This piece is pure racism! You assume that because someone is a white male he automatically hates you. How is your story at different than a white man who was once, say, mugged by a black man? Does he now have the liberty to boldly declare that is giving up on black people? I would assume not. So, you are proposing a double standard. You believe that a black man who undergoes a horrible experience due to a white man can hate the white race, but a white man in an analogous situation cannot hate all black people. You don’t end racism through more racism.
20
Is this what passes for 'philosophy' these days? Yeah "giving up on White America" because of some bigoted, anonymous hate-mail that you received in response to a purposefully provocative piece seems completely morally/ethically sound. You'd make Socrates proud for sure.
12
Professor Yancy: You are condemning all white people because of the nastiness of the few vocal ones. One would think that a Professor was smart enough and educated enough not to write this editorial.
Should we give up on African Americans because somo fothen are criminals? Should we give up on all Jews because of the way the Israelis have violated international law again and again? Should we give on on Southerners because they had slavery? Of course not. Should we give up on ethnic group (whites are an ethnic group too) because of the evil actions fo the few? Of course not.
I give your piece a D- for its childish premis.
10
I find such essentialistic thinking a bit strange coming from a philosopher
5
I'm a 64 year old white guy and I gave up on American white people a log time ago. White Americans will never recognize the abomination of slavery really never ended. The damning effects of being labeled "less than" are felt by every black person in this country, consciously and more insidiously, unconsciously, everyday. Are there whites who are empathetic to the general situation of blacks? For sure. But even "tolerant" whites lack true understanding because of the apartheid social structure of America. I gave up on whites as kid during the sixties when I saw the vitriol directed at Muhammad Ali. But I have so much hope now with blended families becoming more common. In the end, DNA could act as redeemer for America's original sin.
13
This writer apparently doesn't have a problem judging all whites based on threats / letter he received. What if we as whites judged all black people by what we see on tv on a daily basis? Blacks killing blacks, blacks killing whites for no reason? We are all human beings and should really try to live together peacefully. All lives matter, and respecting one's self is key. Blaming others for your personal plight is not the way to approach life. No one owes you anything.
10
Wait a minute. Please don't lump all of us into the same boat. That's what some white people do with other races. You must encounter decent white people more often than the ones who send you those despicable thoughts. I have to believe that. Don't give up.
5
No. You should not give up on white people. In fact, you should not give up on any category of people. Doing so unfairly treats them as an arbitrarily defined group, which is in a word, racist.
9
Gee you slam an entire people and then feign surprise when the most ignorant people of that group act like the most ignorant people of any group always do. These articles are the reason we are stuck with Trump.
8
I hate being reduced to a stereotype.
Should I give up on you?
10
No, Dr. Yancy, I will not be voluntarily donning sackcloth and ashes, and begging forgiveness for alleged inherent shortcomings based solely on my skin color. Your view of me while not nearly as offensive as those rancid, horrid, disgusting and possibly criminal attacks and threats you received, is none the less morally and intellectually bankrupt.
We are individuals with agency and independence of thought. Don't lump me, through the use of slick made up academic jargon ("white innocence"; "white privilege") with these knuckle-dragging white nationalists and neo-Nazis. Don't attribute, just as they do, general negative characteristics to vastly different human beings simply based on race. This is the stuff of current academic fashion, black nationalism, and identity politics and it is divisive, binary and intellectually sterile.
Instead, encourage coalition building, and working across lines of race, gender, economic and educational groupings to advance everyone. The atomization of America into separate groupings is the goal of the Neo-nazis and their camp followers, Why do their work for them, no matter how well-intentioned you may be?
11
Perhaps, someday, we will look back at the Nuremberg Trials or the trial of Adolf Eichmann and say that the accused were basically the same as today's "white liberals", "well-meaning white people", (as well as overtly-hateful white racists.) They're all a bunch of inherently racist white people. Why? Because, simply, they're white, and that is their most significant attribute. What a sad and pessimistic scenario.
1
I am neither "Black" or "White"
or "Brown" or "Yellow".
Nor am I
African American
European American
Hispanic American
Native American
though the blood of all flow through my veins.
I am just a human -
nearing the end of my life.
I wish the New York Times would just
identify us as such.
5
Should I give up on non white people due to the diatribes I have heard from non whites?
Stereotyping...
6
I can see where you would be ready to give up on white people. The ones who wrote the hate mail as the same smug, self-righteous fools the world has suffered from for centuries. I am 'white' woman. According to my DNA tests, I am so white I glow in the dark. The lesson I learned growing up poor, was there will always be narrow-minded, bigoted, stupid people of all 'colors' in the world who will use anything or anyone they are afraid of, or can't twist to fit their own narrow views as an excuse to lash out. However, in my 60 plus years, the ONLY people who have EVER helped me were black people, not white people. From the big strong "Trash Man" who pulled the emergency brake on Mom's car when I knocked it out of gear when I was six, and who will ALWAYS be my hero, to my black co-workers who bought my family a full Thanksgiving dinner out of their own pockets when we were destitute, to the members of the black church who brought bags of groceries to my home after watching me account for every penny as I shopped. Color shouldn't matter. Race shouldn't matter. DNA says we are ALL the same. But there will always be insecure people out there who say and write mean, hateful things to make themselves feel better. These writers are jealous and afraid of anyone who can overcome adversity and become something fantastic. Someone like you, Professor Yancy. Don't give up on the rest of us 'white' people because of the idiots. Some of us aren't too bad.
11
yes---give up. white people are beyond repair.
4
Hundreds of languages and thousands of words have disappeared from our global lexicon. Why not abolish the n-word?
Until African Americans are equally disgusted and appalled when they hear the n-word uttered by a fellow African American as they would be when uttered by a white- then we will never be closer to racial equality.
As a white guy, I've hugged the cactus too long- it's time for you to start contributing.
3
As always, thank you for writing, for sharing. My only objection is to you using the adjective "white". White was coined by racists as a positive; really, we are "pink", "peach", "redish orange", etc. Please do not give up on the (I hope) majority of pink people.
2
I know better. WOW. Degrees of separation.. Dr. Yancy is very privileged... and self-indulgent. He gets to speak out about white racism in major publications. You know lots of people experience barriers: Jews, women, gays, transgenders, the unathletic. What is black? What shade of black? (People from India are dark skinned-- are they black?) Called a Klanswoman -- the daughter of a refugee from Germany pre WWII -- by a man working forthe DeBlasio administration -- a person of privilege. Those who have much owe much -- and for heaven's sake demonstrate your humanity. Cassandra did not do much for anyone. What do you do for the black community? White men died getting out the vote. Many white people think that black lives matter very much and those that take them (the police) should be in jail. But railing against whites in general just doesn't do it. BTW how do you even know that that white person isn't black (DNA-wise). People are often afraid of the unknown. (The shadow in the alley...) I had a student ask me if I had ever been shot at -- when I was 22 years old. (My mother had been shot at by the neighbors with bee-bee guns.. being funny.) What are your real efforts to counteract racism? Words are not enough. (and yes men -- gender -- can be just awful... and women often just as bad... skin tone not withstanding.) Police also gun down white women -- perceived as a threat, BTW. Stupid is. Cruel is.
3
You should learn not generalize.
4
Should you give up on whites? Absolutely not! But I am confused by your logic and have some comments. First, you assume all white people are alike. Whites should not be generalized any more than blacks. The number of comments from whites on this thread in support of your opinion I think demonstrate that not all whites are alike. Second, many whites in this country are also suffering. Joblessness, poverty, lower life expectancy, drug and alcohol abuse, you name it. Does this sound like a system bent in their favor? Third, many whites consider it hypocritical that blacks remain silent over gang violence in, say, Chicago, yet rail about police shootings. Do black lives matter only when whites are involved? Fourth, social change in America is very slow. Yet the well-being of African Americans has been moving in a positive direction, despite the painful experience. Blacks have gone from slaves to citizens to president of the US. I think there is something arrogant about your desire to give up. In comparison to civil rights leaders like MLK, Malcom, or even Abe Lincoln, you haven't suffered enough to earn the right to give up. So don't! As a Jew, blacks can be very racist towards us. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are examples. Instead of denigrating Jews, blacks should learn from Jewish experience on how a broken people puts itself back together. Lastly, what do blacks want? What does a "woke" America actually look like? Blacks have not specified what this vision looks like.
3
As white I would have, given up on my so called race. African Americans continue to lead by example as decent, forgiving, and loving human beings. I taught black high school kids for ten years. Or they taught me! I burned out not because of them but, rather, because of a largely white racist big city midwest school administration. Nothing has changed! But I have hope.
4
The number of people who read this and say “but it’s not me” or “not all white people” is shocking. If you are motivated to actually make that comment, then you know what? It is you. Try being quiet - and try some self reflection.
5
Maybe you just need to get out of the City. I don't know of a single racist white person that I have ever met my entire life. White people (and all people) just don't think that way. They live and work every day around black people, all of us being cordial and respectful to each other. I just don't know how this can be such a non-issue my entire life, but you are having such problems?
2
Racism isn't just white, Yancy. Whites and blacks alike are caught in this web.
2
please don't let the worst become all of it
if you can
we are all privileged to hear you
1
"Some ideas are so stupid it takes a group of intellectuals to believe them."
I am white and I am not a racist. My ancestors had nothing to do with slavery and my children had nothing to do with slavery. Although I wan the problems in black society to go away, I will never believe that me and my children are racist simply because of the color of our skin. That is completely irrational and makes no sense. Your condemning of all white people because of the actions of a few white people indicates that you have taken on the values of the racists themselves.
4
Despite Professor Yancy’s compelling and emotional (some might say overwrought) story famous people who write controversial essays will get hate mail. If you are black it will likely be racist, a woman, misogynistic, a Jew, anti-Semitic and if you are none of those things they will just call you filthy names. The world is full of mean hateful people and they come in all races and genders.
To equate a minority of hateful people with White America is offensive. People don’t hate because of the color of their skin. Would the Times have printed a piece that says we should give up on black people because of a minority who join gangs. I don’t think so and I wish they would think twice about printing pieces like this.
The counter-argument to Whites ignoring racism because they don’t want to deal with it is African Americans exaggerating racism because they have an emotional need to blame every bad thing that happens to them on a racist America.
This tribalism must end. We have serious problems having to do with poverty, policing, gender inequality and the environment and progressives has failed for the past 50 years because they would rather make better human beings instead of using government to lift people up. You must fight the fights you can win and ridding the world of racist haters is a tall order. Progressives don't see how they alienate people.
We have lots of problems to solve but one of them isn’t preventing Professor Yancy from getting hate-mail.
4
I'm a white person getting ready to give up on white people.
2
Please change the authorship to reflect his degrees, he is Dr. George Yancy.
2
55% percent of white people in the country believe they are discriminated against because of their...wait for it...white skin. How do you even hope to get to the (gasp!)possibility of white privilege?
65% cannot name a single SCOTUS member.
Many black parents are now considering home schooling.
Now why is that?
Anyone?
Anyone?
White America: Insulated, Inoculated & Incurious
4
I remember some famous artist on the Terry Gross radio show, the guy was sick, dying, and he was crying about it! The way he failed to accept death with a semblance of grace and dignity, I was too disappointed ( if you only knew how hard I had to work not to say "disgusted" ) to feel sorry for him. He was reacting to death as if he was told he was the only human being to be denied immortality.
And now, the utter despair with which the good professor here writes about his anguish because America is racist reminds me of that disappointment ( again, I won't use the word ).
Come on, try to keep in touch with your sense of agency! Because, you know, whether we like it or not, we are all mortals, and America has a race problem - remember slavery, that is in Americas DNA! So, why cry about it?! Live your life, for God's sake! Whoever told that human beings are immortal or that us black people cannot survive in America if white people do not love us! I am not saying American racism is fun ( especially since they control all the power to crate a negative pressure in black peoples' lives ) but still, by crying like a child, you are only rewarding your nasty tormentors! Show your contempt by laughing at them! Contempt is powerful! You are afraid of your tormentors because you sense that there might be enough malice in their insults that can find expression in physical violence. So, if you pay their contempt in kind, they might fear you more than you fear them! Don't cry!
1
"These threatening words are taken from a letter sent to me by an anonymous white person." "...after I wrote and published the essay “Dear White America” in December 2015 here at The Stone. What I had offered as a letter of love had unleashed the very opposite — a wave of white hatred and dehumanization."
You assume the letter writer was an "anonymous white person." The likelihood that some of your hate mail came from black people, angry about your love letter to whites, is very likely.
I think that the article’s title is somewhat inflammatory and doesn’t do service to Dr. Yancy’s main points. This does little to advance dialogue since it paints all whites with the same brush. Acknowledging that there are whites racists should not require condemning all whites as racist, which is what the title implicitly does. This leads to charges, rightfully, of hypocrisy. The fact that Dr. Yancy is a scholar in race relations, and should have clearly seen how the poor choice of wording could be misconstrued, leads me to believe he is either poor at editing or deliberately chose the title to indicate that he is also a racist. The question comes up then, why would the NY Times give editorial space to a racist?
1
According to FBI and Bureau of Justice stats, around 90% of Black murder victims are the victims of Black perpetrators. And around 83% of White murder victims are the victims of White perpetrators.
In the end, there are those who have learned to hate, and those who have retained their natural human empathy.
Those who have learned to hate will focus their hate onto any convenient target. A few are taught to focus it onto people of another skin tone (although most murder victims are killed by someone of their own ethnicity.) Others are taught to focus it on their wives/girlfriends. (Over half of female murder victims are killed by spouses/boyfriends.)
It seems to me we should be focusing on the sources and causes of the hate, rather than on the screen onto which it is projected.
Give up on "White People" if you wish. But it is humanity that is being abandoned in the end.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6628a1.htm
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offense...
3
Yes, please "give up on white people." You're contributing nothing of value to anybody or anything with your divisive, toxic, condescending nonsense. If there are specific inequities that you see in society, point them out and offer some concrete solutions. But if all you're going to do is blather on about how every white person is a racist and pretend to be conflicted about whether you should give up on some nebulous mission to save white America from itself, by all means, stop talking about giving up and give up.
3
If your main argument is someone racist without knowing that person and simply because that person is white, then your opinion has no value in the discussion.
You should judge by the content of the character, not by the color of the skin.
Sound familiar?
2
Please don't give up on white people. But, do give up on ignorant haters of any ethnicity who will never have a desire or ability to self reflect, nor to progress morally as human beings.
1
Yes, please "give up on white people." Go away. Stop talking. Do something else. You're contributing nothing of value to anybody or anything with your divisive, toxic, condescending nonsense. If there are specific inequities that you see in society, point them out and offer some concrete solutions. But if all you're going to do is blather on about how every white person is a racist and pretend to be conflicted about whether you should give up on some vague mission to save white America from itself, by all means, stop talking about giving up and give up.
3
Professor: How do you know it was a white person who wrote the letter?
Answer: You don't.
2
Pick the worst people of any gender, race, religion, or nationality, and they look horrible and the idea of giving up on them sounds like a good idea. Whether it's those muslims, those black people, those white people, men, women, jews, amish - you can find words from the worst of them that would have you wanting to give up on the whole group.
Selecting the worst of the hate mail - you're creating a confirmation bias, selecting what you expect to see, believe is the truth.
2
To answer your question, yes, you should give up on white people. The evidence speaks loud and clear and there's no need to carry this baggage. It won't get you to heaven. It wont get you love or money, whats the use. Let it (them) go.
1
I'm surrounded by all the ignorant, racist, angry people who are responsible for foisting an unfit and frightening man into our white house and now I'm also surrounded by black people who hate me too? I'm only me. I can't answer for the Trump voters. I can't answer for the racists. I can't answer for the slaveholders. I was born blonde and female into an eastern Long Island community where only one black family lived. I didn't have a chance to have my first black friend until college. I have black friends now. I think they like me too. I don't think they hate me. I'm exhausted with all the hate swirling around in this country. I'm sorry it's directed at me. I'm sorry it's directed, in a much more virulent and longstanding and frightening way, at you. But please don't give up on people like me. You're just you. I'm just me. We're here now on this earth, together.
