An Open Letter to White Hypocrisy in the Age Of Black Power
By: Robert L Page
Tags: BlackLivesMatter, Progressive, First Post, Social Media, Polarization

There’s an illusion of mandatory civil duty, to watch, to participate, by exercising the option to not inundate oneself in the media’s portrayal of ever-escalating hatred and division, it somehow means that you don’t care or you haven’t taken a side. The extremity of the “if you’re not for me, you’re against me” ideology — the very credo of polarization — perpetuates division under the guise of social justice.

It’s a no-brainer that Black Lives Matter, at least to anyone sensible from a decent home with a good head on their shoulders from a liberal and culturally diverse area code and voting district. We fight for what we believe in, but history is repeating itself now, as in 2016, we’re fighting in a way so dominated by emotionalism and a mob mentality, no matter how dirty we fight we feel completely vindicated regardless of who we hurt — because hey, we’re the good guys. And its precisely this civil intensity which got our president elected in the first place, the platitude “if you’re not outraged, then you’re part of the problem” prompted the kind of hostility which causes Trump supporters to double down on their stupidity. Trump supporters are more opposed to the slightest reek of a liberal idealogy than they are supporters of Trump’s ideas or politics. Rebellious to reason, they reject the progressive, tolerant morality that encourages the equal treatment of all, but not for its inherent value so much as the political side that this ideology lies on. If there were a “Freaky Friday” situation tomorrow, and progressive Democrats and centrists adopted all of the wacky things that Trump believes, and Trump took on a liberal viewpoint more consistent with a good looking future, then most liberals would still remain on their own side out of skepticism and the inability to take him at his word, and Trump’s existing supporters would remain with him out of sheer tribalism and loyalty, as the harbinger of hostility, who tells them precisely what to think.

Many of the people that I’m seeing sharing BLM posts obsessively are white people, white people who want to be known as people on the right side. It’s no coincidence that those who are trying to teach the unteachable the same lessons that they refused to learn every other time this has happened were the same people that were the first to receive participation trophies, where even the bare minimum of effort to no avail was rewarded and recognized. Sure “there’s no such thing as reverse racism”, anyone who says “All lives matter” deserves to be called out and promptly chastised, we all get it. Don’t they see it’s falling on deaf ears? But it doesn’t matter to them.

This overcompensation stemming from a place of white guilt has people trying so so hard to prove something to the rest of the world, to prove they aren’t racist. To share the same unoriginal post, tweet, picture, or video outlining the horrors of what’s going on in the world, to show the white instigators inciting violence in such a way that it bastardizes the whole movement. Every time you gladly share your outrage or share the strength of your position there will be self-congratulatory comments that remind you that you’re doing the right thing or there will be racist, ignorant, poorly educated, or simply naive people that will join the discussion that you can get high from putting them in their place, and if they won’t listen and stay in their place then you get your righteous kicks by unfriending them, blocking them, reporting them, or if you really want to be the king or queen of wokeness then you can publicly shame them, screenshot it, under the illusion that “that will show them” but it won’t. There’s a huge difference between feeling like you’re affecting real change in the world, and actually changing something. Only time will tell what comes of this, but your words and actions are only valuable based on an objective look at the results they bring.

Your latest tirade on social media made no actual utilitarian difference to the planet, or society as a whole, all it did was change the way you feel.

When I saw that New York had proposed legislation to make filing false police reports a hate crime, I thought, wow, that’s a great start. But it’s a small step in the right direction, a drop in the bucket, because our real issues as a country are in that huge space between California and New York that we cynically refer to as “flyover country”. It’s not enough that New York and Los Angeles pass progressive legislation, unless it becomes a federal law then there will continue to be this massive disparity between states that allow for such extreme racism to thrive.

We need to see buzzwords for what they are, phrases that spread virally across social media that are intended to polarize us, and instigate strong emotion. Phrases like “silence = consent” “white silence = white violence” “if you’re not for us, you’re against us” “if you’re not outraged, then you’re part of the problem” are catchy statements, they instigate strong emotion, they polarize us, making us feel completely vindicated in the knowledge that we’re on the right side of history, but these statements are based in reactive emotion, not in rational thought. People you don’t see sharing consistently on Facebook may be the ones actively petitioning their elected officials to amend recent budgetary proposals to increase police funding, they may be the ones actively protesting, or donating anonymously to the cause.

I’m not dismissing the movement, I’m simply calling out the hypocrisy and the total lack of authenticity so many of you are displaying. Your passionate outcries are the response to stimuli on a massive scale, a digital mob mentality. Suddenly companies around the country are sending out press releases, Instagram posts, disingenuous affectations to show everyone across both race and party lines, that they stand with Black Lives Matter. These are the same companies that have been hit with discrimination lawsuits for Equal Opportunity violations, these are companies that have participated in racially biased marketing practices, or aligned themselves with similarly scandalous companies in the past, who suddenly want to show how much they care, when in actuality they are just preemptively solving a PR nightmare.

Hypocrisy.

Yes, Black Lives Matter. Black men and women should never fear for their own life especially from those who have made a binding vow to “protect and serve” but if the outcries of how much you care were truly genuine then you would be talking about this year-round, every day of every year. Without detracting from the very real threat, the core mission of Black Lives Matter, remember that their lives matter in a multitude of other ways. I haven’t seen a friend of mine post about the deplorable food scarcity faced by many (mostly black) children in Louisiana, nor have I heard anyone speak out in protest about how FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) is a forced practice that many African women have to go through and guess what, it’s still legal in parts of this country, not just in the third world. This is a bandwagon effect on a massive scale, this is fairweather advocacy, this is the equivalent of someone who calls themself “Pro-Life” but would rather not have any kids then, god forbid, save one from the often corrupted and abusive foster system.

Please donate, please protest, please create and sign petitions, please call your local representative, please call and check on your friends now more than ever. But please be very watchful of polarizing language, zoom out and see the big picture, see the gray area, it’s not all black-and-white (some pun regrettably intended).

I’m not going to tell anyone how to live, I’m not offering a solution, just meekly, and reasonably pointing out the rational blind spots in a mostly emotional movement. I only urge my friends, followers, and readers to be careful that our words and actions don’t feed the need to split everyone into two camps. You can be quiet on social media, yet vocal elsewhere, or have meaningful one-on-one conversations and avoid being vocal on the group level, you can communicate with your policymakers, donate, or support black-owned businesses and do far more than the person stuck in a feedback loop of stimulus-response-reward-repeat on social media chasing a high of self-importance. Remember, doing something vs. feeling like you’re doing something are two different things.

If you find yourself laughing, playing outside with your dog, enjoying time with your friends, or basking in the beauty of a day with clear skies, don’t feel obligated to mire yourself in outrage or in sorrow. Just because you don’t grieve, fear, or feel on someone else’s timeline, doesn’t mean you don’t care at all.