Guest Post: SWPD

I've done another guest post for one of my favorite blogs, Stuff White People Do

I attended undergrad in Nashville, Tennessee. I wouldn't normally disclose that, but Nashville is often called the Athens of the South because of all the colleges and universities there. Nashville has 20 of them, ranging from an auto diesel college to one of the premiere private universities in the nation. Therefore, it would reason that if I tell you I went to school in Nashville, you would ask me which one -- there are so many possibilities, the odds of you guessing correctly are clearly not in your favor.

My current job requires that I frequently meet with people, mostly white, from the great state of Tennessee. They're often a little surprised (I can see it in their faces) when they meet me. Between my race-neutral name, race-neutral pattern of speaking (of course, we know that while I say "race-neutral," both my name and the way I often speak are characterized as "white"), people often show up expecting to see someone of a far lighter hue than me. I also lack a noticeable southern accent, though I was born and raised there, so people will often question me about where I'm from. I always say, "I was born and raised in Chattanooga and went to school in Nashville."

A handful of people will nod and move on, but the vast majority of them follow that question up with, "where did you go to school?" and far too many of those people continue by answering for me, "TSU?"

Read the rest of the post here

Beefs, frenemies and BFFs – the ever evolving challenges of friendship

What's the old saying? "People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime." It's really a feel good statement. It helps us recognize that not everyone is supposed to be in our lives forever. It can keep us on the lookout for those people who, if we let them stick around for awhile, might drain us of all the goodness we can muster in a sometimes not so good world. I mean this is a really good saying, full of all kinds of...uhh... well... stuff that makes clichés good. The only problem with it is it doesn't do the best job of explaining how you know which person fits into which category.

I actually believe we had it right as kids. Do you remember when you were younger and another kid would walk up to you and ask to play with the toy you were playing with and ended their request (which, now that I think about it, was more often a demand) with "I'll be your friend..."? I do. I think we had it right back then. Simple. Very simple. You give me that toy, we'll be friends. You don't give me that toy and we won't be friends. As adults we can hear all the nuances in that. The manipulation, the suggested temporary time limit, etc... but as kids, it was straightforward. When the toy was done with, the friendship had run its course -- unless the two of you found something else you both liked -- then the friendship kept going and if you realized that you seemed to always like doing the same things, well, eureka! Lifelong friend. No muss, no fuss.

Sometime during middle and high school, though, we learned that there's nothing simple about friendships. Your BFF today might be your greatest enemy tomorrow. Your enemy from yesterday? Oh, we like her now. Makes me think of a time in high school...

Check out the entire guest blog post at Black 'N Bougie

Guest Blog: SWPD

I've written another guest blog post at Stuff White People Do. Check it out!

I don’t know if any of you frequent other blogs run by a white person that attempt to do what swpd attempts to do, but I don’t. I don't because I haven't found many. Any that I have run across are run by a PoC (or, at least, a person pretending to be a PoC). Blogs like these take on a whole different spin when they are run by a white person. However, I’ve also noticed that such places don't tend to stick around very long.

When Macon developed a list of rules for commenters, the comment section, as usual, lit itself on fire. One comment in particular from Randy caught my eye. Randy said here:

how is this blog, this whole thing, not just yet another example of a WP being in charge of a space for and about PoCs? however deferential, reverent, polite, well-intentioned, well-informed macon d may be; it's still a WHITE MAN'S place. because he owns it. he controls it. it's HIS own weblog. and he-not any black person-can pull the plug whenever it suits him.

how can all you razor-sharp fanon's out there have faild to confront and critique this (sic)? sorry folks, but it appears that we whites just can't damn help ourselves from taking over, from dominating, from setting the terms, from RUNNING THE SHOW-however benignly.

you all are constantly in a blither about ambient white supremacy...yet you don't see it RIGHT HERE.

