Alice

Let me tell you the tale of how naive, shielded, privileged, blind, aloof, and irresponsible I have been in my journey with racism. Warning: In this story I appear to be wholly uneducated and downright stupid. Regrettably these are truths. The same fate may also ring true ... but for you. 

A little more than a decade ago (somewhere in my mid to late twenties) I asked a close friend, who is Black, if she had experienced racism. This was the first moment in my extraordinarily privileged life that I began to see that racism was and is very much alive. I asked her several tone deaf, entitled and close minded questions. I rattled off about my take on “reverse racism”. (That’s not a thing.) I asked what she would think if there was a network called “white entertainment television”. (There is. It’s called every other channel.) I asked her if I could dress as Kanye West for Halloween. (Thankfully she stopped me.) If you had asked me on that day if I was racist, I would have imploded. Not me. No way. I considered this girl to be one of my best friends. I loved her. I didn’t care that she was black. Shit, I would very likely have told you that I “didn’t see color”. 

Turns out: I was racist. In fact, I am currently racist. And the more I learn, the more obvious it all becomes. This is not to say that I am proudly racist - because I can assure you - the admission comes with an immense burden of guilt. But. I can’t undo what I don’t acknowledge. Every fiber of my being wants to undo the racism that exists within me so I must face it, head on. 

I’ve been reading a lot. I’ve got a couple of books on rotation, all written by Black authors. I binge podcasts. And news articles. And devour all the activist accounts I’m now following on Instagram. It’s an information overflow. I’m feeling tired - but when I consider how overwhelming all of this “newfound” information is to the lifetime struggle of actually enduring it - I can easily check myself. 

It turns out that I have been living in a white supremest fairy tale. Blissfully and carelessly unaware of how deep the rabbit hole of systemic racism actually is. Today I was Alice, but what I learned destroyed my Wonderland. 

In my white supremest fairy tale I truly believed that we had abolished slavery. We had ended segregation. We were all now equal, and with hard work anyone of us could achieve the “American Dream”. Yes, I saw the police brutality. I acknowledged Black Lives Matter. I was enraged at the injustices I was learning about. I marched with my children. I donated. I called. I petitioned. I dove in. I didn’t question the motivation behind the riots or looting. I felt like I was on the right side of history. If you’d have asked me yesterday how I considered myself on the issue, I would have wholeheartedly proclaimed that I was progressive and actively trying to be anti-racist. And I was. And I am. But I was and am so, so, so, SO VERY ignorant to the many disgusting historical truths of this country. 

I Googled “Jim Crow” just this year. 2020. Privilege. Until today, when I heard the name “Emmett Till” I assumed he was a recent victim of police brutality that I had somehow overlooked. Boy did I! His death occurred in 1955. I can’t tell you that I learned about him in a single history book that I’ve ever been presented. A landmark lynching of a FOURTEEN YEAR OLD BOY that was, until today, not on the radar of my self proclaimed “liberal, anti-racist, black-lives-matter-seeking” self. What a joke. (My husband and thirteen year old son were both stunned that I didn’t know about Emmett Till. I am 36. I excelled in school. But. I did not know.)

I didn’t realize until today that companies pay PENNIES for slave labor. Get this: They do it LEGALLY. We call it prison labor, but don’t be fooled. I learned that the pinnacle of my white supremest fairy tale hinged on my complete negligence to have recognized the horrific and racist loophole that exists within the 13th amendment.

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

If you’re in jail, your labor is exploited. Your debt to society isn’t paid, even after serving your sentence, and you’ll never gain back some of your rights of citizenship. (Like VOTING) It’s not by accident that our jails are full of minorities - it’s by design. 

When I look back on that conversation long ago, I imagine my friend wanting to wring my neck. “Have you experienced racism?” The gall! What an absolute horror. She politely engaged in my conversation knowing full and well how absolutely entitled and ignorant I was. I feel rage [in my present self] at how stupid, rude and ugly all of those questions were ... I cannot imagine how she maintained her composure. But I guess that again is white privilege - because there aren’t so many consequences when I don’t. 

White people. Holy shit. It’s bad. It’s all true. All of it. Far beyond the police brutality. The entire policing system and the mass incarceration of BIPOC. It’s all a setup for corporations (and very wealthy white folks) to benefit from slave labor. Legally. In TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY. It’s much worse than I could have imagined. The history of how we legally red lined (aka SEGREGATED) neighborhoods, the way we policed and regulated Black folk, tore down their achievements, and then declared a “war on drugs”. (Which subsequently lead our country, a mere 5% of the world’s population to incarcerate 25% of the worldwide prison population. 40% of which is made of Black men.) I am so disgusted. Enraged. Horrified. 

A week ago I rolled my eyes at corporations posting black silent squares of solidarity. I smugly judged the influencers who broke (and those who didn’t break) their silence about racism. I could spit in my own pompous face for thinking I was more enlightened that any single one of those white people. I HAD NO IDEA. 

Racism isn’t just real. It’s not just happening in isolated events. It’s not just crosses being burned, or racial slurs. It’s deeply rooted in the fabric of this country. And if you’re an Alice like me ... you’re very likely actively participating in the problem, even if you truly, madly, deeply believe otherwise. 

I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. I feel a stirring in my soul like never before - to learn more. To know more. To share more. To never shut up. Because I didn’t know. And now I do. And I cannot, and will not, ever return to Wonderland.