I Am Embarrassed To Be A White Man
By: Shawn Laib
Tags: White Privilege, Politics, Trump, Equality, Racism

Embarrassment: This connects closely with the police violence thread from earlier in the piece, but I just can’t believe how ignorant white people are when they tweet or put up an “All Lives Matter” sign. The definition of embarrassment, these people are once again thinking about themselves instead of trying to understand the message that we are purveying to the world on a daily basis for years.

Saying that all lives matter is so obvious it should never need to be said. The problem is that all lives don’t matter to white men, otherwise they would take to heart the painful cries for help from minority sectors of society. All lives matter is essentially translatable to “white lives matter, everyone else should shut the hell up”.

If I had two children, and one of them was struggling mightily in school while the other one had straight A’s, I would focus on the kid who needs the assistance. I think everyone would. Does that mean that the successful tyke doesn’t need love and care? Absolutely not. It just means that they do not need the help from me at this moment in their schooling, but their sibling does. All of my kids matter, and that’s why the failing child will receive my help. It’s to get them on the same page as the A student.

Solution: Take the analogy I used above and try to find others in your own life related to struggle. Tell these metaphors to your friends and colleagues who need to garner a greater understanding about what it means to put your focus on a struggling group of people or a down and out person.

When someone is in pain, it’s not your job to say why they shouldn’t feel the way that they do. It’s demeaning and it’s inconsiderate to turn the topic over to you when you are not the one going through a struggle related to systematic oppression. I suppose when you’ve never had to overcome hatred directly tied to something innate and given to you at birth, like skin color, then it’s hard for white men to picture themselves on the lower rungs of the corrupt social ladder. This dissonance is key to the majority of white people looking beyond themselves and into the eyes of other people.

White people matter. They always have. For thousands of years. Saying that they do is fucking embarrassing. The solution is stop saying and thinking it.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

If you are white, I hope that you have been able to look into your own soul throughout this read to see whether you do any of these things or demean these movements that matter to minorities.

If you are non-white, never feel bad for your anger and your anxiety that you face so frequently. Know that there are some white people out there who are embarrassed for the entirety of our demographic, and we will continue to give a voice to those who are in need of support.

White people in denial about the advancement of civil rights are the biggest obstacle to a world where we can all be proud of the diversity of our population.

If I can leave you with any one thing to think about after reading, it would be that listening to how the oppressed feel instead of your own inner thoughts is the basis for sympathy in any topic of life.

When it relates to racism, nothing is more important than white people admitting that you don’t get to decide how black people feel about their place in the world.

I will be proud to be a white man when we allow minorities to be proud of their roots and their struggles. You will be proud then, too.