4
I did not see your first piece which has understandably caused you so much pain. If it was an open invitation to the public to criticize you then, you must understand that there are some mean, crazy people out there and they are going to say mean crazy things. Treat people as individuals. We are not made up of "black and white" people. we are all individuals. Get off this identification of a person solely by what race they are. whatever race you are, you(the author) are a man or a woman. You are also liberal or conservative or in between. Intelligent to some degree. You have varying opinions about politics, sports, community affairs. You have had disappointments in life, as we all have had. Do not be so upset that the world is not YOUR perfect little place. Let people be and maybe you will not be so disappointed when they do not measure up or down to your standards. Be civil. Tolerant. Tend your own garden, as Camus implored us. Maybe, do not provoke people with headlines that are designed to elicit strong responses. Do not paint me as ANY particular thing because of my skin color. You do know that that is the definition of racism. How does it feel to be called racist? Not so good, eh? Well, get to know people you may be pleasantly surprised. Or not. But it is better than stereotyping people with racist comments. Peace to you.
2
Give up on an entire race of people? That's what Hitler did; how can one even say such a thing? But sure, why not give up on white people, since you've already given up on logic. People, white or otherwise, are individuals and should be judged by the content of their individual characters, not by their membership in a particular race. (I thought that didn't need to be said.) And how Orwellian is it to take aim at a specific race of millions of people you've never met, and call THEM the racists. And they should confess! While the author may be correct on many points, and I certainly support his right to free expression and condemn any and all threats made against him, this type of argument is impossible to take seriously and will have the opposite effect of the harmony he claims to seek. Does he truly not understand the off-putting inappropriateness of his terminology and approach, with statements like "White America has lost its innocence"? We fought so hard to end the disgusting habit of prejudging people based on their group identity, not to mention the totalitarian arrogance of telling others what's in their own minds, demanding they confess to thought crimes they don't believe they've committed. We're past this hateful way of speaking, nobody wants to hear it, and no you may not bring it back in an attempt to level the playing field, sorry.
1
I'm Asian, and I don't like it when people make generalizations about
"Blacks this, Whites that, etc."
I've met racist Whites, Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics, as well as lovely, non-racist individuals from all races.
Racism will never go away, but it will also never win.
3
I think it'd be enlightening to see the response generated by switching this around.
First, someone could write a letter to "Dear Black People", telling all black people what exactly was wrong with them, in a generalizing, stereotyping way. It could be from the outsider perspective of a white professor, explaining exactly how black people should mend their ways, as a monolithic group.
Then following the inevitable irritated rebukes, there could be a follow-up letter, "Should I give up on black people?", bemoaning again how terrible all black people were and whether it was worth it to engage them to fix what was wrong with them.
How do y'all think that would go over? Because that's precisely what Dr. Yancy has done here.
1
Whew, that was difficult to read. So sorry Mr. Yancy has to read those awful letters. Must be so discouraging. Just have to say their are a lot of us white folks on your side. But the mean people always scream the loudest as they fade away.
3
America was founded on genocide and slavery, the protection of which was codified in a constitution that preserves to this day the political will of a majority of whites who do not believe their nation's true history nor would own up to it if they did. In other news in the year 2018, the baseball team in Cleveland issued a cap that both commemorated Jackie Robinson and sported the Chief Wahoo logo. You can't make it up.
2
Yes, I am white. I am also a Jew.
I am not safe.
I cannot begin to count the number of times that groups of men have tried to beat me up, steal my bicycle out from under me, or run me over with their cars. I've had large groups of Neo-nazis march outside my home, police refuse to investigate violence against me, and Muslims physically threaten me when I smiled and welcomed them to our community. Ugly stuff. Happens all the time.
Dr. Yancy, what I do not understand is why you choose to focus on the hundreds of individuals who've sent you hate mail when you could choose to focus on the millions of us who did not.
6
Stop droning on about the crimes of Europeans. What you think of as First Americans were, in any case, a later arrival who displaced a pioneer population (Population Y). And what of Neanderthals? Perhaps anatomically modern humans killed them after interbreeding with them. "We're all génocidaires!" When people opine on the qualitatively different evils of Europeans, it bespeaks a lack of knowledge of the deep history of our species. In Europe itself, a major population replacement took place 4,500 years ago (from the steppe). Pathogens from the East killed untold numbers of "Europeans" -- this is what killed so many "Native Americans" happening in reverse.
IntraAfrican slavery and tribal genocide happened not infrequently and was often large-scale, as you should know. In West African forests, for example, European slavery in fact saved many from certain slaughter as, in David Brion Davis's words, "heretics deserving death." This is not coming from a white supremacist or someone who denies the crimes of European peoples, only from someone who wants others to understand that this is a common way for our species to behave. You, on the other hand, don't really want a "human family"; no, you want whites to be viewed as the nonpareil evil.
We have a long way to go to repair the wrongs done to black people in this country, but denouncing the entire American economic system (as you and your friend Chomksy do), or whites as irredeemably racist, is not the route I would suggest.
3
I'm white and I've given up on white people ... at least the ones who continue to support this president.
3
I am a 75 year old white guy, born of immigrant parents to N.Y.C. M.L.K.Jr. was right on when he spoke of the three evils which were destroying the U.S. It is true now in 2018 as it was in 1968. First, Militarism - both globally and domestically is alive and well. Just look at what we have done in Iraq,Afghanistan, Syria and our involvement with 800 bases all over the world. We have spent 5.6 TRILLION dollars (Wall Street Journal report) since 2000. Imagine what that could have done to our roads, bridges and schools.
Second, Racism. Are we really blind to the hundreds of young black men shot by our police or the red-lining that still goes on all over the U.S. or the sad state of education and schools for people of color? Thirdly Poverty and materialism and the growing gap where a few Billionaires have more money than all the people in the bottom half of the country. Capitalism is failing for most USians.
The richest 8 states in 1860 were Southern states. Why? Their black slaves made them wealthy. Now look at the way we are treating Latinos fleeing from countries in Central America - countries that we have destroyed over the past 100 years (read . The Harvest of Empire)
Yes, Mr. Yancey Americans are racist. They will never admit it. Those who live in white zipcodes ( source -- Gallup Poll) voted overwhelmingly for Trump - the commander in chief of racism.
2
Prof. Yancy, it would mean a great deal to me if you could try to stop assuming you know what it means to be white. You can ask me to examine my own racism. You can try to explain to me your experience as someone who is black, and have me acknowledge that I could never truly know what it's like. Those are fair requests. Asking me to accept that you understand my experience better than I do is not. If that was not your intention then I apologize, but you should know that's the impression I got reading both this and your original essay.
3
As a white person I have long saluted the black community for nobly tolerating the countless abuses and aggressions that are a part of their daily lives. White people could never tolerate such treatment. Indeed, our current state is, I think, largely due to the fact that white people are finally realizing that they can no longer make their way in the world with their collective foot on the collective throat of all non-whites. White people are struggling (and hate is on the rise) because they are slowly, ever so slowly, realizing that they are not as good as they have always been told they are. So now they turn to opioids, alcohol, more pot — anything to help them deal with the realities that black people have had to deal with for literally centuries: unstable jobs, unpredictable wages, spotty (if any) health care, fairness in the job market, and on and on and on. The shining city on the hill was such a great idea when someone else built and tended to it.
Professor Yancy, I gave up on white people decades ago. It’s simply too laborious to try to teach them anything, much less to have them look into a disagreeable mirror and understand what they’ve done to others. It’s simply beyond their ken.
2
Keep writing and sharing!
1
It is simply up to we white people to unlearn racism. This is a responsibility due to bizarre privilege we enjoy--not out of personal guilt. The collective white supremacist society needs to work at this--all the time. I am sickened by the very violent racism in those threats, Mr. Yancy. That you have received so much willful ignorance and hatred is just so very wrong. Please do feel the love when it is given to you. And if you give up on white people? Well, no one could blame you. Your white allies will not give up on YOU, Mr. Yancy.
1
I'm White. I've given up on a lot of White people. Works for me.
2
Just who are these "white" people? Is everyone with white skin attacking you? Or just a certain subset? Are all black skinned people just like you? Probably not. There are more differences within any category of people than there are between categories. i. e. The range of difference between females is greater than their differences compared to men. There is a huge range of different kinds of people who have white skin, just as there are a huge range of people with black skin. To just see skin color is dangerous. You may miss just who your real friends and enemies are, often not who you think they are.
1
Yes, please give up on white people, but first could you define who they are so I’ll know what to look for? I mean, by all accounts, they are not people of color... or they are people not of color... or, uh, they are people of not color. Also, do white people also have a preferred pronoun? It’s just all so confusing.
It is incredibly disappointing to see the depth of our racial problem revealed by the Trump phenomenon - I think many of us assumed we were far closer to overcoming this hideous problem that we actually are.
That being said, there are many, many whites of good will and I would urge you not to give up, or base your opinions on the extremists. Remember Dr. King & the long arc of the moral universe.
1
Dr. Yancy - I read your NYTimes opinion and I am almost as disgusted and horrified as you are, only less so because I am white and American, but I am female. I can say I have thought hard my entire life about racism and inequality in America. I understand a tiny bit of your frustration and disgust (and anger!) at the ignorant, uneducated racists slobs who are stupid and heartless enough to feel and say the things they do to you. I am embarrassed and angry that Trump is where he is, giving license to the lowest of low Americans. I just want you to know there are those of us who have had the opportunity to learn, speak and act differently, who work hard to change this system that is still based in slavery and inequity. My heart goes out to you but I appreciate you and what you are up against as a person of color in this world of ignorance. I am so glad you are teaching and working with young people. Education is our only hope for the future. Please keep slogging through the mud. It's our only hope for a better future.
1
Comey is using one of the most important components of this country to speak out against what he sees is a danger to it. He is using the free press. The New York Times and its columnists should be cheering.
The press, as you should know, sometimes has to gussy up the news for people to pay attention, but that doesn't change the serious message it contains.
Of course this is rhetorical. You can't "give up on white people" - how would that even work? Will you end friendships? How will you stop dealing with your white colleagues?
Most importantly, how will you do your job if you disregard the majority ethnicity in your own country? By all means, you need to keep saying what you see, what's sick about it, and what we might do to oppose it, but it's a little silly to turn away from so many for the actions of a few. That's what a lot of THEM do.
1
Professor Yancy,
Given your persistent need to make matters worse with wildly over-generalized stereotypes and your consistent rhetorical bomb-throwing at white people (white people have done this to me before: all white people must be horrible) while demanding an end to the wildly over-generalized stereotypes that we collectively refer to as racism against people of color, it begs the question: what, exactly, do you actually think is going to be the result of continually condescending to whole demographic groups about their purported monolithic condescension against whole demographic groups to which you happen to belong?
I think white America is likely to simply give up on you first, Professor.
When you’re ready to be constructive, an equal partner in the good fight against the hateful and violent in our society, we will be here waiting to welcome you in as a friend and a collaborator. When you’re ready to stop the offensive generalizing of another race of people, the condescension to whole groups of people, the grand standing, and the divisiveness of “do as I say and stop being racist against me but not as I am doing by over generalizing all people of a white complexion as the enemy,” we will be here ready to work fairly with you towards a society free of the stain and the sin of racism.
4
"Should I give up on White people?" Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea, if it means that in the next decade there will be far more completely self-supporting, non-government/white-money-reliant African-American publishing companies, newspapers, banks, colleges and universities, think tanks, charities, and social service agencies. I can't think of anything more inspiring, in fact.
3
Please do NOT give up on (all) white people. Many, many of us feel in total sympathy with BLM and all the injustices and violence levied by police departments from across the country. I treasure my black American friends and cannot imagine my life without their company.
2
Dr. Yancy, it is time to turn away from worrying about white people. Black people began worrying about white people from almost the beginning of their time in colonial North America through United States enslavement, Jim Crow, legal and illegal segregation, so-called implicit bias (joke, the bias is implicit!).
It's time for you to turn your attention to the W.E.B. Du Bois challenge. In his "The Soul of Black Folks" he challenges black Americans to develop "self-consciousness." By which I interpret him to mean self-awareness. I don't mean "black identity," that's something different.
Write me a column on black self-consciousness." Better than that refer us -- your black American readers -- to works by black philosophers on the subject of "black self-consciousness"; i.e. black self awareness.
3
This is a dispiriting column. There are more than three hundred million people in the United States. Did Mr. Yancy hear from one-millionth (300) of them? There may be more operating serial killers in the US than the number of crazies who attacked Mr. Yancy, yet he uses the crazies to characterize the mass of white people. Has he missed everything that's going on in the US? The gun crazies attacking people who simply want to stop the killing in schools? The right-wing crazies who think Hillary Clinton was kidnapping children and holding them in a pizza shop? The poison spewed at everyone who watches Fox News? Why would he think he could write a somewhat provocative column and not have the crazies come out?
I've been around for more than 70 years now, the first 30 years of my newspaper career spanning the early parts of the Civil Rights movement. People who think America is racist now are not old enough to remember America then. Now is much, much, much better; there's no comparison. And people who think of America is a racist country obviously haven't been to the Middle East...or major parts of, say, England or Germany...Or India or China. Or seen what a Nobel Peace Prize winner is willing to tolerate in Myanmar.
We're a long way from perfect and probably always will be. But we're nothing like the place that Mr. Yancy seems to suffer through.
5
Blacks want more power which puts them at odds with the society and culture that whites created. Whites resist, quite understandably. This is a power struggle.
This dynamic exemplifies the reason we will never live in a color-blind society. Humans and our races evolved in physical isolation from one another and until very recently never mixed. We are hard-wired to favor those like ourselves. A fact of life
But now that modern technologies have obliterated borders the world is mixed. As resources become scarcer and the population in the developing world continues to explode and drive migration, we should expect more, not less, racial conflict.
Yancy’s books are good, and he is an insightful, thoughtful writer, but this column read like race-baiting, or more likely, his need to hit a NY Times editorial deadline.
1
Should I Give Up on White People?
NO
Educate as many of whatever color.
Ignorance is the home of racism, not color.
1
It is not your job to turn whites; it is our job to end this hatred. I am so sorry for the horrible responses you have received.
1
Please don't give up. Don't judge us all by the anonymous cowards that send that filth to your inbox. I personally do not respond to racist comments or jokes, other than to say shut up. It's actually quite effective. If I was in a position to, and if it would make a difference , I would apologize for all white people if it was possible. Unfortunately some white folks are perfectly comfortable spouting their vicious bile, as they now have their mouthpiece in the White House.
2
Should you give up on some white people? Yes - I sure have. But not all white people.
2
Listen up all you whites out there who think you're saviors or are not racists, you are not who you think you are. You are being willfully ignorant. Read and listen. Refrain from defending yourself for one blessed minute.
You are racist, and the sooner you understand how, the more likely it is Professor Yancy will find the strength not to give up.
Start with a white person's classic, Black Like Me, to understand the loneliness that builds from the hate stare. Read Wright, Baldwin, Malcolm X, West, Rankine, Coates, Jeff Hobbs, Michelle Alexander, Bell Hooks, Intersperse these books with casual reading, some amusing, like Michael Harriot's columns in The Root.
2
The author condemns all whites for history and the actions of a few, just as the racists condemn all blacks because of history and the actions of a few.
Which is more racist?
3
Don’t give up. Leadeship is all about changing the conversation and ignoring the idiots. And never forget that idiots come in all shapes, sizes and colors, to ignore that is to walk down the path of racism, the very thing you are trying to avoid.
Hatred knows no color in the USA. To castigate a race is racist.
1
There is hatred to go around. I have seen more than my share of thuggish and contemptuous behavior by Blacks seething with racist hostility. Whites have no corner on intolerance and bullying.
3
If you give up on white people, the Democratic Party will lose every election from now to eternity....
2
The hateful vile threats and insults directed at the the author are beyond comprehension. But the broad brush of "White America" is neither productive nor accurate.
4
As a 70 year old white man I beg that you don't give up on us, otherwise the bigots win.
5
So white people as a group are to be judged by the vile few who write this vitriol? What about the millions who voted, in a secret ballot, for a black president?
5
Don’t give up on people; rather give up on racism. Also, don’t become the thing you hate.
3
There exist white people who are afraid of black peoples humanity. Until they come to accept and recognize their own lack of that which black ( and most other) people have in abundance, they will continue to lash out, displaying their own inability to express normal human empathies. Most hate is self hate.
1
I was fired from my job for complaining that my lead party chief used the "n" word to describe the only black man on the job, and "prairie-n" word to describe Native Americans. Now I'm homeless, broke and living at the YWCA in Fargo, with other minority women taking it in the chin at work and from men. So please realize that not all white people tolerate racism, and some of us have lost our lucrative oil & gas careers as a result.
http://www.inforum.com/business/4368523-woman-alleges-job-harassment-ret...
