It was sometime during 1969 at my house in suburban New Jersey.  I was eighteen years old and one of my friends was visiting.  He noticed a book on the end table in our living room.  It was titled Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver. My friend picked up the book, looked at the cover and said, “Has your mom turned into a N—————— lover?”

 

I don’t remember what I said, but I know I didn’t tell him the truth. I never said how sickening his words were to my ears.   Soul on Ice was my book.  I didn’t have the courage to tell him or others with his same viewpoint that the book was mine and I loved it.  I was becoming radicalized from reading Eldridge Cleaver, The Autobiography of Malcom X, The Fire next Time by James Baldwin, Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown and later Angela Davis’s If they Come for Me in the Morning, Bobby Seal’s Seize the Time and George Jackson Soledad Brother.

 

These books taught me about the depths of racism in the United States.  I lived in a town that was very segregated.  The Black people were relegated to live on only three streets.   People in our town thought our city was integrated because Blacks were at least allowed to live in its borders.

 

There were many towns that didn’t allow Blacks to buy or rent homes.  This was systematic racism that was constantly denied by the talking heads on TV, the politicians and all the folks who liked their neighborhoods being lilly white.

 

I think about my friend from time to time and regret not standing up to him.  I don’t think I had the words then, but I may have said, “No I am reading Soul on Ice because I want to learn about people who have different experiences from me.   The same people who told us we had to fight the Vietnam War to stop the domino effect of spreading communism were the same folks who claim Black people have no right to complain. They said, ‘Look they are no longer slaves and the civil rights act was passed, yes’? I want to get involved in standing up for the truth by fighting racism.”

 

This experience along with the uprising that is currently happening in communities across the country led me to want to write about how white people will benefit from fighting racism.

 

The first benefit is that you may learn to become empathetic.  If you put forth the effort to put yourself in a Black person’s shoes, you could learn to understand the pain that racism brings. You could learn how racism effects sense of safety, distrust of whites, feelings of rage and hopelessness, feeling invisible and having to be on guard 24/7.

 

Your sharing with others (whites and people of color) would be authentic because you could become aware of the deep hurt that racism causes.  You could understand their feelings from their experiences, not from your white superficial processing the nightly mainstream news’s interpretation of the nation’s uprising.

 

The news focuses on property damage and guesses who the “agitators” are.  If you sit down and listen to a Black or Brown person’s recounting daily dealings with racist behavior, you may learn to understand what systemic racism means and how every institution in the country supports this evil.

These institutions are government, big business, the educational system, banks, law enforcement, organized religion, the workplace, and the mainstream media.

 

You may learn that it is a system to benefit whites only.  You may also understand that your white privilege allows you to walk down the street and not be worried about being stopped by the police.

 

Black and Brown folks not only have to worry about being stopped by the police, they worry that the police may murder them.

 

This awareness may cause you to transform and look at the world differently.  It may lead to helping change the system.

 

You can develop leadership skills from this newfound awareness.  You can reach out to other white people and develop plans to rid the country of white supremacy.  You can learn ways to ensure that white supremacist candidates are called out and voted out.  You can become allies with The Black Lives Matter Movement.

 

This doesn’t mean attempting to take over the leadership of their movement because you feel that they need your direction.  White people often believe that those who have been victimized need us to lead them out of their suffering.  This happens because of our racist beliefs that Black and Brown people are not smart enough to be leaders.

 

This also happens because we whites want to “protect” people of color from further abuse, so we try to take over their movements in a sick way of attempting to build a firewall for them.

 

There are other ways to protect people of color like the recent Justice for Breonna Taylor demonstration in Louisville, Kentucky.   White women stood in between Black demonstrators and police at this rally.

 

We as white people can go to anti-racist demonstrations to support oppressed people of color.  The police murder of George Floyd has ignited millions throughout the world to hit the streets.

 

It is wonderful to see so many white people demonstrating along with people of color.  Why is this happening?  Young white people have been moved to action from the recent police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Rayshard Brooks.

 

Young white people also know that the current system that we live in has been harmful to them too.  Going to college is getting more expensive every year. Many young people end up with huge student loan debts that they may never be able to repay. They graduate from college without finding a job.  Those who do find jobs cannot afford rent, so they move back in with their parents.  They opioid epidemic which is supported by all the forces that promote systematic racism are killing off entire towns.

 

Younger whites can talk to their older family members and challenge their brainwashed belief system.

Younger whites can also join forces with older whites who have been fighting against oppression for years.

 

White folks can seek out people of color and organizations that fight against racism.  We can ask them how we can be supportive and then follow their instructions.

 

We white folks need to spend less time talking and more time listening.

 

We could help change the world.  Let’s hit the ground running.