Not so fine, thanks

"I'm fine, but I'm just thinking of the right words to say. I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be." -- from The Promise, by When In Rome

Words are hard. It's hard to get them to say exactly what we mean, and frequently when we think we've got it just right, and we try them out on someone, they don't sound the way we planned them.

Sometimes that's because we're not paying attention. Sometimes it's because we're typing too fast. Increasingly, for me at least, it's because the emotions we're trying to express are best represented by a scream. And sometimes it's because we're not thinking about another's point of view, or we're in a rush to point out OUR point of view.

After the events in Charlottesville, many people who are like me (that is, white, liberal, and, sometimes, southern) are rushing to find our words right now. Many of us have been avoiding our words for months or years, and Charlottesville has broken a dam in us. And, I'm not entirely sure what to make of that.

Soon after the protest in Charlottesville, a Confederate statue in Durham, NC (near where I live) was toppled by a crowd of protesters. There was much online discussion about whether this was appropriate or inappropriate, and in one post someone made the comment that this was (paraphrasing) just a bunch of white kids trying to make themselves look better. It wasn't true - many of the protesters were black, but it brings up a point that I'd like to address really quickly, and get it out of the way.

Yeah, some white people say all the things they think their supposed to, just to be saying them. Yeah, sometimes white people say all the things they think they're supposed to because they believe them deeply, and someone rails on them for providing lip service. And, yes, there are whites who don't speak out because of this, or because they "don't know what to say," "don't have the same experience/knowledge/perspective" as people of color, or whatever.

Fine. But it's time to stop that nonsense.

Partially because we need to speak out. All of us. I don't care what your color, if we believe that the events in Charlottesville are heinous, we need to speak out.

But more than that, whites need to speak out. We own this.

I spent the first few days after Charlottesville responding to all sorts of Facebook posts, and tweets, and writing my own. By Monday afternoon, I was exhausted, both emotionally and physically.

I could, possibly, have taken a break. Others can't.

I am white. If I decide not to confront racism, I don't have to deal with it. It's not going to look at me askance in the elevator, or crack jokes about me, or judge my music or my clothes or my church. I am never going to understand racism on the visceral level of a person of color. I can't. And no one is expecting me to, but I am expecting myself to understand that, as exhausted as I was, I was only dealing with the topic because I chose to. Not because I had to.

But we own this on a deeper level, too. Whites need to acknowledge that those monuments were put up for us. Particularly white women, but all whites. There's an explanation going around that the monuments are memorials, and should be treated like gravestones. That most of the people who fought in the Confederacy were actually poor, non-landowners, who didn't benefit from slavery.

Bullshit. Pardon my language, but bullshit. First of all, ALL whites benefited from slavery. They benefited from free labor. They benefited from having someone to look down upon, and boost their own ego. Even after slavery ended, whites benefited from cheap labor. Yes, the grunts who fought may have been sold lies by politicians. But that doesn't mean that they didn't benefit from it.

But we also own this because we created these monuments. We own this because we started that war. We own this because no woman ever lied and got our sons lynched. We own this because the worst white school in the 60s was better than any black school. We own this because we don't have to teach our kids how to behave around cops. We own this because our children are watching us. And our neighbors. And our colleagues.

I'm not saying that my words are particularly brilliant. I write what I feel. And right now, my feelings are sad, and angry, and confused. I don't want to speak for others, but I'm tired of being quiet.

And I know that my words may not sound the way I planned, but silence sounds even worse. So, for better or worse, I will think of words to say, and I will say them.