I Am Not a Racist

I am not a racist.

I do not have higher or lower expectations of people who have different skin color than I have. I do not practice any of the behaviors that are discriminatory or abusive toward other races. I do not believe that whites are inherently superior to any other race in any way. I do not accept that because my skin is white I am born into racism. I do not believe that every white person in America is racist (although, I do believe that some most certainly are).

The assumption of white privilege for me is a joke. I have lived out of my car for a month when I couldn't afford a place to live. When I left the car, I lived in pay by the week hotels on East Colfax (and anyone who knows the area knows the places I'm talking about--havens for drug dealers, prostitutes, and the poor). I've lived in neighborhoods that were featured on Cops, although I never saw the episode. I was born to a family that never managed to rise above middle class, and a family that never just handed me anything.

I paid for my own schooling, I've held horrible low paying jobs, and I slept on a blow-up mattress in an unfurnished apartment for a year of my life while I wondered every day how I would find the money to pay rent or buy groceries.

Neither my parents nor my family nor this racist system bought me a car, an education, a job, or a nice car.

Everything I have in my life--from the scars on my arms to the job that I hold to the book that I wrote to the failed marriage--is mine and mine alone. It wasn't institutional racism that brought me to this point, it was work, effort, failure, and success. The things that I have, and, just as importantly, the things that I don't have, are all results of my own choices in life, not the color of my skin or the bias of America toward white male me.

And I bitterly resent anyone who suggests otherwise.

I was not privileged to be born; I simply was born. Life has been a struggle from the start.

My grandfather was a chicken farmer in Colorado Springs until the big farmers came into the picture and he couldn't compete. He took a job as a meter reader when the farm no longer paid the bills, lived most of his life in the same house, and retired just a few years ago. When he was a boy living in Kansas, his family homesteaded--when they moved into Kansas, they lived in a dugout in the ground while they built their own home.

Privilege? I don't think so.

My father ran as far as he could get away from the farm--for a man who was never tilted toward academics, that meant the Army. He worked his way up from being an enlisted soldier to being an officer, served in Vietnam (including his own Purple Heart--but he doesn't have the same need to advertise it that some Presidential candidates I could mention), and then worked his way through a life that never quite worked out for him. There were no riches, there was no fame, there were often hard times paying the bills.

Privilege? Not a chance.

I'm not a racist because of my birth and I wasn't given any special dispensations because of my skin color. I don't believe that skin color defines the value of a person, I don't believe that skin color ranks either special privilege or certain condemnation, and I don't discriminate on the basis of skin color, gender, or religion.

So, for those who think that the accident of birth that is my skin color somehow automatically defines me as racist, I say you're a fool. If it somehow makes you feel better--like a martyr or a saint--to call yourself a racist, that's just fine.

But don't tar me with that same brush.

Posted by zombyboy at August 19, 2004 12:23 AM