I actually had been doing a lot of thinking about swpd and how the commenters interact on this blog. I appreciate the work macon puts into it, and Randy’s comment made me ponder other well-meaning, well-intended “spaces” (we’ll use “spaces” to refer to any place, online or real-world, where race relations is the primary topic) that don’t ever quite pan out. The most prevalent sort of spaces are blogs/websites that discuss interracial dating. Many such blog authors quickly find they spend more time defending their opinions than discussing anything of relevancy and ultimately shut down their blogs.

There seems to me to be a presumption white people make that they can singlehandedly change people’s minds, while never really being ready for pushback, and never being ready or prepared to create a space that offers PoCs and white people the opportunity to honestly and openly express their opinions.

It’s a shame this is the case, because as much as I wish that I, a black woman in America, could create a successful space, it would take a lot of work and a lot of passivity (that I’m not prepared to give) on my part.

Why, you ask? Because white people are scared to talk about race with PoCs. Some of that fear is understandable, while a lot of it is absurd. We can’t talk about or come up with ways to combat the problem without white people being honest and open, but above all else present, in the conversation. Unfortunately, the history in our country has led to a situation where more often than not, race conversations begun by PoCs in a PoC space do not attract white people who don’t already at least “get” the problem and will simply echo what we say (and never follow the echos with action).

One thing that was established early on at swpd is that white people are a necessary part of this conversation. In fact, commenter Jara said here:

The responsibility for improving race relations in the U.S., for example, falls on white people's shoulders because they are the privileged group.

It’s become my opinion that we need more spaces created by white people where we can have these open and honest race conversations so that one day we make enough progress where who creates and controls the space doesn’t matter. Some of us may consider this a necessary evil, while others of us take it at face value and go. Either way, there aren’t a lot of white people who are ready to take the flack (some deserved, some not) they receive for attempting such a thing. Wonder what type of flack I’m talking about? Most swpd comment sections will show you.

Anyone who is a part of a real race conversation, especially with people from different perspectives, and actively searches for ways to lessen racism's effects and to ultimately eradicate it altogether, is helping to blaze new trails. To do so via the internet with relative strangers is an area that has yet to be fully examined, and so it takes a lot of trial and error.

It’s easy to want to be a part of the solution, to feel like you do things that others might benefit from knowing about; it’s harder than it looks, however, to share those things about such a contentious topic. Too often well-meaning white people set out to help, but end up with their feelings hurt and their tails between their legs. I hope that as we all have a hand in writing the how-to book on handling race relations, more people step up and are willing to create more spaces for these conversations to happen.

There seems to be an assumption that if white folks would simply do as they’re told, everything would be fine. I see such sentiments expressed on this blog regularly; however, the fact is this is a learning experience for all of us. White people need to be ready to use the privilege they’ve enjoyed for hundreds of years to fix the problems it has created. I firmly believe that it is the job of the PoC community to point out the cracks, and that it's the white community’s job to fill them in, even if that means losing things they’ve become accustomed to (I use a crude analogy, but I think simple and crude is better than complicated and palatable).

Randy made some valid points (that he later expounded upon). One of them is the irony that swpd may in fact be everything we all say we don't want. A space like swpd isn’t perfect, but it is a good example of what I mean when I say the white people fix the cracks PoCs point out. In almost every post, there’s one commenter who trips the wire and the alarms start blaring, and someone lets them know that they are exemplifying exactly what shouldn’t be done. More white people need to be willing to “be that kid” (as I like to say). More white people need to be willing to take the criticism to not only learn from themselves, but also to teach others.

There are things PoCs should do, but this blog isn’t called “stuff people of color do.”

Guest Post - Stuff White People Do

I did a guest post on the blog Stuff White People Do

I'm briefly interrupting our regularly scheduled "Things We Don't Apologize For" to share this post with you and encourage you to go over and leave a comment.

