A Word or Two About Racism

(Because really, B&E readers, why not?)

With the McCain campaign implying that Obama's uppity, with Bill Clinton's continued denials that he's racist, and with the popularity of a game that uses "race cards," I figured I'd inject myself into the discussion for the six of you that like your baldness effective.

At some point (probably in college), I accepted that racism was an institutional problem. The general inequalities between black and white in this country are the result of hundreds of years of racism. That the divide between black and white is once again growing... also a result of racism. It's in the interest of the people in power (in this case, white people) to keep the power structure in its current form.

We've made some progress over the past few years (Look, ma, no more slaves!), and the civil rights movement brought us a few steps closer to equality, what with affirmative action and all (something the racists want to take away). But the fact remains that we are a racist country that benefits those of us who are white.

Take my own family for a moment... My mom and dad were born a part of the largely undereducated, underpaid part of society, the daughter and grandson of German immigrants. During a time of segregation, they got themselves a decent education and worked their way through college. Starting off downright broke, through teaching and ministering, they clawed their way into the middle class and gave my sister and I more opportunity than they had. We went (mostly) to public schools, and because we lived in a perfectly nice middle class (mostly) white neighborhood, we attended the (mostly) white, middle and upper class public high school, arguably the best high school in town. Both of us went to private colleges. If I'd made decisions unrelated to my soul, I could probably be one of those rich fucks that annoy me so much. Hell, maybe I'd even be a Republican.

The opportunities afforded to my parents and then to me would not have been possible if we weren't all white. I'm not saying that my folks didn't also work their asses off and pull themselves up by the bootstraps (and all that code-talk for getting rid of "government handouts"). But we had a distinct institutional advantage. We look like the people in power.

So when Lindsay Graham says unequivocally that John McCain doesn't have a racist bone in his body, well, based on how I think about it, that's a horseshit statement. When Bill Clinton insists he's not a racist, more horseshit. You're white; I'm white. We've had more benefits because of our institutionalized race advantage, and we are therefore culpable in the racism of this country, i.e. we're racist.

Perhaps McCain, Clinton, and I aren't bigoted, prejudiced, or discriminatory, and maybe what I'm talking about is more semantics than substance, but I don't think it is. I think it's important that whitey take responsibility for the institutionalized racism in the United States.

The first step is acceptance. We're all a bunch of racists! Wake up, white people! Oh, wait, that doesn't sound quite right.