4
If I were black, it would be hard not to hate white people. In fact, given everything, I'm amazed at how loving and tolerant they are of us.
4
As an old white woman who is a life-long advocate for racial and sexual equality, I am astonished and heartbroken about the reality of racism in our country, visible to me in high-relief in the Trump era. I see now how little I ever saw, and how comfortable with the illusion that we were making progress.
White people need to take a collective step back and reconsider ourselves. All of us need to, not just the shriveled souls sending anonymous hate messages and waving traitorous confederate flags.
I am also astonished by moments of pure grace: Maya Wiley to the overtly racist Sam Numberg on the Ari Melberg show. Her dignity and compassion have given me hope.
Thank you for this piece, Mr. Yancy. In writing it for the New York Times, you've shown you are still - despite all damning evidence - still willing to include white people in your audience.
2
Please don't give up on white people. I have been so mired in my own problems that I had no idea the extent to which the police were corrupt. You see, I have had to survive a hideous deck of cards, some of which I brought on myself. But, in seeing the videos from 2016, I realized just how bad this country STILL is for black people. That doesn't mean that all white people are bad. It's just that some of our ignorance (as in my case, trying to overcome so much: a bad childhood, a rape, a bad relationship, having to remove my nephew from my heroin addict sister) has been unwittingly facilitating a hell for black people. I tell you, I am so moved by Kalief Browder's story that I am trying to go to Law school--My applications are in. (It's just a matter of funding at this point.) What happened to him is so fundamentally un-American that I cannot allow it to continue if I can have any influence.
'Give Up on White People'?
Sometimes I want to say, "yes". Like when I remember how Senator Mitch McConnell gathered Republicans together the day after Barack Obama got elected, the first time, and told, ordered, them they'd be voting 'No' to everything Obama put on the table, thus insuring a noose would be placed around President Obama's eight years in office, damning what the first African American President could do for our country.
And then there are times when I say,
"No, Please don't."
And why, because i know what lies deep in my heart and the heart of my close friends. Are we perfect? Really now, who is? But I'd bet the farm every time I had to when our beliefs came into question.
I'm 70 years old and was tested some 50 years ago when I refused to wear my uniform while serving as a Medic in the US Army to protest the Vietnam War, actions resulting in a Court Martial being charged against me. I've paid a price then and over the years but have never looked back with regrets.
So, I guess while I'm not saying I have 'been there-done that' to the degree you have been, I have been kicked when I was down and experienced suffering, ultimately because of who I am.
1
A)From the responses I'm reading it's quite obvious that many of the respondents here did not actually read the article and are only responding to the headline.
B) It is this defensiveness/retreat into abstract language and esoteric academic concepts that gives me little hope that this is ever going to change. Thank you Dr. Yancy, for being vulnerable and trying to share an exploration of your own feelings that doesn't end in some damning of white people as some of these commenters have made it out to be.
Some combination of compassion and shutting up for a little while would do these people a lot of good.
2
I'd like to know how many hateful messages you received in whatever form. Beyond that, this: prejudice in many, many forms is everywhere, I think most of us have felt it in one way or another. Move on, live your life, do good work and trust that most people are decent and fair.
8
If Professor Yancy considered his 2015 essay "a letter of love" to white people, then he may or may not give up on white people now, but he definitely should give up hopes of a future career in diplomacy.
21
Thank you for sharing your humanity with your students. You taught them a meaningful, perhaps life changing, lesson. I'm on your side. I don't believe that any of us walks alone, and one day the people who address you in such an abhorrent manner will hear the promptings of the small, still voice that lives in them, too. Please don't give up. We all need your wisdom and efforts.
4
George,
Please don't give up on us. Many of us have confronted our innate racism and continue to work on getting rid of it. Genetics have already proved that there is only one race—human. I fear it will take longer than the actuaries think that I'll be alive for the Trump voters and their hangers-on tho realize that skin color is really only like "breed" in pigeons and dogs. But, please understand, people like me are here and there are a lot of us and we are with you. We may not be noisy, but we smile, we are polite, we valiantly try to consider everyone we meet as a responsible person; dark light, in between—OK, green or polka dot, maybe difficult.
I truly believe that that we decent folk outnumber the cretins. We just don't make that much noise.
4
This is beautiful, humble, touching, and real. Thank you.
5
What I understand in Yancy’s honest, brave, thoughtful words is a sad and hurt human being at the very edge of his ability to cope. We have all been there. We have all been in our own time, persecuted, hurt, lost, abandoned, disillusioned. There will always be hateful, cruel, dangerous people. There will always be loss. There will also always be loving, compassionate, kind, people. Go to those who love and support you; family, friends, spiritual guides, health care professionals. When we are broken, or simply just vulnerable, reach out. Best wishes.
3
Offering an answer is a dialectic in which the chosen answer matters less than the tensions pulling each way. So, here's a story. "Once upon a time" working in a department that used graduate degrees as self-deceptive fictional shields against the recognition that quality mattered more than compliance, a colleague, a Black man whom I regarded as a friend, joined with me in uselessly confronting authority. Comrades became supportive friends through personal difficulties. An invitation to dinner with white people of whom he had spoken positively was accepted but he never showed. Initially he feigned having forgotten but rang off when reminded of logging the date and time. Later, and without being in the least defensive (for that I still love him) spoke of not being comfortable in socializing with white people. He had begun to advance his career and we became distant. Years later he made a genuinely generous professional offer and, while appreciatively declining, asked about our friendship. Parting was without any closure though with more sureness on his part. Now, both retired, I called and asked about meeting. Didn't happen. Anna Freud in addressing the question of dialogue between psychoanalytic and other therapists and spoke of the need not become diverted from our analytic work. Recalling that talk made his decision understandable, even reasonable and may be useful to your own questioning. Yet what about loss?
Sometimes cause and effect can be confused. Does hard-wired human tribalism cause bigotry, or is there another, more accessible root cause? Republican politicians are using bigotry because it's a string that doesn't take much talent to pull, and they haven't got any talent for solving actual problems, helping people work together, or making the world a better place. Instead they take the path of the mentally lazy: find the easiest people to manipulate, and use fear to do it. They don't seek to raise our national sense of well-being because then they'd lose control of their audience. Our job is to drive national policies that increase well-being of all our citizens, and educate our children so they are not so easily manipulated by hate.
4
I am a middle aged woman originally from Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Italian immigrants. As a child, I was the smallest and youngest in my class, and almost pathologically shy. I have a memory of my classmate, a little black child standing next to his desk being reprimanded for some infraction. Do you remember as a child when a grownup was doing something bad; very bad, and you knew it but wasn’t quite sure what it was? That is what I saw and felt, as our teacher berated this little boy in a tone that felt so ugly and wrong. I remember his hair was very short, he was an exuberant child, seemingly fearless, and his eyes were tearing and he was fighting the tears. I remember my fear, something was wrong in her harshness and then I distinctly remember thinking (while shrinking in my seat), I am glad I am not black because the teacher would be yelling at me in that way. I was no more than six. I have never forgotten the incident as a child’s view of observed racism in the earliest years. And the way I rationalized it. I still retain this memory this as a way to understand how the scars run deep and I can’t presume the experience of institutional racism and how it affects black people. And how insidious it is so that a very shy little girl could recognize from her teacher’s tone and words that to be black was to be singled out and treated harshly. I’m not young anymore, or small, or shy for that matter, but it still feels wrong and sad and diminishes all of us.
39
I immigrated to this country from India over 50 years ago. I admired this country from distance when I had not actually seen it with my own eyes. Once I was here, living in the Midwest among mostly farming families. I began to sense and see the bricks and mortar that went into the making this country better than, well, almost any other land on planet earth.
I do not mean it in a narrow communal or sectional sense but in my heart I feel - believe - that the US was, and remains to this day, at the pinnacle human accomplishment because of the character of its founders and the general populace from which they came. I notice in today's America a general dilution of American values. Is it a result of a natural phenomenon or due to other causes (including indiscriminate influx of immigrants from all over), I do not know. What I know is, I long for America the way it was when I arrived. Sure it had problems, the largest of which was dehumanizing segregation against a large section of its own people whose role in the building of America was no less than anyone else's. other's. But it was outright exhilarating to see the movement against segregation growing popular by leaps and bounds. That successive US administrations would dispatch hundreds of National Guards to enforce the rights and entry of a lone black students into schools and colleges would, I believe for ever stand out as a tribute to the collective American peoples' sense for justice and fair play.
20
A wonderful perspective thanks for sharing it. And now US society is fraying as you point out. I think the causes are several and intertwined. One of them may indeed be the wholesale and rapid demographical change in less than a lifetime.
4
I've read much of Yancy's writing in the Times, including both his 2015 "Dear White America" piece and this piece. While there is much that I admire about Yancy's writings, I'm afraid he badly confuses two very different things: racism and racial bias.
The suffix "ism" in "racism" connotes an ideology, a systematic set of beliefs - specifically, beliefs that the races are not morally, intellectually, or in some other fundamental fashion equal, but that some races are superior and others are inferior.
A racist consciously holds these beliefs, and accepts them as good, truthful and correct.
Bias is quite different than racism. Bias is not an ideology; bias is a reaction, akin to a reflex, that occurs without conscious thought.
It turns out that relatively few Americans are racists. But all of us, and indeed all humans, are biased. And since the human mind is complex, our biases are complex. We hold biases that contradict our conscious beliefs. We hold biases that we recognize as factually incorrect. We even hold biases against groups to which we belong - as a gay man, I have conducted a life-long battle against such biases.
Accusing all white people of racism is not only factually inaccurate, it is counter-productive, because it fails to distinguish between those for whom race hatred is a desirable state of mind and the rest of us who do not hate, who recognize our biases, and who struggle conscientiously against them.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
48
Very well said. All humans are bias.
There is an article in this very paper today about how we choose friends most like us.
5
Beautifully stated. Thank you.
1
Well put.
Why only sexism and racism? As a kid born white but with in a family with a house income within the lowest 5% bracket, I had to fight my entire life against the middle class privilege.
Not against the rich one percenter, but against the basket of average deplorable middle class families, which consider the higher the number of full scholarship awarded to poor kids, the lower the prestige of THEIR college degrees.
When will middle class citizens acknowledge they are the problem and not the solution?
When will kids born middle class finally acknowledge they received 99% of a 4 years college degree in their basket, when kids born poor receive only 1% of it.
9
“Do I give up on white people, on white America, or do I continue to fight for a better white America?” Give up. As a philosopher, you should know better. To simplify culture and identify in black and white terms is pure fiction, and no amount of academic spin can support your point of view as truth. Fight prejudice and fight injustice, but stop perpetuating the profitable myth and divisive ethos of race. Fight the bad people but not everyone who looks like them.
33
I have come to the conclusion after 63 years of living in America I must of been born with blinders on. For some reason I do see color, race, faith, male, female, LGBT what ever title you want to label people. I love it all, it is what makes us who we are, each and everyone of us. To say all LGBT are the same, whites, blacks, brown, yellow are all the same, men are all the same is a foolish point of view. From my mountain top you are missing all the beautiful wonderful people that have so much to share with you. I take everyone one person at a time, some are great some not so much. I have never seen the limits that the world try's to impose as having much influence over me. I stand up for what I believe in and have no problem tell someone to their face what I think. To see now how social media has allowed the cowards of the world to hide and threaten is just sick. But I will offer this do not give them the stage, they are few and there is this great wonderful country that we live in that has amazing people from all over the world living here (let's not forget about all the great food we have here because of diverse population hummm). Go out and enjoy all the wonderful color, race, faith, men, women come on we are so very lucky to live here in this time.
15
Erudition and scholarship aside, what emotional and physical bravery to confront America's original sin. Philosophy students at Emory are so fortunate to have Prof. Yancy in the department and graced with a gift to have him teach their course.
6
Someone once said that the strongest man in the world is he who is most alone. I tend to believe this since fighting for the truth is perhaps the most difficult thing we can do. And since intrinsically racism is defined by doubt and disbelief in our fellow human beings this particular battle is quite lonely. There will be lapses of heart, and of course dignity, but blood does not have to be shed. It is more powerful and more effective to inspire than to convince -- so we shouldn't rashly howl our passions to the ungrateful wind (though it's a sane response to a world that has never made sense). As long as we truly believe in our fellow human beings we won't become assailable or an adversary.
6
The historic and continued suffering of people of color in this country—of African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and others—is our collective suffering. To paraphrase Krishnamurti, there is no me separate from society. Society is not distinct from my culture, from my various class divisions, from my religion, from the conflicts and afflictions of the many: all this is society and I am a part of it.
In asking whether or not I should give up on white people, I’ve come to recognize that the question is not only phrased incorrectly, it’s the wrong question entirely. The phrasing issue is that anytime general terms are used to describe or identify a person or people by color, this in itself perpetuates division. The question itself is wrong because it’s not grounded in an understanding of interdependence: that my personal healing and transformation cannot be separated from either your own, nor that of our larger society.
The question I ask instead is this: Since your liberation and mine are incontrovertibly bound together, how do I comfort my own heart in the sea of racial ignorance, ill will, and violence—and do all of my daily actions reflect the world I want to live in and leave to future generations?
I will meet you there.
12
Relatively altruistic, white people owe little. Do we all harbor intrinsic biases? Do we live in a society set up for white people? I would say yes; although, I do dispute the idea that we live in a society set up for men. The fact is, we will set up societies that implicitly cater to our imperatives. The question I ask to Dr. Yancy is: While society isn't set up in favor of blacks, is demanding that whites change it to be such (inevitably falling short) in and of itself racist, as it hurts whites? This is fundamentally a clash between two groups, both with divergent bio-spiritual expressions.
6
No, don't give up as long as the basic constitutional structures in this Country are in place. Black people have lived and worked here before this Country was born. You all have your rightful place here. Time, good government, education together with interaction are ultimately the answer. As a white child growing up in the "50's", prejudice was built into me through family,media and peer groups. It wasn't just racial prejudice there was ethnic, religious and gay prejudice also. However, through a progressive family in at the time a white neighborhood, my mother thought that I should have a Boy's Club membership. One night on a summer day camp sleepover I drew the name of a black kid. I did not know what to do, as internally, my conditioned mind took over. In the end, I accepted my fate, the two of us in conversation half the night in an Army pup tent. On that one night I learned that there is no difference between black and white people. That night I learned to see through others' eyes. Time went on and I was met with other prejudicial challenges and they were also met head on, on scene, with the help of special people. I have found that prejudice is learned in the medium of ignorance, arrogance and conditioning. It is through the unexpected events in life that one has the opportunity to see the light, grow and meet new people.
No, please don't give up.
6
Better to ask if you should give up on people, as I have done often of late. As a white male I readily accept that people like me, white males, benefit from a legacy of privilege, and I even accept that I have probably at times been complicit in extending that privilege. But I must say I reject being lumped in with the rabid haters who wrote such letters to you, just as I reject the idea there is something uniquely or even especially reprehensible about racism in this country. I've been trolled by the same group of people, not because I'm black but because I have the gall to call out the absurd rationales they offer for their despicable ideologies. I have virtually no more in common with this small cadre of raw haters than you do. And as someone who travels extensively in Europe and Asia, I can assure you the incidence of deep, ugly racism in those societies is no less prevalent than it is here, and in many cases it is probably more prevalent. Your analysis, therefore, suffers from structural flaws. You need to draw the valid distinction between those who hate anything and everything that threatens their pathetic sense of entitlement, including both you and me, and those like me who struggle with the lingering injustices of the legacy of white male privilege. People like me don't hate others because of the color of their skin or their religious beliefs. While that doesn't relieve us of our obligations, it does challenge you to reach out to us in less polarizing ways.
17
There are many better philosophers and many more persuasive social advocates than this author as regards race relations, but his pain and protest deserve a platform! And America needs to keep the conversation going until there is neither racial disparity nor divide.
4
No. The answer is emphatically no. Seldom have I seen a better use of Betteridge's law of headlines.
4
Wow! Whoa! Mehhh!
Wow - the level of vitriol and hate that is out there just boggles the mind. Not just against blacks, but against anyone who is different or may stand out from the crowd. I think such envy, loathing, dislike and pure meanness has always been around, it just seems to have been exacerbated by the rise of the internet and social media.