On some blogs, my favorite part is the comments. I like to see how many people had thoughts similar to mine after reading a blog post. I think people are honest on the internet in ways they would never be in a face-to-face conversation. In fact, people probably say things on blogs, in comments, on Twitter and even on Facebook (which is ironic) that you couldn't pay them to say to a close friend. They leave these thoughts and ideas out there for people to read -- people they will never, ever meet -- and they can be painfully honest. One thing I’ve noticed is that when apparently white people leave vile, racist comments, other white people who don’t feel that way almost never jump in to counter the vile racism.

One blog I love reading the comments for is Unsuck DC Metro (UDCM), a website dedicated to Washington, DC's transit system. Compared to, say, NYC's transit system, ours sucks. Majorly. So it's kind of comforting to know there are other people who ride DC Metro and have some of the same complaints I do.

I stumbled upon an old UDCM post that invited comments on the "Most Annoying Metro Behaviors." I was sorta excited to read through all 200 comments, because I know most metro veterans have some of the same annoyances: people who talk too loudly on their cell phones; folks who don't know that we walk left, stand right; tourists who are incapable of moving out of the way before they decide to shove their nose in a map, etc. I wasn't surprised by anything I read. It was what I didn't read that I took note of.

It doesn't matter what city you live in, whether you use public transportation or not, you can identify with this: annoying teenagers. We all know them, we cringe when we see (or hear) them coming. They're loud, obnoxious, aloof and bothersome. Typically, I remind myself that I was 15 once, and I and my friends probably liked being obnoxious, too. All teenagers think that they're cool because they're loud (or so it seems).

Here in DC, many metro riders will tell you that right before school and right after school, you can't help but be annoyed by the already overcrowded train cars filling up with teenage students who are rambunctious, loud and obnoxious. They play their music way too loud, use inappropriate language and act rude. Other riders agree that these behaviors are obnoxious, so it was no surprise that a lot of the commenters on UDCM's post did too. However, what the comments also revealed was that almost everyone seems to think it's only black teenagers who do this. What was even more striking is how they were referenced. There isn't any reference to "black kids." Instead, they’re all derogatory terms -- the rude, ignorant and racist kind.

One commenter referred to them as "Ghetto-ass bebe's kids," others called them the "Ghetto Fabulous Street Urchins," "section-8 welfare street urchins," and even "sewer ghetto rats." My favorite was probably from commenter Grrrrrr, who referred to them as "ghetto sewer rats with no upbringing or future." I won't lie, I laughed at the sheer ignorance of that comment. It wasn't enough to call them "ghetto sewer rats"; they also have no upbringing or future. I didn't know this, but apparently you can figure out everything about a person after less than 5 minutes of sharing the same space.

But like I said, it wasn't the comments that got me; rather it was that no one had anything to the contrary to say. No one came to the rescue of this maligned group to say, "hey, is there a reason you only refer to them with these racist terms? Is there a reason you don't reference white teenagers? They can be just as obnoxious."

The closest attempt to rescue this group was a comment from one person who pointed out that these obnoxious teens could have come from anywhere in DC, not just S.E. (Southeast is a predominantly black and poor area of D.C., though it is also being gentrified, so almost anyone could live there). But even that person didn't point out the extensive use of derogatory, hateful terms or the lack of anger pointed towards white teenagers.

All of this is in strong contrast to the treatment of other maligned groups, like the disabled. For example, plenty of commenters complained about people who "look normal," but make use of facilities that are supposed to be for the disabled. Many other commenters came to the rescue, stating that no one should be quick to think that a person who looks able-bodied can’t be disabled. Multiple commenters also came to the rescue of "men" who are often attacked for not giving up their seats.

No one, not one person, took issue with all of the hateful descriptions of loud and obnoxious black teenagers. No one said, for instance, that we should be careful about assuming who these teenagers are and where they're from. No one pointed out that many teens want to look like they're from the poorer and rougher parts of town, even though they’re actually from the more affluent parts, and furthermore, that this is a universal trait -- some black teens do it, just like some white teens do it.

