an uncomfortable conversation because it has to do with power and perspective. As I’ve been saying, there’s often no difference whatsoever between a riot or a rebellion besides who’s looking at it and labeling it. It’s also uncomfortable because it involves the question of whether the only “right” response is a totally nonviolent one.

Know that when you say you are an ally, you are saying that you are willing to risk your white privilege in the name of justice and equality for marginalized voices.

It might not have been the world depending on me, but I didn’t know who needed my voice, so I wasn’t going to back down.

We must all see color to see racism. Plus, color and ethnicity are part of what makes people human, and to deny any of us our particularity is to deny our humanity.