There is the most recent man I loved – the rugged sort, a logger and a hunter. When these white men write to me, they are trying to say, “I am more than my skin.” They are trying to say, “I bleed, too.” I want to write back and say, “I never said otherwise.” They are not interested in my sad stories. White men have written to me to tell me their sad stories, as if their suffering, great or small, were the bridge across which we could find common ground. White men have written to me to tell me I am wrong. No one would willingly relinquish such power. They know what their lives would be like if they lost that privilege.
They feel threatened and, perhaps, they should. They see it as an attack on their character or an attack on their way of life. They hear it as an accusation rather than a statement of fact. I have written about how far too many white men are unwilling to acknowledge that ease, that privilege. I have written about the ease with which they move through the world. I have written about white men and how prominently they figure in our culture. I and many others will be forced to mourn Amadou Diallo, Trayvon Martin, Renisha McBride, Eric Garner, Mike Brown, John Crawford and, and, and. When I see a white man ambling towards me on the street at night, or when I am in an elevator with him, or when I see him in the car next to mine on the interstate, I often think I should be afraid. I will continue to be powerless in the face of it. It pains me to realise this but I will continue to bear witness to such disgrace.
I have seen white men kill men and women with skin like mine because their fear of difference overcame grace and humanity. I have watched as such self-interest has gone unchecked and even been encouraged. I have watched as they have made choices that serve, mostly, their own best interests. I have seen white men presiding over trials, presiding over corporations, presiding over many countries in the western world. I have seen how they survey a room they enter, knowing they have an inalienable right to fill that space as they see fit, no matter the circumstance. I have studied the confidence with which they walk, the shape of their squared shoulders, the almost unbearable firmness of their handshake.
I have watched them mow their lawns and play softball on Thursday nights and drink beer and go to work each morning in their sensible suits and sensible shoes. For most of my life, I have lived in areas where I am the exception rather than the rule. I am a child of the suburbs and forgotten rural places. It would have been easy, I suppose, to imagine that all white men were like that: brute, taking what they wanted as if it were owed to them. There was the first boy I ever loved – golden-haired, blue-eyed – and then he and several other boys who were just like him did something terrible to me. They misunderstand equality as the destruction of one group instead of the salvation of another. They think that a passionate desire for equality rises from a place of hatred rather than from an abiding sense of fairness. They read my writing about race and gender and make assumptions.