Not asking Black people, or perhaps even anyone else, to validate our beliefs and attitudes is also a good practice. Our own hearts can tell us perfectly well whether we’re doing the right thing, and no one else can persuade our own hearts that we’re OK when our own hearts know that we’re not.
Here’s something else that can be practiced on a regular basis. Studies have shown that White people speaking up when racist things are said in our presence by other White people reduces stress—and remember, those things get said because a White-racist assumption is being made about us as White people. Keeping quiet, on the other hand, does cause stress.
Of all the wildly disturbing stories Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar tell in You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey, the one that has really stuck with me has been the one they saved for last, about a “Black History Showdown” in Dubuque, Iowa (“of all places”), in which high-school teams competed. Two of the competing teams were Black; the others were White. It soon became clear that the White kids must have gone to schools that shielded them from many of the most salient points of American history, and when Lacey’s team began to own the contest, the all-White audience got “upset.” Toward the end, a White judge “stormed the stage and took the mic from the host,” declared that “everyone knows white kids are smarter than Black kids; everyone knows this,” took away most of the winning team’s points, and said they would not be the winners because it’s “just not right.” Instead, a White team won.
There’s not a word about any other White people pointing out that what that judge did was just not right. Not any of the White parents, not any of the White kids. It’s beyond deeply disappointing. Could not even any young person who might have cared enough about Black history to enter the contest care enough to say something about a rank injustice committed on Black people right under their nose? What’s it like to go through a whole life with the shame of that silence? Having myself kept silent on occasions when I should have spoken up, I can testify that I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Speaking up can be scary in anticipation, and in the moment, perhaps especially for those of us who are just learning keep our lip zipped and not be so quick to offer our opinions about any- and everything. And also, many very nice people are conflict-averse, and don’t want to get into an argument or be perceived as insufficiently submissive and be punished for it. If it helps to give us courage, though, we can always think of maintaining a discreet silence as behaving like an asshole as a form of people-pleasing—and then we can speak up.
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