It's never going to be okay for me, as a person of color, to accept a world where white people have to shed pride in their heritage. The insistence on painting an entire race with broad strokes is just as narrow-minded as the racism that fuels pockets of the white community, and the author of this article knows this or he wouldn't have used one of his five available tags as White Supremacy. It's not click bait because of the title. It's click bait, because white people have this annoying habit of wanting to educate the rest of us on why white guilt should be more prevalent. Drawing historical references does not make the explanation more correct. It's manipulating data to fit a white person's justification of what helps them sleep at night, for doing their part to ensure everyone knows they understand the politically right response and are most assuredly on the right side of the discussion.
Minorities don't all of a sudden become more successful, feel more empowered, or gain more acceptance because white people feel guilty over atrocities committed before their time. By all means, dispense punishment on those who commit hate crimes in a lame attempt to elevate their racial status, but stop engaging in this sort of widespread condemnation that if you're white, you must be a white nationalist, or because your ancestors did horrible things you should somehow be perpetually blamed for all time. That's the sort of ignorance we're supposedly trying to reverse.
More than half of black people in that sample did not answer the question the way they did because they were thinking that deeply into the question, all of the history included. The response was what it was, because they long since recognized the reality that white people are frankly too dumb to understand: No amount of white guilt is going to make you more likeable to black people who already disliked you in the first place. No amount of reparations is going to make you feel more welcomed in black communities where your presence was always going to feel awkward. I think it sad that white people like this author must believe if they just contort themselves into just the right position of discomfort and academically explain why the discomfort is necessary, they will be able to make everything right.
It's easier to gesticulate on the latest examples like Scott Adams and Matt Walsh and come off trying to sound sage than it is to get in there and tangibly make a difference. If almost three years after George Floyd people still feel the need to condemn white people for being white, maybe it's time to try a new formula. Maybe less typing and more dinner invitations. Maybe less history lesson and more being present in the present. Maybe less guilt and more recognition that white colonialists did not have a corner on the market of backward thinking. The only way we get past self-imposed segregations is by willing to accept basic truths that sticking up for our fellow human, white or otherwise, just makes you human and not the enemy.
It is okay to be white. Don't let people piss on all the great things your race did to make this world rotate, just as it is okay to be black for all the things your race has done to make all of our lives richer. Sometimes I think social media does too good of a job of creating this artificial bubble that is at complete odds with reality. We need to stop letting smart-sounding people deepen the divides that helps keep their material in the limelight.