Whoa - given the above, I think Prof. Yancy has gone over the top, off the edge or how ever you want to characterize it in his absolute dismay and disgust at "white people". I read his diatribe as not an indictment of "white people" but of all humanity. That is a really bitter and sad place to be in - and ultimately a self-destructive place. Not good for Prof. Yancy and not good for the rest of us to pile in.
Mehhh - I think that Prof. Yancy's has a lot of consternation over "white people" - some heartfelt, some grandstanding. Given that, and that he just happens to have a book coming out on this very topic, I find it less than productive to overanalyze or get exercised about his rather bitter, slanted view of the world.
So, Prof. Yancy, thank you for your perspective. I'm choosing to keep a more positive view and nurture more positive relationships with my fellow human beings no matter what their race, sex, creed, orientation, etc.
13
When I was training to be a psychologist I had a professor who explained, "When you go to the zoo you notice that the bigger the bars on the cage, the scarier the animal." What he meant was that the more distressing the reality or truth is, the greater the lengths people will go to defend against knowing or acknowledging it. I hope you can take some small comfort in knowing that the hate you have encountered is, in some way an indication of how deeply you touched your white readers, and how desperately some needed to defend against acknowledging their own guilt and shame. It is, I think, your love that cuts so deeply. Your writing brought tears to my eyes. To give that kind of gift takes courage, and to acknowledge our racism and sexism takes courage as well. As a white person I find it a relief to see the true catastrophe and acknowledge my complicity in it (my privilege, my inherent racism). It is exhausting and painful but it is a gift too. I am so sorry that you have been attacked in this way. I hope that you know that the voices of those that can't bear knowing may be the loudest, but they can't drown out the truth.
10
Hating people for the color of their skin is just plain stupid and evil, no matter what their skin color is.
Most whites and blacks know that, but racism is tribal and inbred somewhat
Being black in a predominate white society is a worse handicap than being gay, crippled, blind, deaf, poor, or bigoted, maybe a combination of all these. However, most handicapped people learn to adjust.
Nolo illegitimum non carborundum. Strive, keep doing your best, forgive (Christian), and you will be morally superior, which is really why others hate you.
2
The title of your article was inflammatory. The good news, you probably got a lot of clicks from it. The bad news, you're not equipped psychologically to deal with the response. So what do you do? Write another hum-drum article with a click-baity title. Get ready to be outraged everybody.
30
And they say irony is dead...
1
Woke white people need to talk to racist white people, up close and personal. Ain't going to be easy, but we're the only ones white racists might actually listen to. Try to open a chink in their armor. And if that thought scares you, just try to imagine how Black people feel. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
8
The biggest racists are all religious--Christian, to be exact. "In God We Trust." How's that working out?
1
Cancelling my NYT subscription.
21
You paint a billion white people with the same brush, based on a few hundred anonymous ignorant letters. The racist headline is quite telling about you.
33
Yes, I've had more negative experiences with blacks than every other race combined (and I've never lived in a city where blacks were the largest minority or made up more than 7% of the population). Mr. Yancy's negative experiences give him a right to have negative attitudes towards whites, when someone employs the same logic towards Mr. Yancy then they are called a racist by him.
2
I read you "Dear White America" and now I know why you get angry letters. You worte "Again, take a deep breath. Don’t tell me about how many black friends you have. Don’t tell me that you are married to someone of color. Don’t tell me that you voted for Obama. Don’t tell me that I’m the racist. Don’t tell me that you don’t see color. Don’t tell me that I’m blaming whites for everything. To do so is to hide yet again. You may have never used the N-word in your life, you may hate the K.K.K., but that does not mean that you don’t harbor racism and benefit from racism."
You are the racist. You blaming whites for everything. And you speak to whites like they are stupid or childs. If YOU would stop agitate against whites, you would stop getting angry letters. It is you who cause this.
32
You totally ignore the moat in you own eye and focus on the splinter in the white man's eye. White crime on blacks is so low it's almost impossible to measure while black on white and black on black is off the charts. Blacks are 13 percent of the population but account for over half the homicides in this country. There are very good reasons for all to be wary of black males. By the way l enthusiastically voted for Obama twice and wish to God wr still had him.
21
Please do not give up on white people.
4
Is the white racist monolith the same one that voted for Barack Obama?
27
You published a smug, condescending “gift” telling all white people they are racist. You received hate mail. It’s scary and disturbing but we all know there are a lot of nuts out there. Meanwhile you somehow became an author, professor, and NYT contributor in this evil racist society? Let’s have some prospective.
37
You don't need to give up on all white people. You may wish to stop obsessing about the rotten ones for the sake of your integrity.
23
You should not give up on white people no more than I should because black men in the inner city are shooting white and black men wome and children to death, pimping women and girls. To do so would be ignorant and racist.
12
Wow, I cannot imagine myself living in such a painful life. Most importantly, I came to this country voluntarily. I believed American dream. I still think America is the best place for me and my family. With all the nasty things going on, I still believe working within the system is my best option. Of course racism is real. White people is the majority and they founded and built America. It is merely human nature to protect tribal interests. In fact, white people are the most generous people in human history! The demographic change in this country is happening peacefully. It is also very true that "underrepresented minorities" working with the system can have a lot more opportunities (than Asian Americans). It is a well-known fact that certain minority groups can get in elite schools easier (than Asian Americans).
What are the options left? (1) Work within the system is the surest thing to become successful. (2) As I have suggested, black people may want to follow the footstep of Mormons and move to a state to become the supermajority. I think Detroit/Michigan is a good place. The city needs more people. Instead of bringing in more immigrants (totally beyond me), Detroit should invite the relocation of black people to build the promised land with the full control of destiny. (3) Actions are needed. stop the wishful thinking of changing human nature. There is no hope because it is in the DNA.
10
George, I'm not Bill Clinton, but I do feel your anguish. I'm Jewish, I am a senior, I've been divorced and remarried, an army veteran (1966), a college kid, a father and grandfather. I've been around the block and I'm very well worn. I've also felt the pain of discrimination and rejection. But I don't hate anyone or feel anger and resentment. I'm just tired and saddened. We've been denied homes, bank loans, jobs, places in class, promotions, and a host of other things. I understand the vicious hatred of too many whites and blacks. I get it. Here's what I don't get; In 1981 my 5 year old went off to kindergarten. He was truly excited and anxious to ride the bus with all the other kids and enjoy this new adventure. He came home and told us of his new experience. All went well then he said "You know dad, black girls are meaner than white girls." He told me how they acted and what they did and said. I was very disappointed. I still am. I know blacks have been abused, targeted and discriminated against. But why the continuous stream of bad social behavior and criminal activity from a people who want to be integrated and enjoy the social benefits of belonging to our communities? Mr. Yancy, end that behavior and the anger directed towards everyone including yourselves. Join us in educating children and teaching better ways of living together and not acting out. We can stop the bigotry by not giving racists excuses for their hatred. Excellence and achievement. Not criminality.
18
Is race culture? There is ignorance and there is intelligence. Yes? Is the ignorant description of race as culture a truly intellectually sustainable stance? The ignorant who calls himself White and speaks of sending Blacks to Africa knows nothing about culture. He or she would have a terrible time in any of the European cultures they were sent to because they were "white." You have stereotypical generalizing based upon alienation and the squandering of human potential in every culture in America with the possible exception of the the Chinese, Korean, Japanese (not Ainu) & Jewish people, who all seem to he able to pull together. Although if truth be told, fifty years of living in New York City has given me plenty of examples of ignorant stereotyping in those four groups as well. Perhaps it would be better to consider what constitutes the circle of American Identities (cultures) and how we can all talk to each other from a place of respect and give special exceptions to those who have been stripped of their identity for the sake of the melting pot. They are truly endangered and dangerous and in need of philosophical, religious and psychological wisdom. REH NYCity Artist of Cherokee descent.
5
Sadly the same article could be written by many other men, women and children who are harassed and hated for their differences. Yet in the same issue you publish a piece on Jimmy Carter, a white Southerner, whose love for all people transcends because of his faith - should he be given up on too? Group stereotypes are dangerous no matter who uses them to justify their personal pain.
17
Can't give up on us now because you're winning. We're winning. We need you to win.
Fifty years ago you couldn't get published and might have been lynched. Today you're published and a handful of hatemongers threaten you. In 50 years this too will have passed.
Most of us read you and understand and are deeply moved and sorry for your tribulations. We cringe at white bigotry. If it's any consolation, if it had gone out under my name and not yours the same hate male would come back only it would be directed at the white a__hole whose skull was going to be crushed. White bigotry is color blind that way.
We're both fighting bigotry and hate. Your battle is much harder and longer. But the enemy is known and detested by both of us. So please stand up for what is right and what must happen and don't give up on us. We're going to pull through. We're going to overcome. Each generation is more enlightened. I attended segregated Virginia schools and marched for integration and civil rights. My children cant believe the stories and are nearly color blind because among their peers there is no outright bigotry--just the kind we white people carry around unbeknownst like DNA. But there still aren't enough people of color in their cohort. Opportunity is everything. And you're winning on that front to. It will take time. But please don't give up on us. Because black and white (and all the other colors) together, we SHALL overcome!
3
You would have to be more than clueless not to know that racism permeates our culture. For godsake we were founded by slaveholders, practiced ethnic cleaning vs native americans from the times of the pilgrims. Know nothings, civil war, colonial expansion, palmer raids, yellow peril pogroms, etc are all part of the American Exceptionalism that the good professor alludes to in his lament about current state of racial affairs. But are we any worse than the Serbs & Croats, Rwanda, Northern Ireland, Buddhists vs Muslums, Sunni vs Shiites.......among others. We are primates with automatic weapons not to excuse the kind of behavior the professor cites but to put our desire for improvement into context. Otherwise we just go around and around with hand wringing arguments about how racist all white people are.
4
My first thought was, "Well, it's true that you should maybe give up what you're doing, because white people of good will already believe you and are on your side (in which case you are preaching to the choir), and nothing you say will persuade white people of bad will (in which case you are preaching to a wall)."
But then I remembered that I kind of thought the same thing about the "me too" movement--that all the decent men already believed that sexual assault and harassment were common, and that the ones who didn't believe that yet were just bad guys, who couldn't be persuaded. But I was wrong; the movement does seem to have had an effect. More men than I realized were honestly simply unaware rather than deliberately plugging their ears.
So, maybe there are more unreached yet still reachable "white people" out there than either of us is thinking.
59
Stay The Course!
Educators and thinkers are needed in all areas of our society and culture.
It is because of a lack of education in this “information” age we suffer such burdens as racism or other ignorant afflictions.
3
I hear you, Professor Yancy. I too am tired. As a woman in patriarchy, I am sick of the constant assaults, verbal and physical, that men inflict on women. It happened again to me on Monday: a man in my neighborhood who has attempted to assault me in the past screamed at me because a tow truck touched his driveway. (It was towing my truck.) The week before, a woman had told me a story of rape in her childhood that sickened me. I went to a group of trusted women to talk about giving up on men. I said that some days I just wished they would all go away. Instead of support, I got a backlash of blame, and I was urged to be "more compassionate."
I can't know what it's like to be a black person in America. I am guessing that if I took my experience as a white woman and amplified it to the second or third power, I might have an inkling of what black people go through on a daily basis.
We who are oppressed are urged to be compassionate always, to love our enemies, etc. Maybe in the best of all possible worlds we could do that. But most days we are just very, very tired.
I am also told (especially by other women) that there are also good men in the world. Yet when I try to talk to "good men" about my experiences of patriarchy, they become very defensive or angry. Sometimes they sympathize briefly, but then confess to violent impulses and fantasies of their own. I am very close to giving up on them. So I wouldn't blame you a bit for giving up on white people.
6
"Yet when I try to talk to "good men" about my experiences of patriarchy, they become very defensive or angry."
What are you saying to these "good men?"
By chance are you laying a guilt trip on them?
If that is the case, I can understand why they become defensive
7
Yes, let's all just embrace our bitterness and hate the other! GREAT idea, Shannon!
2
Please don't give up. I have just come to understand my ignorance and am trying to learn to listen. I have a lifetime to make up for, but need your encouragement to keep trying to understand.
3
Dr. Yancy,
I understand why you are immersed in this subject in relation to your career.
Beyond that, I strongly believe that fighting racism is not a black person’s responsibility.
Black folks’ prime task is to thrive despite all the racism and discrimination, and have power such that being racist towards blacks becomes very costly.
I particularly advise young black folks to concentrate their energy in matters that earn great political, economic, and social power for their community than anti-racism educational outreaches and demonstrations. Our limited time, mental energy, and passion must not be wasted on futile efforts that only drain them.
Racism today exists not because racist people are more uninformed or uneducated than the rest (my personal experience tells otherwise). Modern institutional racism was not born out of some inborn ignorance of 16th century europeans towards dark skinned people, but from political and economic reasons that necessitated the former. (Remember that they had black popes and generals in ancient Rome. History or morality is not a linear function.)
As such, nothing less than economic and political power of black folks will eliminate it.
4
It is unfair to judge one person by what another person did. It is not my fault as a white person that my ancestors did this or that, the same way it wouldn't be your fault if your father had been in a gang and killed my father.
You can't turn the need to be responsible, ethical, and sensitive now into culpability for something someone else did simply because they happen to be white (whatever that even means in this incredibly mixed society).
If you want to make any difference in the discussion, learn the difference, and judge people by the content of their own characters, not by the color of their skin. Sound familiar?
21
So sad, but you do have to protect yourself, mentally and emotionally. I won't play the Not All White People game that I'm sure the comments are full of. But I will send tons of <3 <3 . I hope you feel better someday, Professor Yancy. I hope I can be part of the future where you don't have to ask this.
2
I am White. Mr Yancy, I understand your desire to give up. It's because the system is racist and stacked against Blacks in favor of Whites. I'm astounded at the negative and defensive reactions of White readers here. Their fragility overwhelms me. Whites: own up to your privilege, your desire to keep your power and not share it, and your defensiveness when asked to understand what a Black person lives with every day. Yancy's life has been threatened repeatedly by White racists. If that happened to me, my view of the world - of all Whites - would be radically altered. If you have love in your hearts, then HEAR this man's pain!
4
“Stop over generalizing about a whole race of people and see each person for who they individually are” isn’t limited to white people looking at blacks. It’s a good catch-all commendation to the human race.
If I replaced white with black and asked if I should give up on black people for all of the appalling statistics coming out of the anacostia ghetto here in DC, I suspect your reaction would have been the opposite. It wouldn’t be fair for me to judge all black people by those statistics and the acts of violence committed by people who happen to be black anymore than it is for him to do the same to all white people.
Heads up: we have one tool, persuasion. No one, and I mean no one, will find being patronized and lumped into a broad demographic group irresponsibly as a persuasive tactic.
Is he here to change hearts or to simply expose that his response to the racism he has faced in life is to begin to hate white people reflexively?
Are you here to excuse his decent into reflexively hating whites for past injustices visited upon him by people who happened to be white and “giving up” on them? If so, then human predispositions to demand fair treatment will mean you arm every white racist in the world with ammunition to excuse their own descent into “giving up” on black people.
White commentators aren’t fragile, and spare us your condescension; au contraire, we are thoughtful and calling the good professor’s article for what it is:
Not constructive. Not helpful.
2
Whenever someone leads with a comment about "you people," it is usually safe to assume that prejudice and bigotry will follow. In this case, the irony is that the professor is fully engaged in racial stereotyping while complaining about being victimized by racial stereotyping. I find the original complaint compelling, but it loses some currency when it comes bundled with its own racial smear, even if it is much less threatening than the attacks the author has endured.
35
The problem with essays that call out "whites" and "whiteness" and say "Dear White People" is that there is an implied criticism of our character based on the colour of our skin. We did not choose to be white, we were born that way. We are individuals, not an indistinguishable group.
Most people will say to themselves (if not out loud) "Hmm, isn't that the reason racism is wrong? Because it is presuming things about a person based on skin colour? So why are you talking to me as though all white people are the same?"
Class analysis is important in combatting racism. You need to be able to see who is doing what to whom across racial lines. Who is benefitting and who is losing out. Highlighting all the ways in which white people are wittingly and unwittingly enabling a racist system. But when that becomes identity politics, then it crosses a line into hypocrisy. When you talk to white people like that, there are some who will hear you, they will try to make amends for their race, but there are others who will see someone who has an ax to grind and doesn't recognize their humanity anyway. Why would they share power with that person?
