brushfire"This, yes, this, it was always like this." -Stanley Koehler
REFLECTIONS OF AN EMPTY NESTER
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What is it with white people? Can't we just say how we feel and move on without everyone making such an issue over every little thing? All we want is to make America white — I mean great — again and we get called deplorable?
Can't we go back to the good old days? You know, before we had to check our privilege and be politically correct all the time. It’s exhausting! On top of it all, we’re waging all these wars. The War On Christmas. The War On Christianity. The War On Patriotism Thanks to Black Athletes Who Don’t Stand for the National Anthem. Now it’s The War On White People Wearing Faux Dreadlocks. Man, where is our freedom? Can’t we just wear dreadlocks for heaven’s sake if the urge strikes us? And what is it with black women who get to straighten their hair while we can’t braid ours? Hey, Beyoncé gets to wear blonde extensions. I’m calling foul on that — she’s appropriating my white culture! Why can’t I appropriate hers? Isn’t imitation a form of flattery? Why must I seek to understand her culture before I take it as my own? I just think dreadlocks are cool! Also, we white people are so over slavery. We get it, Mrs. Obama. You wake up every morning in a house built by slaves. But don’t you know those slaves were well fed? (Thanks for that little history lesson, Bill O'Reilly.) And we are so over black people pulling the race card every time they are stopped and frisked for making "furtive movements," pulled over for driving while black — in the case of one fatal shooting, the officer is recorded saying the driver had "a wide-set nose" like a robbery suspect — incarcerated in prisons or disciplined in schools at disproportionate numbers compared to white people, killed for carrying a toy gun or walking in the middle of the street or driving with a broken taillight or selling loose cigarettes or CDs or reaching for their wallet at the officer's request or taken on a “rough ride” in a police van by officers of the law. Or maybe they're not killed on the spot, but pulled over for failing to use a turn signal, arrested for not putting out a cigarette and found hanging in a jail cell three days later. Also, don’t black people understand we white people are color-blind? We don’t care if you’re black, white, purple or rainbow colored. Honestly, we can’t see you. Unless of course you’re walking in our neighborhoods or our stores, in which case we lock our cars tight or pull our purses closer or maybe even call the police. And if you're wearing a hoodie or your pants are too low or you're playing that loud rap music or overly self-congratulatory in a post-game interview after a big football win, we might call you a thug, which is really code for that other word we can’t say anymore. But if you have on a coat and tie and are obviously well educated, we call you “articulate” — and if you’re in the White House we call it progress and shake our heads when people cry racism because don’t they know a black man is president of the United States? Oh, and in addition to being color blind, we’re also tone deaf. We can't be bothered to learn how to pronounce your oddly spelled names. Don't even get me started on that. We also have no sense of subtlety. When you say, “Black lives matter,” we say, “But all lives matter!” And also: “Blue lives matter!” Which of course they do, but police officers choose to put on their uniforms each day, while black people don’t choose the skin they’re born in, yet they still expect to be treated with decency, humanity and respect. But if we're supposed to understand this distinction, couldn’t they have spelled it out by saying “Black lives matter too?” Would it have been so hard to add that one little word? Maybe then we would understand how the Black Lives Matter movement was prompted by "Two hundred and fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy." In other words, centuries of oppression and inequality, with black lives in every facet of society valued less than lives of white privilege. I know what you’re thinking: there I go with that word again — privilege. I checked my privilege at the door already. I check my privilege in the mirror every day, just to make sure it’s still there. Yes, I’m still white — phew! Sometimes it’s hard to tell because I’m like, you know, color blind.
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Mary Anne BrushJournalist, fiction writer, wife and mother |