Nice Whites

There are some guys in the world who think they deserve points for not doing things like, oh hitting on a drunk female friend. That is to say there are guys out there--Nice Guys--who want to be recognized for failing to do something horrible, all the while ignoring that by even whining about such a thing what they are admitting to is, on some level, having thought about it and, for whatever reason, decided not to do it.

This entry isn't going to be about Nice Guys, as there are a thousand million posts by feminists who deconstruct that myth better than I could. Instead, let's say that this is a post about Nice Whites. It's the exact same thing--I white person who wants praise and goodies for not actively being racist, for not actively doing something terrible. These are the white people who see a black person walking towards their car and think "A black person! I am not going to lock my car right now, because I know that doing that would be racist. Man, I am so awesome." These are people who think the absence of terrible is the same as the presence of good.

(And don't lie to me--I'm white too, you know. I know we've all had those thoughts. Hell, I live those thoughts these days.)

Wanting to be praised for doing non-bad isn't an evil in of itself. I'd rather people didn't do bad things, even if it means dealing with some secret jerks. But what bothers me and, I think, should bother you about the above is the following: a person who believes that not bad is the same as good is being self-deceiving. And a person who believes that non-bad is the same as good is often failing to be active and helpful elsewhere.

Deception, particularly self-deception, is a fact of life. We all lie to ourselves in little ways. I'm not against a little delusion. But the above isn't deception the way telling yourself it's ok to eat another cookie or to buy that book or that your crush likes you is deception. It's harmful to someone (and, in the above cases, to entire groups of people) other than you. It negatively impacts more than just you. It's deception that should be done away with, because it presents a false promise. It promise a group something like "Hey, there is no racism here", only to have that be the case. An in the failure of the promise comes distrust, discord, and a continuation of the problems.

And it causes laziness. If it is believed that all that's needed to be pro-women or a feminist or whatever is to simply not rape women, than why bother doing anything else? Why bother reading a book or talking to actual women or caring about pay difference? You've done your part! And by that token, who cares about institutional racism. That doesn't describe you, because, gee, did you see the way you nodded at that black guy in the hallway? Racism!? Not here, pal, not by a long short!

Even among those who are more aware, it causes inaction. If I can do something racist and then recognize and examine that racism, isn't that enough? And while I would never, ever dissuade white people from examining their own racism as often as possible, the answer is, no, it's not enough. It doesn't make you anti-racist anymore than not groping drunken chicks makes you a feminist. It just makes you not a jerk, and a somewhat insincere non-jerk at that.

So, instead, I offer this small move forward--to be as public and accountable for my prejudices as possible. To not just examine, but do work. This work is simple, as far as effort goes, but I hope that this public record gets me thinking and yelled at and moved towards more. It's very little, but for the most of all, what matters is that we step outside of our self-examination bubble and actually try to bring others in.