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Am I A Racist? Or Am I Just White?
What I know is that I don’t really know how to write about this. What I also know is that it is my responsibility to learn how to.
It is not the responsibility of the black community to fix me. It is my responsibility to own my own feelings and actions. It is time for white people, like me, to stop seeing people of color thru a lens of fear. It is time for each of us to look at each other as individuals, not as part of our “in” group or their “out” group. It is white America’s problem to fix the systemic racism that has infiltrated our culture. It is our table to set out and invite the “others” to come sit at. We are the ones who need to learn, to be open to new ways of seeing. This is our responsibility, we need to take it on. I feel compelled to write this today. Today, when the country is AGAIN protesting murder, a hate crime against a man whose only “crime” was being black and accused of something nefarious. I am on the other end of the “crime” spectrum. No one ever thinks I do anything wrong. Like our president once said “I could shoot someone in the middle of Park Avenue” and the arresting officer would still call me ma’am.
I am a middle aged white woman. Cops never look twice at me. I am invisible on their radar. I could exploit that invisibility and smuggle drugs or…
