“N****r lover.”
He said it as I was exiting the building and he – an older white man – was entering. I froze. My arms were full – an infant in one and a small hand holding onto the other. My attention was fixed on negotiating with the toddler holding into my arm about the walk through the parking lot to our car. It was an ordinary moment.
Until he spoke, I didn’t notice another person sharing space with us and the unexpected voice startled me. I was preoccupied with the chaos of everyday life with a two year old and a newborn. Then suddenly I wasn’t. His words cut through the bedlam.
My first reaction was disbelief. “Did he just say what I think he said?” I didn’t reply but locked eyes with him. We were the only ones there. Looking at him, seeing the disgust evident on his face, I knew that he meant what he said and he meant for me to hear it. In an instant he and his hate consumed me. I did the only thing I could in the moment – I stared him down, held my little ones closer and moved away from him as fast as possible.
This scene has replayed again and again in my mind. Each time I think of a response that feels better than how I reacted that day. As I walked away from the man shame, fear and sadness washed over me.
There was shame over my inability to respond or do anything to hold him to account. I was fearful over how his words gave credence to a truth my husband and I already know; whiteness can easily invade and shatter any sense of security and normalcy we hope exists for our family. I felt sadness as I held my brown skinned babies because I was reminded that we cannot protect them from a racialized world. It was an unanticipated jolt into the racial reality we inhabit where black and brown children are fed a narrative that they are less than; where they are assessed and judged by norms established to favor whiteness; where they struggle to measure up because this place was not designed to measure equitably.
The man was not physically intimidating but in that moment the safety I knew in my white skin, was stripped away. It wasn’t just racist words, it was affirmation of the social position of whiteness, of how whiteness will not only threaten violence but will enact it against anyone it wishes with little or no outward consequence. I instinctually know that this whiteness will take down anything that it senses is a threat to white superiority and, in that moment to that white man, I, with white skin holding brown babies, was a threat.
The experience was different and the same all at once. It was familiar because I know this whiteness and, while I’ve seen this sort of blatant and contempt-filled call out of other people, this was the first time it happened to me. It was different that I had no response for him – I’m seldom silent when someone does me or my loved ones wrong. Moreover, being intimidated by whiteness – feeling afraid for my safety and incapable of protecting my little ones – this was new for me too. I’ve witnessed and responded to undisguised racism so many times before. But never has the vile been directed at me in the presence of my small children and never have I frozen in face of it. My protected position as a white woman was publicly called into question, it unnerved me and I froze.
Though this happened nearly 6 years ago, it weighs on me even now. How is whiteness still able to rule over, shame and paralyze? What about me and my ties to whiteness left me frozen that day? I continue to feel shame and sadness when I think about it. But I also wonder about the fear – were I to experience a similar event would fear again overwhelm me? Who was I in that moment and how do I keep myself from getting ensnared in this way so that I am unable to act, respond to and thwart whiteness?
My intent in writing about race and racism is not to show all the ways I’m against whiteness – this space is not really about what I’m against. This space is about what I am for. I’m for my husband. I’m for my kids. I’m for love, for justice, for antiracism, for healing and for creating a world where all are free to live and to thrive. Whiteness gets in the way of these things. This is why I’m reckoning with whiteness.
I’ve been working to grow my understanding of whiteness and antiracism. That day showed me that whiteness is more imbedded in my story and identity than I wish it to be and in more profound ways than I’ve yet to understand. I am growing my imagination for how our world can be – one that breaks the bounds of whiteness – and trying to work out how I can be antiracist and have white skin.
I’m learning more about those who’ve paved the way before me and listening to antiracist voices today. I’m examining how whiteness has shaped my history and am exploring how and for what purpose we have come to be racialized. I’m also questioning how I have policed the world around me in the name of whiteness and weeding out the ways whiteness is still deeply attached to my story, how I see myself and how I see the world.
Even so, I find myself conscripted into activities that proliferate whiteness as normal, as the ideal embodiment of humanity and in essence, enable whiteness to hold onto power. My silence that day and all the ways that I’ve been silent before and since, allow whiteness to flourish and I’ve got more work to do.
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