crazy white people!

The thing about white people is, they mean well, but they're often pretty ignorant. The MBSA hosted a discussion about Crash today. And naturally, since they are a group of multiracial/biracial people, they asked a question about how any of the stereotypes/prejudices shown in the movie could cause problems for people growing up in a mixed household. Several people shared their experiences. Then some white kid threw in his two cents. He basically said,

"Yeah I can sympathize with your problems. I mean I don't have any stories that can compete with yours, since I only have one race, but we're all human. We all have the same problems. But people in biracial marriages have one thing in common. Does anyone know what it is? I'll tell you what it is. Love. No one looks at their spouse and says 'That's my Chinese wife' or 'That's my black husband,' they just love each other. And love is a choice. And we all need to make that choice. "

Well thank you Mr. Race Relations Expert and savior of humanity. That is typical of something a white person would say. You see, white people always think color blindness is the answer. We should all just get along and be friends, ignoring our skin color. Racism is bad! They are self-centered enough to think that because race doesn't impact their own lives that much, it must not be that big a deal to everyone else. They often confuse I'm not a racist with I can completely understand what everyone else is going through.

Newsflash: That's just not true. When you are part of the majority, there are some things that you just don't notice. You don't know what it's like to feel the color of your skin and be judged by it on a regular basis. I am not saying that white people are never judged for being white, but it doesn't become such a huge part of their identity. We are all coming from different places, so to say that we all have the same problems and to proceed to condescend and tell everyone else in a room how to fix those problems is just ignorant.

Forgive me for saying "they." I just don't feel like I identify with some things that I characterize as "white." I'll switch to "we" now.


I have a theory about white people:

We don't like feeling left out. That's one reason so many white people think they can use the N word. We think we're entitled to be part of everything. We're so used to being the majority and having control of things that we feel left out of minority groups. We're just not used to it, so we get all bent out of shape like, How dare they exclude me? That's racist! We like to think we are so "educated" about "diversity" with all our "diversity" credits in such a "diverse" school that we won't admit that we just DON'T know what it's like to actually be part of a minority. We get all jealous when people have a discussion that doesn't involve our own experience, so we throw it in for no reason. We try to fix people's problems in some shallow way without knowing what they really are.

I really feel like a large part of white people's job in the "racial discussion" or whatever you wanna call it is to swallow our pride for a minute and listen. So as opinionated as I am being right now, I have tried just listening as well. And just experiencing being the minority for awhile. My advice to every white college student is to take the time and effort to make yourself a minority in some group on a regular basis. I've been talking about race, but other groups are included as well. This is probably your one chance to ever do it. It's just a glimpse, but it's something.

And please don't make the obvious comments of Anna, you're white too. I know I am. That's the only reason I can speak so harshly about white people and make such ridiculous generalizations in the first place. Maybe I'm just...pro-minority. Works for me.