24
I understand if you want to give up but I thought you might like to know: I just came from a meeting of my book group, 10 older white women, who had read and were discussing "The Underground Railroad " by Colson Whitehead. We spent several hours in a free ranging, heartfelt discussion of history, slavery, racism and our own life experiences. There was a lot of soul searching and owning our ignorance or disinterest. We talked about ways we recognize our white privilege and ways we've never thought about it. About how we worry about black women and how they don't get proper treatment from the health care industry. About how we don't have to worry about our grandkids the same way African Americans do. And on and on. Cracks do form and light does come through.
5
Dear Mr. Yancy,
Thank you for this column. After reading it, along with comments by other readers, I went read your commentary, "Dear White America".
I consider myself to be an open minded person. One who often engages in self-examination, stripped of my veils to disguise my truth. Sometimes these are painful examinations. The mirror reveals to me, my flaws from which I cannot escape.
This self-examination isn't an easy thing to do. It is constantly followed by an inner voice which wants to deny the truth, or at least mitigate it in some ways to make me feel better about who I am.
Racism, in particular, the White Racism which is embedded in America's culture (& indeed our collective DNA) is insidious. Ridding myself of it is a daily battle.
Although I have inherited it through mass media & school books, from friends & strangers, I too have been exposed to that venom directed at me, sometimes overtly but many times covertly.
You see, I am a second generation decendent of Jews escaping Pogroms & other violence from Eastern & Southern Europe.
That same hatred directed towards African Americans has also been directed towards me. I've been spared the worst of the vicious & vile attacks because my skin color doesn't reveal who I am.
I've been fooled into believing I am immune to such hatred, only to have it revealed again.
So I personally remind myself of my own guilt & shame the curse of racism does to my soul.
White America can't be saved except one person at a time.
5
No one should ever generalize across a whole group, but then we are talking about human beings not idealized entities with perfectly rational cognitive systems.
It might be only my personal experience, though recently watching Henry Louis Gates' 'Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise' it seemed to be confirmed, that progress with racism was being made by the 70s. This was when I came of age and went off to college where I developed many friendships with African Americans. This was in Kansas and honestly the single person who uttered anything remotely racist in my presence had an eastern accent.
During the 80s it seems things began to change drastically. Though I continued to maintain friendships with a large number of African Americans, I could tell that the culture was drifting backwards. By the time the cocaine gang wars had run their course followed by the LA riot and the OJ Simpson verdict, I think a lot of white people had given up on black people.
So if black people want to give up on white people-- in stark, general terms, which to me is foolish-- then I guess both sides will have given up on each other and we don't have much room left for any kind of positive future ahead of us.
It makes no more sense for a white person who has been mugged by a black person or who had bad experiences with a couple of black guys during busing to blame all black people, nor does it for a professor to blame 200 million white people for thousands of pieces of hate mail.
10
Logically, not all white people are they same. The use of "racial" categories as a substitute for ideological and political ones is a very bad sign. The interesting question is why sociological absurdities are given more credence than a deeper analysis. Of course, there are racists who you should give up on, but it does not help the cause of anti-racism when the author can't seem to distinguish ideology and race.
14
Human behavior is the combination of DNA and environment. We live in a cause-and-effect universe, and we are subject, not immune, to that iron law. Thus, all our actions are caused by what preceded them.
We feel free, but neuroscience has shown that our consciousness just gets a chemical memo from our unconscious, which has made the decision a split-second earlier. Mental conflict, or "choice," is but two or more causes in our programmed system battling it out.
Critically, this arrangement doesn't free us from legal responsibility. If I commit a serious crime, society needs to stop me -- for its own good. But this arrangement does free us from ethical responsibility. We are biological puppets. Have you never wondered why you said or did something? Have you never wondered why mothers can kill their children, why "nice guys" snap and slay dozens? Many of them, now on death row, are in despair of their own behavior. Even Judas hanged himself.
Cf. Sam Harris' "Free Will," and you will understand why, theologically speaking, Satan often seems to rule the world. Or "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," where we learn that even the best of us contain monsters inside covered up with a thin veneer of civilization, which we desperately need. Or Sigmund Freud's mostly rejected works, which posit the id, a boiling cauldron of desire, anger, and violence, which the superego tries to control. B.F. Skinner's behaviorism also supports the contention that we are but meat puppets.
We are irrational.
1
Dear Dr Yancy. I'm sorry that you have been treated so badly. You should keep up the good fight. I was bullied badly as a child and young person and the best lesson I learned is to never let the bullies win. I was bullied by Black schoolmates and White schoolmates. This showed me that "Race" is not really relevant to individual nastiness. You should turn over to the Police any threats that can be backtracked to their sender. Threats are not free speech.
In general I'm ambivalent as to if your field of study is valid. Anthropology and Genetics have shown that "Race" isn't real - it's an ever shifting shadow. It is a shadow that we deal with all the time - a convenient lie we are better off without. I tried to swap in "Ethinic" instead of race in day to day speech. It made things like "People of Color" very hard to use - so it went away too.
Still - I'm married into a Chinese family and am subject to pervasive anti-white "Racism" - and since I'm a stay at home dad - pervasive "Sexism". I've done nothing except parent for a quarter century - but my female relatives wouldn't think of taking my advise. I'm male - I can't know anything. White people are silly and wasteful and have a streak of violence. So I really can't be trusted. It is frustrating to be treated as not quite smart enough to come in out of the rain - and not completely safe to be around.
The mistake of Race is pervasive.
7
Your words are powerful, your work is sacred. And I also believe that it is my work, as a white person, our work, as white people, to face those most toxic, ingrown, and entrenched poisons that are inside all of us white people, that are inherent in the constructed identity of whiteness that has acted as oppressor and murder for so long. That is our work. In ourselves and in each other. That is what it means to be antiracist as a white person.
When those ugly comments are sent, we must be the ones to face them down. When a person of color is being harassed by the police, we must be the ones to put our bodies on the line. And in our every day interactions, with those we love and those we may be embarrassed to share kinship with, each time we hear or see the evident and quiet subtleties of white supremacy, we need to push, to bring them to light, to air them and conquer them. That is not the work you should be asked to do.
Please know that this work is happening, too, and it is happening because of the work that has already been done, by countless activists of color like you and those who came before you, and their white accomplices, in shining a light into all the ways that white supremacy acts to dehumanize all of us.
Should you give up on white people? The answer is I genuinely hope not. You can only give up on a person, and to do so is to admit that some are nonredeemable. Even though that conclusion may be true, to accept it is to live with hope.
Let me give to you my deepest thanks for not giving up on us already. It is your courage, love, and hope that will fulfill the dream for our children of a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Please never let that dream die.
2
About 60% of white Americans who voted in the last election voted for Donald Trump. A solid majority of white Americans has voted Republican ever since 1968; the only times the majority was not overwhelmingly Republican was when Ross Perot ran in 2002 and 2006, siphoning votes away from the GOP candidates. Yes, I am equating Republicans with racism; Trump's selection as the party's candidate basically ends any discussion of the issue. The fact that American voting habits break down so solidly along racial lines underlines the reality to which Dr. Yancy speaks. Racism runs through the core of American politics. It is the birthright of white Americans. It is something that can only be fought if white Americans recognize it and accept that this is true. Race lies at the heart of almost every major social and political division in the US (even abortion, which began as a way to rally Christian evangelicals who were opposed to desegregating their universities and schools). It is time for white Americans to accept this innate social sickness and commit to opposing it.
2
It is never a good thing when thoughtfulpeople "give up" on another group of people. It splinters divisions even more. I understand Dr. Yancy's belief that every time a white person gets a result or treatment different and better than their "different" neighbor is racist but most people are not going about life wishing to create a political statement; wanting to enforce and foster a division with their fellow man/woman.
It is dreadful the way this country doesn't acknowledge its racist past and present; and no matter the immigrant, no group has suffered as hard or as long as the black American. But most people are just trying to keep going.
The jerks that spew hateful responses are nameless cowards and do not represent white Americans - we don't even know who they are-they are anonymous and out for the kicks or the jolt of writing something cruel and full of hatred. It is unbearable for me to watch the video of the murder of Tamir Rice. It is painful as a human being to hear the screams of pain from Freddie Gray. And poor innocent Trayvon Martin out getting a snack while visiting his father. As a human being I ache for their families as much a I do for the family of Matthew Shepard. Do I feel a stronger pain for humanity because I am white and Matthew Shepard is white, and Rice, Gray and Martin were black? I don't believe so. Dr. Yancy exposed deep feelings and expressed a lot of courage in doing so. You can give up on me and my kind but I wish you wouldn't.
Stop calling them white for starters. That is a government sanctioned social construct that has kept the divisions among the "races" for years. Instead, refer to them by their "native" or ancestral land and then refer to everyone as humans. Too much time and energy is wasted on trying to school those who have no interest in learning about or respecting people who are not like them, whether of a different race, religions, etc. Heal thyself. Love thyself.
4
Your life matters. I fight with my own inner demons more or less constantly. It's disturbing, but worth doing. I have given your works -- this essay and the previous one -- the most charitable reading I can. For the most part, I agree. White people (like me) need to struggle with our inner demons, and learn to treat others as we would like to be treated. Myself, I have treated everyone I meet as if they were a customer whom I wanted return business from. Friendly, polite, urbane. I'm not perfect. None of us are. Everyone needs to start with, as Michael Jackson sang, the man in the mirror.
1
I was a social work student in the 80's. We had an even split of white females and black, Hispanic and Jewish females in a two year program where we were ensconced together for the duration and as you might expect, there were conflicts and at times heated disagreements in our debates on issues of the day. I was the sole male in this student body of 30 or so.
As in other social groups, cliques formed, but after a few months I noticed that all the white gals sat on one side of the class room and the "minority" gals on the other. They literally self segregated and it stuck. Odd how that group dynamic evolved, even within in the setting of a Social Work school where you'd of though we'd be a bit more evolved. Having been weaned as a child on the Civil Rights struggle of the 60's, I found it heartbreaking.
2
Thank You, Professor Yancy, for your prior column and for this one as well. I don't have a good answer for you, but Thank You.
1
I am black. My test is can I love white people, not just my white friends but even racists with tiki torches. This life is short. In the end I will not be judged by how much I was hated. I will be judged by how much I loved. In love for God, family, and nation I stand, speak out and VOTE.
10
I love this comment. Thank you so much
2
Please don't give up on racial harmony because a lot of white people who don't know better have denigrated you. I am not one of them.
Times are tough, but I think we have made some progress toward a time when we judge people by the content of their hearts rather than the color of their skin. I hope so, because I have dark-skinned grandsons whom I want to see safe in this country.
But even more, I want to be friends with whomever I enjoy, regardless of skin color. It was difficult to do that in 1970s SC, but in 2010s SC, it is becoming possible.
Today, for example, I attended a voter registration meeting. Half the attendees were white and half black, not by design but by interest. We are all working together to get voters registered and to the polls for our June primary and our November election. We support good ideas regardless of who mentions them.
We work together on other issues too. I'm grateful that we are not ignoring half our community and I look forward to a time when this is so commonplace as to be unnoticed.
2
Dr. Yancy, I am so sorry for the hatefulness of some. But, I promise you that the majority of people are not like the ones who sent those letters to you. Let's defy them together. And please, please, don't stop talking about these important matters. Thank you for your humanity.
2
If I’m reading you correctly the idea is that as white Americans we are necessarily imbued with privilege and racism. So self-realization necessarily means coming to realize that.
I think it’s better to have our common humanity underlie our moral judgments, and to speak of discrimination (rather than privilege) to describe dehumanizing a person or treating them unfairly because of their race, creed, ethnicity, religion, or gender.
One can describe that sort of bad to wretched behavior using concepts of relative privilege. But speaking about discrimination avoids the cognitive dissonance that comes with describing much of the working class white male experience in terms of privilege.
We can say there are particularly pernicious and egregious kinds of discrimination I haven’t and won’t experience because I’m white in America. I should listen, try to understand, and oppose that kind of discrimination. The pain of empathy will limit the extent to which and the rate at which I can process that.
Then we don’t have to say that, because I was privileged, I was taken at 16 with other large rough looking white guys to tour the prison for 1st offenders; rousted periodically till I got older and gained weight; sweated hard part-time jobs in high school and college; not considered for jobs where at least an upper middle class outlook was preferred; and so forth.
3
Professor Yancy, you are totally justified to have feelings of hate and frustration toward white people. The more I learn about how despicable you've been treated, the more I'm amazed at the grace and forgiveness that your people show. I think, and I've told white people, that your people are a higher group than the white. I show specific respect to any African-American whom I encounter. The response is almost always a relaxing movement, a smile that reaches the eyes that telegraphs thanks. Whites who want to show respect to black folks should be encouraged to do so. I am very grateful to you for your restraint and striving to be heard and understood. I'm determined that someday it will be 'our people' instead of 'yours' and 'mine'. By the way, I grew up on the South side of Chicago. I know that African-Americans are as good, probably better, than most white people. And way better than the ones who've insulted and demeaned you.
I don't know the answer to your question, but please continue to live your life with dignity. You are setting a powerful example.
Many white people, myself included, are appalled at the abhorrent words directed at you. Even worse, those letters reveal a fluency in the lexicon of hate that bespeaks even deeper racism.
It is on all of us --- and certainly no single one of us --- to fight this evil in ways large and small.
please, don't give up on white people in america. you givin' up on white people is a see'er givin up on the blind. a normal white man in a white man's world will, of course, by default, have a heart with smaller awareness, not by his own fault, but by "virtue" of his ignorance of the first hand experience of being the "other". we are experiencing a very painful, but very real awakening, the white-identity-threatening idea that deeper empathy MUST expand beyond prior limits. after all...what is "white" except exactly that identity which has not been forced to consider others, which has not experienced itself as a daily existential liability....it is the natural continuation and evolution of the civil rights struggle....except now it is rightfully and inevitably demanding much more of us all. of course many white people alive today will not be able to find a way to integrate this empathy without it threatening their sense of security and pride. but think of future generations. 300 million people move slowly, but the ocean is made of single drops. rest assured there are more white people like me out there, and we are not just appreciative of you, but we are preaching the gospel you teach us, for it rings true.
2
Professor Yancy, I am sorry for your pain. I am sorry for your experiences which have been so hurtful.
As a white woman, I am pulled in two directions with your question. My first reaction is yes, give up. Racism is a sickness of the mind and soul and most whites are racists. Maybe not to the extent you describe but it is there. It is hard to read your words...how can humans treat one another like this, speak such appalling words to another person. It hurts my eyes to read some of these words. I want you safe Professor Yancy.
My other reaction is if you don't speak, who will know. We white people live in a different universe, I think, with blinders on. The ugliness is hard to take. Speak your truth man but not if it will destroy you. Hugs.
I am not brave Professor Yancy but I have spoken and stood up to ugliness and I will continue to do so. I will try in my own small way...
1
Dear Other White People: Try to take in the perspective of Professor Yancy without getting angry and defensive. The constant refrain “but there are good white people” is both unnecessary and misses the point. We live in a racist system and if you can’t list at least 10 examples of this reality, you may be willfully ignorant. As a woman I hear the same thing about sexism ( But there are good men! Well Duh!) and frankly it’s tiresome and only demonstrates how tone deaf our culture is to the pain of others. Don’t give me your experience and say it should be mine. It isn’t. So really, if you are committed to being an ally of black and brown people, of women, of LGBTQ people- systematically oppressed people- just shut up and listen. Sit with the pain and discomfort of what you will hear and just keep listening. Don’t react defensively. That’s how we heal, that’s the first step of changing systems of oppression...to try with all our hearts to see through the eyes of other people. Come on white people we can do this.
We must.
4
Dear Celina Adams,
Lots of us, when we're attacked based on the color of our skin, get defensive and even angry. The truth is, there are a huge number of good white people, just as there are a huge number of good black people. Dr. Yancy needs to be reminded of this truth. If he wants white people to see things through his eyes, maybe he should try seeing the world through the eyes of white people too. Maybe that would clue him in to the fact that humans are not that different from each other.
4
Dear Celina,
Spare us the flagellation and figure out how to become more verbally and rhetorically persuasive, because our democracy depends upon it.
