Guilt Should Not Drive Your Activism
This goes out to all non-black people, and yes that includes non-black POC because we are all complicit whether we care to admit it or not.
Too often activism from non-black folks comes from places of guilt and shame. You want your activism to prove something to others. However, most importantly, you want your activism to prove something to yourself. You want to prove you are not the person you once were. You want to prove to yourself you care about black lives now, but all along the way are centering your activism around yourself and your guilt. How much is it worth this way? How genuine is your activism for black lives if it’s all in an effort to free yourself of your guilt and shame for past racist actions?
I was once very pro-police, one of those that said #alllivesmatter in response to instances of police brutality, and took the officer’s side more than the victim of police brutality. I was uncomfortable even saying words like police brutality. I didn’t agree with the uprisings (which I called riots then which by the way was and is used by white people to further demonize black communities and absolve themselves of accountability) that happened after these incidents. I didn’t agree with all the methods, but somehow thought if all these people would go to the voting booths they could enact real change.
What a fool I was.
I was more concerned about the police officers and their family's lives than I was about the innocent black lives taken away. I upheld stereotypes about black people by watching media from non-black folks depicting what they thought was how black folks acted. I laughed at these things and didn’t do anything when they were repeated in front of me. I allowed my family to say anti-black things without comment or criticism. I used AAVE so frequently to sound more “cool” but didn’t show up for the black community I was taking so much from. I scoffed at the thought of a world with no police. I didn’t want to believe the police were an inherently corrupt and racist organization. I avoided all material that explored just how much this was true. I avoided anything that made me uncomfortable. I avoided people who were indirectly and directly calling me out. I did all these things and I have felt full of shame for them for a long time. However, I am not asking for forgiveness. I am not asking for understanding or sympathy for my anti-blackness and ignorance, because I still have to grapple with both these things in my activism today 24/7. I am not going to make excuses for myself because I was 13 without guidance. I thought and did what I did and that’s all there is to it. All of it was wrong and immoral of me, especially since I championed humanity over all things. And I’m not going to say “I can’t believe I was like that” because the reality for many black people is that people were and still are like that.
“Dear White people. We get it. You’re mad. However, your new level of indignation is no equal to our anger. Black people have been this mad for 400 years. You have been this mad for a month. Posting 99.9% more times on Instagram about how you’re handling your sudden wokeness to Black anger does not overcompensate for a lifetime of relative inaction. No fund exists that can fundraise away your guilt.” -Marcus Dowling
Sit with your guilt and shame for a while. I did. In that time constantly do self-reflection and educate yourself on the opposing views you didn’t want to acknowledge before. Ask yourself why you ignored them in the first place. Ask yourself why you championed the police so much. Ask yourself what the purpose of the police is and why they were created. Ask yourself why black people are targeted more by the police. Ask yourself why this isn’t new but the system working exactly how it was designed. Who created this system and who benefits from it? Ask yourself what experiences led you to believe what you believed about the world before. Do this for a while. Make yourself uncomfortable and have those tough conversations. Allow yourself to be called out and rightfully criticized. Don’t tone-police during these callouts and don’t invalidate anyone’s emotions. Realize you are never free from reflections on how you uphold and perpetuate systemic racism against black folks. Realize no matter how many donations you make, Ted Talks you watch, black activists you listen to, protests you go to, social media posts of support you put up, or how many books on racism you read there are still traces of it in your life and yourself. You still allow white supremacy and whiteness to be upheld in some ways.
That doesn’t mean you should stop doing these things and improving yourself, but it certainly doesn’t mean doing these things completely absolves you from reflection on your perpetuation of systemic racism.
I did all this for about 4 years (most of my education came from black queer leftist readings, papers, and Twitter Threads) before I arrived at a totally different perspective of the world, the police, black lives, and our country. I am still doing this educating and learning because for non-black people being anti-racist isn’t enough. Being anti-racist after an incident of police brutality isn’t enough. We have to continually be anti-racist in our actions, activism, and how we choose to reflect on our actions. The journey never stops for us because not only are we non-black, but we all benefit from whiteness and live in a country founded on white supremacy, imperialism, and colonization. Our country still upholds these exact same things it was founded on, and because we are not black, even if we are POC, our lives are much easier than black people because we are closer to whiteness in way more capacities than black people are afforded.
If you’re POC you can still benefit from whiteness and have an easier life because of it. Don’t separate yourself from whiteness. Even though you don’t claim it in your identity it will impede your reflections on how you uphold and benefit from whiteness. I understand BIPOC still face our struggles and discrimination, but it will never be similar to what black people have experienced and you should never try to make it so. Stop separating yourself from whiteness in an attempt to avoid reflections and say “well at least I’m not like those white people” because in some ways we very well are.
We have a lot of work to do. Not only for ourselves but for all of society. Don’t let this work be overridden by guilt and shame. Don’t let your activism solely be about differentiating yourself from “this or that racist person”. Let your activism be genuine and truly about the black lives you say you care about. If you really care about black lives, you wouldn’t be worried about protecting the non-racist image you project, but about how you are complicit as well and how you can improve to truly support black lives now and forever.
“What is very difficult for people acting out of white narcissism to do is empathize with people who have experienced racism. If someone brings up an incident with racism in it, their number one concern (as someone desperately trying to cover their own racism, even to themselves) will be how can I show that I am not like this racist personI’m not going to say “I can’t believe I was like that”, because for many black people the reality is that many people are like that. People have been like that as the U.S. was built out on excluding and othering black communities.” — Emma Lindsay
Be better. Do better. Do the education and research yourself. Stop asking black people for all reading materials. Teach it to your non-black friends and family. Keep doing the labor that black people have to do every day to ensure their survival. Ensure their survival along with them and continue to.