There’s also the fact that most of these commenters probably don't ride the train to the parts of town where they seem to think these "street urchins" go -- so how would they know anything about where they're from and what they know? These are simple and basic corrections that anyone ought to be able to make, but no one did. Wondering why we would assume that only the truly disabled "look" disabled, and why we would be so quick to malign all men for the actions of a few, though, were corrections deemed plenty worth making.

I'd like to be clear: I’m not really taking issue with the obviously ignorant and racist commenters (in the sense that I know these people exist, and I personally don't waste a whole lot of breath or time on them). Rather, I take issue with the people who read the racist comments and didn't think enough to question their legitimacy or factuality. I take issue with the people who read those comments, knew better, but didn't think they should say so. Probably because, truth be told, they felt the same way.

Why is this? Why would people read these comments and not think enough of the absurdity to correct the original poster in the same way disparaging comments about the disabled, or women, or men are often corrected?

Even the commenter who pointed out that we can't assume all these kids are from poor neighborhoods didn't dare touch the horrible titles used to refer to them. I'm going to make a large assumption that I can't prove (but feel is true) that Unsuck DC Metro is frequented mostly by white people. If so, that would mean that white commenters feel a sense of security in expressing inflammatory views that I, as a black woman, might disagree with, but that another white person might readily agree with.

How white people speak to each other about minority groups when there are no minorities present is something I would never be privy to in "real life," but I have heard a lot about it. In an all-white environment, there’s an implicit assumption that because everyone looks the same, they have the same opinion about the "others." And so, it’s okay to spew vile racism about the “others.”

Not only was this assumption clearly made in this post’s comments, but no one refuted it. The simple failure to correct racist comments suggests that every person who read the comments agreed with the assertion that only Section-8 kids have no future or upbringing, and that they are street urchins, undeserving of the simple respect of at least being referenced as if they are human.

Of course, the other problem here is how all the obnoxious white teens get overlooked. No one mentions them, in either a derogatory or a straightforward manner. I guess they don't bother anyone when they run around train stations (like their black counterparts), act loud (like their black counterparts) and obnoxious (like their black counterparts), and generally make commuting just that much more annoying (like their black counterparts). Or, perhaps, it's actually that when they do these things they’re seen as normal, rambunctious teenagers, but when their black counterparts do it, it's seen as almost criminal...

I'm more interested in what the readers of this blog (swpd) think explains why white people do this, rather than affirmation that they do it. Is it because they don't think maligned minorities need someone to stand up for them, especially in their absence? Do they not think that's their job?

What about the commenter who wanted us to remember that these black teen subway riders could be from anywhere, but apparently didn't take issue with how they were referenced? Is there a fear that if they stand up for them, they will in turn be attacked?

One of my close friends was the first person to "hip" me to what happens in a room full of white people (read: the first person to make me consider what actually happens). She told me she's been attacked when she's tried to disagree, and that she always notices the difference in how she’s treated or spoken to after the fact (I told her that though I know it's hard, it's people like her who can make a real difference -- but that's another post for another day).

Is there, then, some fear that standing up to racism from other white people will make you less white?

I guess in the end I'm not so disturbed by what these teenagers were called because this is America in a supposedly post-racial society. However, it's the passive agreement in situations like these that furthers these ignorant and absurd ideas. These people are just like the police officer who forwarded that ignorant e-mail to his co-workers after the Dr. Gates' incident. He'd probably sent similar e-mails to a certain group and no one ever stood up to him. Or how about the TN state lawmaker's aid who did something similar? How many of us receive offensive e-mails everyday? Maybe it's not offensive to us, but it is to others, and yet we say nothing?

That passive agreement furthers the assumption people make that everyone who looks like them thinks like them. It's important to nip that thought process in the bud, even at the risk of losing some of your "whiteness." It's ironic, but I believe that if we're ever going to truly realize the post-racial society people seem to so want, it'll be white people who push us over the edge. That's why it's important to include them on topics of race, and that's also why it’s especially important to expect them to speak up.