You know what’s wrong with you and the professor? You’ve decided the way that people both need to be spoken to and the way they need to react to this. You’ve appointed yourselves the arbiters of morality, and liberally berate the rest of us for our failings, then act shocked when we smack you back and tell you to ‘get the beam out of your eye you hypocrite.’
Yea, news flash: people of most any race have a way they want to be spoken to, and it isn’t condescending, dismissive, and inflammatory.
For the sake of our democracy, figure it out. Soon. This isn’t hard, it’s actually incredibly intuitive if you’d get over yourselves long enough to actually talk to other people instead of at them.
Thanks,
another white person
2
When I went to school, I was one of the only white kids among many black kids. There were certain black kids who started fights with me and even attacked me in groups for being white (I was jumped). One time I asked, "Why are you doing this to me?" and the kid said, "cuz you're white." I certainly didn't judge all black people by the actions of a few. To condemn a whole group based on the actions of a few would be racist, which is what I am not. Sorry, Yancy, I think that you're taking on the moral values of the racists themselves which won't help anyone. Will we ever be able to cure racism in the hearts of every individual? Of course not. But is systemic and structural racism over in America? Yes, it is. Just look at the proof--a black man was elected president twice in row. It's time for a paradigm shift in academia.
20
Mr Yancey is feeling the racism that has always been around. Violence of course is ever present and should not be condoned. However, its not only white people that are racists and somehow, other races aren't. We have seen black Africans discriminate against fellow Africans and we have also seen the non-stop killing that happens there. I venture to say that the racism that white people display is no worse than blacks would have shown, if the tables were turned. If black civilization had attained the heights of the European one, and whites were at the level that Africans are, it would be impossible not to have the same effect. And it is true, that European civilization is what has advanced all of humanity. No one claims that whites were saints. Yes, they did mistreat American indians and almost extinguished them from this land. But, let's not forget that eventually, they saw the error of their ways and have strived to do better, without being forced to. The British were the original slavers, but, they were the ones who outlawed slavery and enforced it with their navy. While slavery is still practiced in many African countries. Let's not forget that white advancement in medicine and hygiene, which has benefited every nation and peoples on earth, has more than made up white savagery of years past. That goes for African Americans.
2
Last year my wife acquired a new dog, a greyhound we rescued from the dog track. He is a beautiful dog and walking him in my overwhelmingly white town we always get lots of compliments on him. That's what happened when I was walking him a few months back. A young African American woman stopped me to ask about my dog. I told her that my buddy Peter is a great dog. Super friendly and sweet. As I said this, Peter cozied up to her and tried to lean on her as he does with people he likes. I was feeling good. She was smiling and laughing. And then some young men driving by yelled the n word at her. Suddenly, I was ashamed. This sweet moment in which two people admired a handsome friendly dog, turned bitter and sad. She walked away waving her hand as if to say, "enough."
3
So should I give up on Black people since I was bullied every single day as a white kid in a predominantly black HS in NY for 4 years? Why was I bullied? Just for being white. And when I say bullied I don't mean just with words. People do bad things but I persevered. I choose not to give up on anybody.
17
Professor Yancy, please do not give up on white people. I hope, and want to believe that their are more white people that love and respect you than the haters that you hear from. Please don’t give up, or it will mean that they win. And none of us can live with that. I’ll do my best to right the wrongs I see...and I’ll keep believing that love will win.
Teachers owe their students student-centered education, skillfully addressing their students' needs and their and their country's promise -- not self-centered emotional self-indulgence, that can easily turn into abusing students and spreading hate. (As when a teacher at my high school lectured his English classes on the killing of his sister by a Black man and discriminated against students who pushed his button, as I did with a friend [an interracial couple, in his eyes] by accompanying her, as she asked, to his office in a futile attempt to integrate the school yearbook staff, and inspired a campaign of persecution against me, including violence, that changed my life. In a multiracial society what goes around comes around.) Professor Yancy, before you continue 'retweeting' inflammatory white racism and reacting emotionally, in a similar spirit, in your teaching and public writing, learn that difference!
2
To be sure, America needs to have an honest dialogue about race, but this is certainly not the way to start one. This is a self-pitying diatribe, dripping with scorn and sanctimony. How can one have a thoughtful conversation about race when one participant is intent on lecturing the other on the other’s supposed pathology? That’s not a conversation. In a genuine conversation, both sides feel free to consider each other’s strengths and weaknesses in a spirit of mutual respect. What the good professor has provided us with here is a crude scolding based on racial stereotypes, stereotypes of white people. Nothing productive can come of that.
8
Good you Professor! Certainly a specific question worthy of profound introspection and doubt. When I was a young adult circa 1972 in a graduate program at an all black university (political science) philosophy discussions centered on the moral value of killing some white people as a justifiable act of humanity. The question came up every day and was an ordinary philosophic debate. I was the only white guy (student) in these discussions and concurred that white racism was the ultimate evil and needed to be stamped out using atypical means. Maybe today my feeling might be different but not much. Nevertheless, I've learned that black folk humanity is deep and far reaching and those lessons are the ones that will matter in saving humankind from itself. Maybe possible or not?
Amen sir! It is bone weary exhaustion to daily defend not just your right to exist but to be heard AND to have that to be respected.
Too often Black folks have been forced to be in our parlance "The Bigger Nigger" and wave off or gently correct inappropriate comments and behavior. Much to our detriment as it is easily ignored.
As much as I'd like to retreat I owe it to not just my own sense of dignity as a human being but to my culture to keep the course.
"Without struggle, there is no progress." - Frederick Douglass.
With you in spirit, please keep educating those who are willfully ignorant. They may never change but one day their children may.
1
Dr. Yancy, As a white man who grew up in a whitebread suburb, blissfully unaware of the hateful, malignant tumor your poignantly and personally describe, I encourage you to give up on the white people in a few of the bottom rung, slimeball categories your illustrate in this article. You'll likely never change their minds or hearts, and it's certainly not worth the pain and vitriol you are sadly enduring for speaking truth to power. I will say, though, that there are open minded white people out there who need to hear your message, or the message or Michael Eric Dyson, or Cornell West, or conscious rappers like Talib Kweli and Mos Def. One of Mos' lines "the length of Black life is treated with short worth" actually led me to begin to question my privilege, do research, and eventually speak out when I saw fellow white people (some who are no longer my friends) practice the less overt forms of racism that are sometimes more insidious than the in your face kind. I'm truly sorry for the horrific bile and fear you are incurring for shining light on the elephant in the room, and thank you for your bravery. All that being said, if it is safe for you to do so, I implore you not to give up on us all. Your words WILL change some people's minds and behaviors, and they may then go on to change some minds and behaviors in their circle. The challenge the issue of racism poses is as large and threatening together, and all of us who recognize it need to work together to change it.
6
I will confess, I'm sure I'm guilty as charged. A thoughtless phrase here, an unconscious reaction there. I try hard to avoid the appearance of bigotry, but may fail more often than I realize.
My grandparents were from the South. They were bigots in that clueless, smug way of their generation. I grew up with them fuming about Civil Rights and at the same time watching Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier and all the talented blacks on TV and in films and wondered why they hated and feared you all so much, unless you were servile to them.
As for my part, I have dated black men, had black bosses, teachers, counselors, co-workers, friends, and enemies . My grandparents and their generation would of been appalled, and literally banished me from the family for doing these things.
George Yancy, please know these two things. 1. I will always try my hardest to see the humanity in anyone I meet, not their appearance, and 2. White people who reach out to the black community were severely punished in the past, it was not just a matter of looking at you as an equal, it was a matter of living with the judgement other white's would put on you for doing so. I see much less of that punitive attitude through the years. Hopefully, one person at a time, we will finally put the past behind us and see each other for the content of our character.
3
The threatening language quoted in the article has been facilitated by Donald Trump and the GOP. Yes it was always there hiding under a log. We need to beat it back under the log again.
8
Those of us who are white and sympathetic need to do more to support people of color and help dismantle the social infrastructure that results in mass incarceration of so many, needlessly and tragically.
5
Being analytical and accusatory of people and or a whole culture is not going to win you any friends right off the bat (never mind the people who want to hate you anyway). It's human nature tio become angry at you. Someone like Harry Belafonte, Tiger Woods or Serena Williams have probably done more to change people's minds about Black people and or deconstruct the ills that you rail against. How? Simply by being exceptional human beings at whatever firstly and not making a lifehood out of "analyzing".
Your whole existence and livelihood seems to be about analyzing "walls" and furthering them. Also the viewing of "society" through the lense of the internet and or the responses you get on it/through it from a funnel of a minority of white people, who you then go on to accept as a litmus test of the "whole", is completely myopic and dangerous.
19
You don't get it. The author is not talking about a reasoned moral or logical response; he's talking about his own survival and well-being.
At some point, every minority subject asks themselves this: Should I bother to go on in the face of such hatred and threats? Or should I put myself and my own health first? Shall I protect my own mind and sense of self? Shall I devote my work to my family and people like me?
One's response to these questions is existential, not moral or philosophical.
1
Oh, I'm a Buddhist. I get it. I hated so much about the world for so long that I couldn't change. I was cynical and bitter. I finally found I could change myself and my reaction to things and that would change the world in turn in small increments.
The existential response is certainly not limited to race, - also having to live in the environment, ethical treatment of animals yet having to eat, living in a war zone and even myriad of smaller questions.
Oh, I do very much get it. And I still hear vitriol and division that is being cultivated in this author's mind through a certain lense on the world and a lack of acceptance and self reflection.
Actually, I think they get it perfectly.
It goes something to this effect:
You can’t condescend to an entire group of people in some raging reductivism that they are tainted for their racial identity while doing so under the justification to get society (and said group) to stop condescending to your entire group of people in some raging reductivism that you are tainted for your racial identity.
Hypocrisy does not justify anything.
1
I think many white people, consciously or not, harbor guilt, shame, and fear because of the way people of color have been treated by whites in this country for so many generations. We know there is a debt to pay and wrongs to right and we are afraid of what may be coming. There is probably no point in trying to fix all that for us. So in that sense, you probably should give up trying. As some others have said here it's probably futile to try to save people who don't want to be saved because they don't recognize that they need to be or don't feel deserving of being saved, or fear being dragged down by a reaction to those first two groups.
1
After reading through the entirety of your article, I can certainly see how you would feel the way you do, but I think the message, question and basis of the article is leans towards a more poisonous undertone. I am by all rights and genetics, a white American. Unfortunately I fall within that broad stereotype as someone not to be trusted by the black community. The truth however is radically different. People are people, distinguishing the value, ethics, or morality of a human being by their color is in direct contradiction of "Don't judge a book by it's cover." There will always be ignorance regardless of race or religion and there will always be those who decide that the best course of action is to point out the most ignorant, belligerent and socially devolved of a crowd to use as an example of how terrible a group can be. This is exactly what is wrong with not only our country, but our racial groupings and the world. Racism is only alive because people choose to fall back and blame it for everything that happens because it's easy, convenient and institutes the most anger and hatred for another human being. Humanity needs to see beyond skin color and instead see the murky layers of an individual's soul, stop judging the entirety of a group based on lack of skin pigment, start making individuals accountable for their actions. I love all people of all races and religions, and when I'm wronged by someone, I don't blame an entire people for it. Neither should you.
10
The question is not whether any form of racial generalization is permissible. That question is solved in advance. (It's no, in case you were wondering.)
The question is whether to continue to bear the daily psychological burden of "being black for white people". Anyone who has grown up "different" knows the impact this has on your mental health. And if you grew up alone in your difference, as I did, then you find yourself unmoored from any positive culture on which to base your identity and loyalty; you find that the culture that demeans and rejects you is the only home you have. Eventually, everyone comes to a point of wondering whether to abandon this home to its dereliction.
3
If all you have is some justification for the excusability of a high profile public individual to engage in an inflammatory diatribe that comes across as justifying broad dismissiveness against an entire group for their immutable identarian characteristics because their are bad people in the world who happen to belong to that group, then we clearly see the purpose of an editorial in a major us newspaper as serving very different ends.
A great big no - don’t give up on us. We need your help. Some of us know we are racist, maybe just beginning to see it at 50 years. We don’t quite know how to stop, we can try and fail without realizing it. We need your words and thoughts to see more deeply. We don’t deserve it based upon our behavior, but please continue to try. God knows we need the help. And some of us welcome it. Help us learn how to stop being a racist. I hate to say it but it is difficult because it is so deeply and subconsciously learned, for some of us without realizing it. I wish I knew how to say thank you in a strikingly meaningful way. Anyway, thank you. I hope you will continue and inspire others to also help us.
3
As a White person I too say "yes," but not necessarily to the question you're posing. I'm a therapist and many therapist's suffer profound burnout from unsuccessfully "saving" people from their problems and difficulties. The best I can do is try to align myself with reality (truth) and speak it, and point it out, and help people see the lies they've convinced themselves of over and over again. But I can't "save" and rescue, and I can't pry eyes open; and if someone is determined to maintain blindness it's not on me when they wander into metaphorical traffic. Projection is an equal opportunity employer, all people are guilty of indulging in it; psychologically placing the ugly parts of ourselves (we don't want to look at or cannot acknowledge) and then ascribing those qualities to another person or persons (then abusing them for the parts of ourselves we've rejected). Save yourself. Save your humanity. Not all White people are racist, but I imagine you may already know that.
6
Im hoping if it helpful to you when I add my name to the list of those who are appalled and upset by what you have experienced.
2
Thank you for sharing your experience with us. Even if we were all suddenly green, there would be hateful people out there. The hatred comes of fear. We must keep educating each other and taking care of the poor. Thank you for your bravery. Keep spreading the truth. Many of us are listening.
2
You did the right thing reading that horrifying letter to your class and letting them see your emotional reaction. You have planned a seed and let the students see what uncalled for vile hatred does and how it affects the recipient. Too often people, especially hateful letter writers and internet trolls don't see the consequences of their actions.
You made a powerful statement and taught them an invaluable lesson. The climate in the class was not the same because they will be processing this for a long time.
Yes, words hurt deeply. Thank you for your bravery in sharing your vulnerability.
4
I am a white man and have spent the last 5 minutes crying because I believe that hatred has no place in a civilized society. I have a confession to make and would greatly appreciate any insight and advice from this community.
On occasion I drive past a home with a Confederate Flag and when I do my free speech is to blare my horn hoping to disturb the perpetrators of hate. Is this the right thing to do or am I also engaging in a lower level of argumentation. I always wonder about the rightness of this but feel compelled to let that family know that I heartily disagree with their speech.
Jesus teaches that the only way to expel these demons is from much prayer and fasting and the Quakers teach us that we can make peace one person at a time.
I will not give up and I believe that in the end God wins, good wins.
1
Three years ago I took a group of white high school students and adults to a historic black church in Harlem. The preacher was talking about Black Lives Matter and the need for white people to examine our attitudes toward race in America. Some of the adults were extremely angry about the sermon and were so furious it was hard to process the service with the teenagers in a rational way. However, in subsequent meetings and discussions with the teenagers (without those adults present), we were able to talk about the perspective of the speaker. I found the teenagers to be very open to the speakers' perspective and embarrassed by the response of the adults (who were parents). They did not feel any need whatsoever to defend the perspectives of their parents and thought they were clearly wrong. Confederate flags and monuments are a big issue in our city and these same white teenagers are disgusted with both and wish we could get rid of them. I feel very hopeful for the future. And perhaps these young people will be able to reason with their parents and help them see another perspective, but if not, they will certainly have different attitudes going forward. It can't come soon enough.
7
I sometimes think of other "me's" I could have awakened to after being born. This time it is white Irish American. It just happened to me as George Yancy's birth situation happened to him. George and I could have been twin brothers born to a mother in Java, Iceland,Serbia, Mali...you name it. Like a hand of cards dealt to us in a high stakes poker game, we have to play the hand life gave us. But the rules of the "game " are clear: though we choose to follow our hearts and minds, there is no guarantee the world will seem to take notice. That is out of our hands. Nonetheless, the dialectical model does seem to creep toward Justice. I can't imagine the anger and pain George Yancy has felt. I can only say that he is my brother on a level deeper than the color of our skin and I am not alone in saying that he is loved for his struggle and there is no shame in crying out against the meanness.This too shall pass.
Please do not give up. Dr. King once said the greatest barrier to progress of black freedom was actually the "white moderate". Quite of few American whites believe they are very moderate on race, but in truth, they are not being fully honest with themselves, just like the white moderates in the 1960s who kept telling Dr. King to "wait".
