With Great Wokeness Comes Great Responsibility
By: H. Elizabeth Falk
Tags: Social Change, White Privilege, Race, Racism, Social Justice

With Great Wokeness Comes Great Responsibility

Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

I recently published an article here on Medium about White privilege. In it, I shared a revelation I had in the weeks leading up to the election. I was scared our democracy might fail and our nation could descend into civil war and then fascism. My thoughts about the possibility of living life in fear of the police under a fascist regime gave me a new awareness of my White privilege. After all, BIPOC folks have always lived in fear of the police in this country.

I received some applause, several highlights and comments. Nearly all the negative feedback came from other White people. It was surprising to me how some White people expressed intense anger at me for acknowledging this particular revelation about my White privilege. These were not right-wing trolls denying the existence of systemic racism. No, all this anger was coming from other White liberals. Several were quick to point out I should have had this awareness about my privilege much sooner.

One on the angriest comments came from Lindz.

“I’m amazed on how ignorant my fellow white people are. Where the hell have you been? What pisses me off is this shit right here. Oh now that it’s impossible for all of white American to ignore the racism that has been happening for decades to black and brown people. Now your scared that your white shield won’t guard you from the very thing you allowed to happen to black people? Now that it might happen to you. Now you have to choose a side and of course it’s with black people because they have done nothing wrong but for being black in white America. Sorry I really have no patience for white people like you. I’ve been white my whole life and from the time I learned right from wrong I was aware of racism. I’ve been blessed to have black friends and to witness with my own two eyes the racist bullshit. You choose to ignore the problem because it didn’t effect you. That’s fucked up! I’m glad you chose the right side though.”

Setting aside her incorrect assumptions, notice how angry she is that I didn’t have this revelation about my privilege sooner and for the right reason. Let’s say for the sake of argument that I had completely ignored racism my entire life and it never once occurred to me that racism is wrong until I experienced my own fears of the police like Lindz assumes. What if I suddenly recognized the unfairness of racism after years of denying it. Do you think it would encourage me to continue on the path of trying to be anti-racist to be told I’m a horrible person because I’m selfish and I didn’t figure this out sooner?

On Jada Pinkett-Smith’s show Red Table Talk, in the episode titled “Black America In Crisis” which was about the demonstrations after the murder of George Floyd, Willow Smith commented how exasperated she was that it took this horrific event for a lot of White people to wake up to the reality of racism. She expressed being encouraged but also disgusted that it took White people so long. Willow Smith has a legitimate point, Lindz does not.

White people don’t get to be angry at other White people on behalf of Black people.

Just like we can’t wear our hair in cornrows or call Black women Sister or wear a dashiki or a whole host of other things that are a form of appropriation. Of course it’s natural for any person to be angry when witnessing racism but that’s not what happened here. Lindz unilaterally decided that she is different from other White people, disowned those that she perceived as being unenlightened and took the legitimate anger than many Black people may feel at White people as her own.

I’m not picking on Lindz here, I hear the general sentiments expressed in her comment all the time among White liberals. We act as if we are not responsible for “those” White people, the ones with the confederate flags on their trucks who say “all lives matter” and make claims of reverse racism. White liberals love to refuse to speak to “those” White people and say “I have intolerance for their intolerance.” This is really convenient because by showing them “intolerance” they aren’t responsible for educating and enlightening them about the reality of racism.

Black people may choose to give up in frustration when trying to educate White people about racism, White people have a responsibility not to give up.