His response, of course was to declare "now is the time!"
You need to continue your work of allowing people to be more honest--with you and with themselves. And we need to work with you, both now and continuously. Years ago, when I met a white minister who had been active in the civil rights movement in the '60s (also named King), I thanked him for coming to speak at my university and told him how important I thought his actions had been. And his response was "well, the work continues..." And I realized for the first time that day that civil rights is an on-going movement, and process. *Everyone* who cares about freedom has to keep it going--but they need people like you as a guide.
2
How can we be redeemed if you give up on us? It is a hard road, but we are on it together.
2
You don't need this persons seal of approval, "sign off", or any such thing Vashti. That seems like some straight up (white?) guilt right there.
Be a better, less judgemental person, whether or not you even read this article or this professor ever even existed.
We all know when we are doing it. Just as I know by reading his article he has far more venom in his heart than me and is conversely being fueled and validated toward his same dead end conclusions by seeking out the "negative" in things and people.
I guess whether or not you choose to give up on White people is irrelevant. We certainly haven't done much to warrant further faith in our ability to grow and change, especially in the past few years once we could no longer point to a Black president and pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves "look how far we've come," and pretend that was the end - that was enough.
It's definitely not enough.
You have every right to give up on White people. I have very very few reasons to try to convince you to do otherwise.
But White people have no right to give up on giving up our systematic racism and personally racist beliefs and ways of looking/behaving/perceiving the world. We need to do it because it's the right thing to do, not because it will make Black people like us more, or make us feel better about ourselves.
As the musical Hamilton says, "History has its eyes on you." Now is our time to decide how history will judge White people in this moment of reckoning.
3
Never give up. My question is what more do I do? I taught in a city school for many years being hyper vigilant about how I treated my highly integrated classes of students. I taught alongside black teachers and administrators some good some bad like all the rest of us. When behavioral issues cropped up, it was disproportionately from impoverished black kids, yet I tried to be understanding and many times gave black kids an extra chance or an extra hug as needed. Some might say I went easier on them. One day, driving to school, a black teen from the neighborhood threw a rock at my car near my head. I had a huge dent on the driver's side and for a long time I was afraid of driving down the street I had to drive by to get to my school. I was indignant; hurt that someone would try to hurt me for no reason. I realize that's exactly how black folks must feel much of the time. Still, I never gave up on my black high school students. In fact, I was adamant that they succeed, sometimes seeming to care for their success more than they did. In my local and state elections I make sure that I vote for minorities and women if they are capable. Lastly, I don't use hateful language towards any group of people and neither do my friends or family members. If needed, I will stand up for your just and equal treatment, Mr. Yancy. Why would you give up on me?
4
This is an almost impossible conversation for any of us to have together - especially these days. Realizing that what I'm about to say is inane - and toothless, I'll say it anyway. I'm white - I'm also afraid and demoralized by these same white people that brought you to this point and forced you to ask us your question. I know how that sounds.
I'd like to say something poetic and heartwarming, like love is the answer. Maybe it's patience and persistence, maybe it's a matter of time. Like you, I sometimes want to resign myself, and accept our ugly condition for what it seems to be - obvious and permanent. I would if it weren't for the fact that I also recognize our better qualities, and how magnificent humanity can be (and maybe will be).
I don't know. Don't give up seems like the better answer than giving up. To be honest, facing the situation we all currently face together, we might need to trust each other more than we ever have before, even if it's not so easy to recognize our allies or our enemies just by looking at them.
Trust is a complicated thing, but what other choice do we have?
3
Mr. Yancy: I am white, 58 years old. I read your December 24, 2015 essay a moment ago, then I read this column. I am Jewish, and have experienced hatred and discrimination in my lifetime, so I have more than a clue as to what you are talking about.
I do not disagree with you that American society has institutionalized racism; it is woven into the fabric of our daily lives
I am however troubled by your assertion that because I get up in the morning and drive to the office I am somehow a racist because I am, by merely functioning in and contributing to our American society, perpetuating the racist system overall.
Do I not have as much a right as you to function in society? To earn a living and enjoy my life?
From what I can deduce from reading between the lines, your solution to this conundrum is for white people like me to help stage a revolution to overthrow our system of government and our way of life.
I will not do so. And if that makes me a "racist' in your eyes, so be it.
20
I'm sorry. I'm black, 67 and retired. In many cases all that's changed is a nicer face has been put on it, but the same thoughts propel their actions
My Mom was a domestic, never earning more than $75 a week. I earned a degree at night, my kids have masters, and my grandkids are in college Yet with all of this, my grandkids still have to face some of the same struggles I had 50 years ago.
Don't give up, but please recognize you aren't going to cure it either. You're not Jesus
12
Give up on white people? Worth consideration, but ultimately worthy of rejection. I'm ashamed to say I've fully given up on certain people in my life. However, I think that once one extends that despair beyond specifically identified individuals (even if anonymous) we have included ourselves in the surrender. So, please don't give up on yourself.
2
Don't ever give up on any individual no matter how they look or the skin tone?
Every human can have beautiful and redeeming qualities
within their deeper selves.
I believe that genetics states that 99.9 percent of the human genome is identical in every person and only 0.1
percent
is involved in individual differentiation.
In a real sense we are really all brothers trying to survive in a troubled world. What a loss it would be if we cannot see what binds us together is so much more important than what divides us.
4
Don't give up on me. I'm not giving up on anyone. I am so much more than a 'white person'. We should all give up on 'whiteness,' and work to unravel its corrupt system of privileges, but I don't think anybody should totally give up on anybody.
Somehow, we've all got to get there together.
3
?? Sounds like the professor appreciates the views of the young who have bought into the mind washing occurring in Universities.
5
Thank you, George, for your courage, commitment, and powerful vulnerability. As a liberal white male that has been privileged with all the trimmings of an easy-going life, I am humbled by your words and more dedicated than ever to confront systemic racism within me and without. You can give up on these monsters that threaten you and your family, but don't give up on me. Blessings.
I'm a white American. I've had the privilege to visit Norway several times. It's a good place--good people. But every time I go there, I miss everybody in America. I just miss walking down the street and seeing all us Americans also walking down the street.
I'm sure that I'm a racist--How could one grow up in this country and not be? But, to the bottom of my heart, I am thankful that I get to live with lots of people. And especially, especially, black people. I completely understand why you want to give up on white people. But I hope you won't give up on me.
Just remember, we, as white people, do not have the authority or experience to tell a person of color how they feel or ought to feel about racism.
I find this consideration very helpful, and it is something I state openly before wading into issues of race.
2
I have practically given up on white people as a concept, except for the ones who are my friends that I had before Trump's horrid election. I find everyday I walk into work at what is considered a prestigious law firm, I am constantly met with silence racism from not just whites, but asians and latinos. I would expect from an older generation, but this is coming from the younger so called enlightened generation. I have become accustomed to keeping everyone at distance. I lost my naivete that would allowed me to be welcoming, open and friendly. I do my best to ignore it, pray it away, meditate, breathing exercises, but I can do is just wait for the weekend to come to de-stress.
4
I am white and acknowledge that not only does white privilege exist, I have benefited from it my entire life. I hope I have evolved. I realize the debts we owe for our past and that Americans can't hold America up as some kind of model, unless we can confess those wrongs and speak openly about them. Healing can only begin with honesty. Covering those wounds only makes them continue to fester.
I'm in my 60s and the truth of American history regarding native Americans and slavery was never taught in my Jr high or high school. It was never spoken of in the white Christian church my family attended.
Stephen Foster's "Camp Town Ladies" taught in elementary school? Yes.
Thank Mel Brooks for Blazing Saddles and finding a funny way to show the ignorance of racism to millions of people.
Our history is both shameful and has greatness but they both exist and the good part cannot hide the bad. Stolen land, genocide, buying and selling human brings, and treating them as disposable is on par with Nazi Germany. If America can acknowledge that and talk about those wrongs maybe we can be a multi-ethnic nation instead of a multicultural one. The former can grow the later is doomed.
4
Let us white people start adopting black heroes as our own. Let's name white local thoroughfares and monuments after black leaders. Let's start quoting black thinkers and leaders. Above all, let's practice our love of black America to other whites.
2
I have a graduate degree from Stanford, and could have attended MIT as well. Based on the racial makeup of these advanced programs, it sure looks like Elite Universities have already given up on White People!!!
7
A look at the comments on your original post reveals a broad array of thoughtful, considered, and devastating critiques of that ridiculous article. I suspect your theatrics generate more than a little eye rolling among your students.
9
I am a Jew. Even though my skin is white, I am not included among "white people". Even though my contributions are at the bedrock of Western Civilization, the world constantly tries to wipe me out. I am never given the benefit of the doubt. I am always hated, simply because I am a Jew. And yet, I'm doing fine. Never understood why black people don't use Jews as a model of overcoming adversity - rather than being some of the worst anti-semites on the planet. I live in NYC - I've been around more black people than there are in all of Africa - they get no sympathy from me, for I am a Jew, and the world hates Jews for sport.
13
While ones faith, religious affiliation, and/or beliefs can be made less visible, or even disavowed and replaced by new faith structures altogether, you can’t escape blackness and the feeling of ridicule frequently attached to it. This I believe is/was the authors main point—to humanize the experience of what it’s like to live with black skin in a social system where black skin can sometimes be stigmatized and devalued.
1
So sorry! In a previous comment the spell check devil changed Professor Yancy’s name to something unrecognizable. My apologies!
So, ALL whites do this to you, do they? Should I give up on ALL blacks because of the few who commit violence n other ethnicities, even their own? I won’t, because that would be giving into the hate. I lived in Africa for over four years, and was asked why blacks were murdering other blacks. I told them that was only a small portion.
10
You're problem was grouping ALL white people in the same group in the first place. Writing a letter to all white people is a useless exercise, and I say this as a Hispanic man of mixed race. There are bad white people and good white people. Grouping them together serves no purpose and is just as obtuse as grouping all blacks or all Asians together.
23
I suspect Yancy wrote this expecting to get more hate mail from irrational racists. He can then read them and shame any white kids in his lectures linking them to the hateful letters. Nothing honest about that.
18
Don't give up, but stop reading hate mail, and get off Twitter. Do not let some anonymous cowards win. You won't change those who are those most hateful, but you can change some.
5
After everything he’s been through this is his response? While it is not comparable to white racism in its effect, this reactionary bigotry should show us how difficult it is for people to let go of the deeply entrenched tendency to make crude generalizations about others. The Times is continually publishing articles and op-eds where the author casually and with no sense of irony talks about what is wrong with “men” or “whites”. Bigotry is bigotry. Some people get so caught up in their understandable emotional reaction to injustice that they fall right into this trap. When called on it, outrage ensues. The fact is, you cannot and should not assign negative attributes to people based on characteristics like this. “Men” do not oppress women and “whites” no longer oppress blacks (government sanctioned systemic racism is dead). Plenty of people who happen to be women or happen to be black inflict injustice on others, and obviously plenty of people who are white are racist jerks. Their gender and pigmentation are not the cause of their shortcomings. NYT, you can do better.
8
Dr. Yancy,
Do NOT give up! America needs to hear you.
What you say about this hatred is real. As a white American ( French born) living in the South, I have heard this racist-small minded- ignorant -fear filled-self righteous rhetoric coming out of the mouth of “good God fearing church going Christians” often.
They feel emboldened by the lout they voted in office.
SPEAK up America, and vote for representatives of the People , not the Tribe.
I gave up on white people a long time ago. My life includes so many negative interactions with white people that I'm just tired. And now the Nazis and the KKK are just getting stronger. Give up. And be careful out there. It's not just words, think of Joe McKnight, Philando Castile and all the others. Give up, and be careful.
2
I would.
1
If a white person after the 1960s riots said "should I give up on black people?" would you consider that racist? No, it's more complex than that. But here you are pandering to that same instinct. How appalling.
14
Jews have left countries where they were not wanted. It was tough. It took the Holocaust to give them some dignity and a place to always call a home is case the gentile shelter does not work out. Some have been extremely successful, others less so, but the sentiment of Anti-Semitism persists (and they are white!). America is a deeply racist country. White are taught to fear blacks from infancy and the fear is reiterated throughout adolescence, organizations like NRA and conservative politics". I don't think that leaving this country is a sign of weakness. I think taking your tax dollars away, your educated children from this country which is wallowing in fear and hatred may be a slap in the face this place needs. The tougher question is where to go.
1
I would consider this but my ancestors have too much blood and too many bones in this soil. So many years in nation’s military service, years working to make a better life. Not. Going. Anywhere. This. Is. Our. Nation. Too.
Folks obsessed with race will see racism everywhere and as the cause of all their troubles.
12
Racism is everywhere. It’s in the nation’s history and DNA. You won’t see it because you don’t have to and prefer not to face it.
1
Why not take break from your efforts and look for a sign of progress? Profile a white person who you feel is not racist. Or are you saying that all white people were born and will die racist and that there is no cure?
2
Heck, I'm white and I've almost given up on white people!
Some of us are beyond saving.
4
Dr. Yancy - What happens after you give up? Do things get better? For you? For black folks? Maybe you don't feel like lifting up your own head to be a target for the most vile racists this racist society can cough up, but that would be just self-preservation. Understandable. On the other hand, you give hundreds of thousands of white people a perspective that helps us wrestle with inherited (not inherent) racism. That's very useful for everyone, especially the young. To make yourself a target is obviously painful, but I'd suggest don't let the focused hate obscure your contribution to the greater good. Few people are capable of what you're doing so perhaps that's just you're destiny—and no one can give up on fate.
Racism is like the poison in the water we drink and the air we breath. We've all been contaminated to some degree!
In a relationship, you can't change the other, but you can change your self. If 100% of eligible Black voters organized, ran candidates and platforms, and voted in every election, you've seized the power in our democracy. If Black culture fully supported educational achievement, you've seized the power in this capitalist society. Don't worry about the trolls; they only thrive in their anonymity. Don't preach to the choir of liberals with guilt-tripping. Racists don't hear you.
Vote and educate to empower your social group, that's how other social groups have succeeded in this zero-sum, winner take most, capitalist democracy that's going global anyway.
3
easy answer but it will take some time. breed racism out of existence. how? continue to encourage interracial marriages. Maybe even make it a requirement. if done correctly, the human race will become a single brown-asian race with no racial or cultural diversity and therefore no racism. thankfully I will be long dead by then. personally, I like cultural and racial diversity. kinda makes life interesting.
There are a lot of stupid people in the world with ridiculous ideas. Maybe they believe those ideas, or maybe they do not. But why give them a megaphone by quoting them? Why assume that they are representative of any significant portion of the population?
Maybe your book does this, but what are you asking for? Confessions like those you quote from white people who now acknowledge their inner racist? To what end? What concrete action items do you propose? Arguing over whether someone is inherently a racist or a beneficiary of a racist system is a useless exercise. Neither side will ever prove the merit of its position.
Focus on what matters. We may be able to agree on things that will make lives better. But you will never convince me that I am a racist. Just like I am sure that I could never do the same to you. So please stop trying.
2
As I have said repeatedly to women who started #MeToo, those who have been assaulted, whistled at, denied employment unless they perform sexual acts and otherwise disrespected and denied their worth as well as tortured, raped and killed, I say to you, sir - not all of us are like this. What is said to you in these vile letters is about the sender, nothing about you. This may not help you sleep at night, but there it is.
3
Sadly there will always be racists and bigots among us.
What I find most distressing are the ones that have been elected to high office.
1
DON'T give up. Because there ARE many many white people, probably the vast majority of them, who would like to do to your tormentors what they said they want to do to you. Unfortunately this country has, going back to the Know Nothings of the 1840s, a strain of ignorance and intolerance. You ARE the 100% American, not them. They are an embarassment to this nation.
I am white, and yes, I have given up on white people.
1
Oh no! Please don't give up on "us!" "We" know not what we do. Save us from ourselves. Help us look in the mirror to see our flaws, our brokenness and hate. For you can heal the sick, and we are sick. Sick souls in need of your therapy for racists, i.e. therapy for white people.
I'm sorry you've been threatened. There are some vile people out there who are filed with hate as you say. But I don't think I should have to say that not all whites are that way. Certainly the word racist can be defined in many different ways. Is there really one descriptor that aptly subsumes both the white supremacists that converged on Charlottsvile last summer as well as the rest of those persons alive today who are white?
Maybe your books deal more with such distinctions rather than universal claims about whites. I hope so. But describing thugs that threaten you and then extrapolating to incredibly large group of people with the intention to "heal" them of their hate is, I think, unproductive.
I just read the original letter and it is, I think, sanctimonious and condescending.
10
Dr Yancy: Yes. Give up on white people.
Now what?
7
The ever-declining standards of living for uneducated white people combined with the tsunami of Trumpism and it's anonymous cover of darkness known as the Internet has really allowed all of the closet racists, misogynists, homophobes, anti-semites, and xenophobes to come out from under the rocks they stuffed their anger when economic times were good. It used to be a source of shame to be racist; now these bozos have an audience and a cheering section--thanks to social media--which emboldens them to say and do what most would consider unspeakable. And yet, our political leaders stoke these embers of hate. They give breaks to their rich cronies and the defense budget instead of using that money to put back into education. They win votes by promising more good paying blue collar jobs in industries that are never coming back, instead of putting money into retraining. They lock black men up for having the audacity to schedule a meeting at a Starbucks so their privatized prisons can make more money. No, it's much easier to win elections by going along with white entitlement and pointing fingers at (insert anger target here) than coming to grips with the idea that the world is changing fast.
The byline should read "Dr. Yancy."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Yancy
1
Pity party masquerading as an academic exercise.
13
I recognize those threats as KKK talk. It has a distinctive character. If you were to find the sources of those threats and insults they would probably be traced to a relatively few people. I'm only speculating but it appears that the author has been targeted, and it's working. That's what they do and how they do it.
It's an old formula.
The white minister of the church I attended as a teen was targeted by the local KKK because of his stance and activity in the Civil Rights movement. They bombed his house and the church. They would call him up on a regular basis at 2:00 am saying he, and his family, had ten minutes before the bomb went off. The police eventually caught the guys who set the dynamite. They were given five year jail terms (ha!), it was in the 1960's. They worked for a local sign company in the town where I live now. I wish I knew that when we moved here in 1975, but it's just as well we didn't.
Learn to fight back. They are cowards. If I suggested the obvious the NYT would censor the comment.
1
When I see how so many white people are comfortable with election of a white supremacist, it also makes me want to give up on white people. But this would be a mistake. Not all white people are like these, and even though their numbers are still large, they are slowly decreasing over time as a percentage of the population. These people you cannot change with arguments or logic. Every once in a while you read about some racist that has an epiphany and sees the error of his ways. These are exceedingly few, but it shows what really has to happen. This type of change has to come from within. You should not give up on white people. You should, however, give up on racists.
5
Yes, you should give up on white people. Waiting for the white man to solve the problems black people face is a waste of time. Focus on what you can personally do to improve the lot of people in the black community. A few ideas: Most black children are educated in majority black districts. (1) Get blacks in charge of these schools and change them to focus on benefitting students, not the teachers' unions. (2) Get blacks to start and run small businesses in the black community. Why is it that most stores in black communities are run by immigrants? (3) Police your own communities. Don't rely upon white cops to keep crime down. Form block watches, citizen patrols, etc. There are plenty more ideas but this would be a good start.
13
Emory University, a top-ranked private institution recognized internationally for its outstanding liberal arts colleges, graduate and professional schools, and one of the world's leading healthcare systems. So in the so called white racist country you live in how did you manage to get a education, get a job and become a professor. I am white, yet I am not as well educated as you, do not make as much money as you, and I am not a professor at a great university. Perhaps I should complain about this racist country. Well just a thought.
104
What I gather from your comment is that you think because this professor at Emory has found success and has risen to the top of his field, that racism in the US either does not exist, or has not acted on this particular individual. I would respond by saying that just because Mr. Yancy has found success, does not mean that he did not have to face racism on an institutional or structural level to get there. I would even go as far as adding that he has gone on to succeed despite the barriers and assumptions people have made about him his whole life.
35
You probably didn’t work very hard and commit to sacrifices needed to get a Ph.D. In philosophy. I know plenty of white men willing to do that, even from working class background. You implication is that the author was somehow privileged to achieve success because of his race, and hence proof racism doesn’t exist. Your letter supports his experience.
13
Nice illustration of Yancy’s point.
11
Dr. Yancy, I am sorry that you received the offensive and threatening hate mail and I have nothing good to say about the people who wrote those things. But I have a problem with where you're at. You wrote a letter in the Stone accusing all whites of being racists. You said your letter was a "gift," and should be received with "love." It was entirely to be expected that you would receive many angry replies and that some would be intemperate. I can't speak for everyone but a lot of us were brought up to believe that racism is a moral failing and a matter of choice (and not something that is simply an inescapable part of being born).
You're a smart guy so I'm sure you get that when you accuse a couple hundred million people that you don't know, and have never met, of all being immoral racist bigots, then a lot of them are not going to like you. And surely you also get that telling people what a “gift” it is be so accused by you is really not calculated to improve matters.
I am not defending the haters and I can’t tell you whether you should give up on white people, but if you’re serious about getting your message across, maybe next time consider a different approach.
16
Exactamundo. What did you expect when you delivered a "gift" in the form of an essay that told millions of people that, by virtue of their skin color, they were jerks?
2
Powerful, emotional article.
As a Black woman I say yes! Most are happily functioning in just the way they have for hundreds of years! Stepping on others with privilege and then criticizing and taunting them because they are hurt! It is a strange and interesting phenomenon. As a Christian I have to say that you must not stop. Fighting is the ONLY thing that will make things better. Although they killed King, JFK, RFK, Medgar Evans and countless others we must continue to fight to educate, to inform and to hold the mirror up so they can see themselves. trump is our wake up call! If we allow he and his “followers” to destroy OUR Country, we are complicit! WE are the majority!
1
I know America is afflicted with institutional racism.
I believe every statistic and story I read of how African Americans are disadvantaged and abused by it.
Yet I cannot sort out exactly what in Professor Yancy's message is supposed to lead to a more just society. If we all confessed our sins, does that lead to a sinless world?
All I can think of in response to his question is: Yes, Prof. Yancy, give up on white people and figure out something effective to do to help blacks.
7
Face Me Face You.
Glenn Ligon, “Palindrome #1” (2007), neon, 8 x 105 inches.
Did I miss the explanation of the palindrome? Face Me Face You - the same when reversed? It seems at odds with the point of the essay, which seems to say my white skin racism is harmful to my black skin brothers, if I may use that term without unknowingly taking advantage of a privilege I am perceived to have due to my whiteness.
I have children of a different race, not black, and I have wondered more than once if black women are resentful of me or my children somehow. If there are any black women reading this, I would be interested to know if I am just misreading a reaction or if that's a thing. Let me know.
Otherwise, the professor seems to be saying racism is a one way street - what's with the palindrome?
3
The only response your students can give is " Are we going to be tested on this?"
3
This article is the product of a tacit acknowledgment that the black school of thought which blames virtually all black problems on whites is waning. "Giving up on white people" is a euphemism for moving beyond the hope that whites would or even could fix all black problems due to the obvious but denied-at-all-costs reality that black problems have sources unrelated to whites or the racist moniker "whiteness."
7
Yes, there are large parts of America that are openly or secretly racist - and they come in all colors. And with modern social media, it is easy for racists to anonymously spew hate. If you send out a opinion piece to millions of people, some are not going to agree with it, and some will spew racist views, But that is not the majority of America you are hearing from, just the cowards that hide behind fake names.
But i have to say, some of the comments on this section are not helping in your quest to find an a solution we should all hope and strive for.
1
It would be understandable and totally justified if you gave up on white people. Time and demographics are on the side of people of color in this country, however. What we're seeing now are the last vicious thrashings of a political and social order that is finally being called to account for the racism in all its expressions of ugliness that has been the unconfessed and unrepented mortal sin of this nation.
1
Please don’t. There are MANY white folks who are standing arm in arm with our brothers and sisters of color. I am a white woman with a black husband and biracial sons. I’m going to keep fighting this fight until I take my last breath.
3
Anyone that writes a book about race shouldn't read their "fan mail". I have moderated online blogs on stem cell medical research with a group of 4,000 members and that was my learning curve; especially since the participants were posting anonymously. Hatred is out there and if you look to the most vocal people and decide to read their comments you will not be achieving the confirmation of your work that you are looking for.
On the other hand you might wake up to the 1,000 Russian troll factory which is generating divisive comments on racial topics in the USA non-stop. Not that we don't have racists in this country and not that racism is not a subtle art, often practiced subconsciously by your fellow Americans... But we do have a massive state sponsored program operating to undermine our society. Throw that into the mix...
5
James Baldwin put it best: "As long as you think you're white, there is no hope for you."
In reality, there is no hope for whiteness as an identity. If "white people" want to be true allies, they should stop being white. Literally. Fill in the next census as "other." Refuse to accept and benefit from their inherent "wage" and privilege inherent in being seen and accepted as "white."
3
Echo chambers are a very real problem today.
A person can create a worldview and then insulate themselves from the (often complex and nuanced) situations happening around them that might challenge that view. To the person obsessed with racial conflict, information can be filtered until every conflict is seen as a proxy racial conflict.
6
"Unlike Odysseus, who tied himself to the mast of a ship so that he could not fully respond to the songs of the sirens, I ask that if you are prepared to be wounded, to be haunted by the joy of love, compassion and vulnerability, untie your ropes, leave the contrived masts of your own undoing, step out into the water — join me there. It might feel like Sisyphus rolling that enormous boulder up the hill again, but let my history embolden you.”
Should I give up on academic humanities?
5
I'm white. By all means, give up on us. Most of us have given up on you.
That doesn't mean what you think it might mean. What I mean is this: Most of us whites are focused on our own environments, our own lives. As well we should be. I have no particular animus towards you, but you are not essential to my future happiness.
It might surprise to learn this, professor, but most of us don't think about blacks all that much. Do you think about us all the time? Do you care much if we're rich or poor, happy or sad, smart or dumb? If so, you're wasting your time. Work on your own life.
11
Yes, as soon as you give up on the African rulers who first enslaved your forebears and sold them for trinkets to any buyer.
Cited from Prof. Gates' recent history of African-American slavery..
10
I gave up on white people a long time ago. That you have persisted as long as you have is a testament to your courage and your faith in humanity. But the election of Donald Trump erased any white empathy I had. I have been deeply ashamed of white people for a long time. But Trump made me ashamed to be white myself for the very first time in my life. I will never forgive them for that.
4
Mr Yancheng asks if he should become a racist. The short answer is no. But if anything is revealed by recent discussions about racism in America it is that we are all racists and bigots. All of us, black, white, asian, native american, latino, arabic, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Palestinians, Israelis, men, women, Republicans, Democrats, immigrants native born...we all tend to blame our problems on the “other” and give too free a pass to our own kind and to our own actions. It’s not just that it’s an easy way out. It’s also baked into the most basic and primitive parts of our psyche. We have a choice to accept it as “like it is” or we can keep struggling to overcome. One thing is clear. For most of us, the only behavior we can really change is our own.
3
White racism begets black racism and on and on and on in a vicious cycle. As an older white male I have experienced black racism
and violence directed at me. Many people do give up on whites or blacks or Armenians or Hutu or Tutsi or Rohinga or boat people or Jews or ...
Wish I had a solution but I don't and am not sure there is a solution. It seems to be part of human nature to be tribal and racist. If there is no out group to persecute then we create a new division. Just look at the recent and historic genocides, all around the world from Germany to Cambodia to Vietnam to Turkey to Rwanda, every human society contains the seeds of group violence. The potential for mob violence is an inherent human defect and is why the rule of law is the foundation of civil society.
Don't give up. Godspeed.
2
Dear Prof. Yancy,
I am an old white guy to whom black lives matter very much. I, too, am sick of white racism (mine included -- it's subtle but I do not doubt that it is there!) I applaud your efforts and admire your courage. I do not want you to be a martyr. I want you to be safe and to thrive so that you can continue to provide your insights into this terrible problem. The things you write and the courses you teach do make a difference. I know; I, too, am a professor. But my contributions to knowledge are minuscule in importance compared to what you are doing. Hang in there!
3
After Michael Stewart was killed in the 80s I learned to check how safe I would be before venturing into all white NYC communities, to shop, bike ride ect. So how does my fear of the violence of white men eqvivocate rationalizing Me's fear of black men?
This whataboutism is tiring.
I am aghast a personal account of the fear of black people is the most popular comment AND NYT pick as an exemplar of an excellent response to the query of the essay.
Are we really advocating BPGTOW? Wasn't that the segregation of the past? Grant it blacks had their own business, schools, and institutions (all lost during integration) but they were soundly destroyed when they became too successful.
Remember Tulsa OK?
It seems to me the balkanization of the US has begun.
I wish whites would just honestly say: "I prefer being separate from blacks. I don't want to work with blacks and don't mind if they help me be successful but I refuse to help them in kind. I like my privileges. Don't care they come from the pain of others. Their discomfort isn't of interest to me. I don't want to share my privilege and will fight against the end/change of it 'til my dying breath."
1
Racism is a rough beast. It has been ingrained in the fiber of this nation over the past 400 years. White people, in general, are unaffected and as you've said, indifferent to racism. Within that subset, many believe that: 1)they are personally not a racist and 2)systematic racism ended by legal proxy. Yancy admitted in his 2015 article that he was a sexist as are most males of or before a certain generation. William Kunstler told his daughters that all White people are racist, I suppose he knew at that the complicity of White privilege, which all Whites ich and poor enjoy, is wrapped up in racism.
It has taken us 400 years of racism to get to where we are now, will it take another 400 years to eradicate this rough beast?
2
Unfortunately we don't have a scrawl going across our foreheads (like a bus showing its upcoming stops) that let's you know what's in our hearts. I would tell you that white people are also disgusted by what you are describing; the Starbucks incident this week may have illustrated this even though far worse examples occur every day in our country. It's a question more of ignorance than skin color in my view. Fear and ignorance. There are plenty of ignorant people out there and I avoid them, too.
3
Should I give up on men? I've got a list of pervasive trespasses, aggressions and assaults that'll make the threats you list sound like good-spirited ribbing. I'll give up on violent misogynists instead.
My grandmother and great grandmother were enslaved (owned and tortured) and almost all the rest of my recent ancestors murdered in cold blood or tortured and starved--and we are Caucasians from the Middle East. The ethnic biases among those involved hold/create danger/vulnerabilities to this day.
White racists are despicable, toxic and dangerous. Give up on them? Why would you ever have retained them? That is real as is a hierarchy of privilege involving race, gender, disability, class and more. "White people" is not, and I'm quite certain you know this. So why keep the divisive dream alive while refusing to own the nuance/complexity of racial identity in the U.S.?
8
This is exactly what white power groups want nowadays. They have shifted their rhetoric toward a so-called "realist" approach that simply seeks seperate societies. They love the thinking behind this article and would gladly be given up on... so long as they can take their tax dollars back and no longer fund entitlements that disproportionately accrue to people of color. Strange bedfellows.
8
Thanks Prof. Yancy for writing this. I do believe that sometimes we fight so hard against injustice that we lose touch with our personal pain and vulnerability.
I also think many of us have moments when we ask ourselves your question...when we're tired of the struggle and wonder whether to give up.
This year, I am touched for different reasons by your last line from James Baldwin, "Black history “testifies to nothing less than the perpetual achievement of the impossible.” and a line from the movie Roman J. Israel, ‘I’m tired of doing the impossible for the ungrateful.’ Both point to my moments of despair.
But...I regain my spirit when I experience progress and see the ripple effect of my work on others...and when I remember how far we have come against the odds.
By sharing your vulnerability, you have touched mine and given me strength to continue to fight forward. Again, thanks for sharing.
I don't know if you should give up on us (any more than, as a woman, I know if women who speak out and are threatened with gang rape and murder should continue speaking out). But I know courage and simple, honest truth when I see it.
Over the course of human history, so many people have suffered, and died, for having the courage to engage in telling the simple, honest truth. So I cannot judge those who avoid it, those who have given up on it, or those who continue, despite the risks.
I am awed by the latter though. It is indeed a superhuman effort of love to continue to speak the truth in the face of such fear (and yes, I believe that fear is the opposite of love, not necessarily hate). Much love to you, whatever your decision.
1
You should give up on ALL people.
That's the key to a truly fulfilling life.
7
The change that has been wrought in this country by those that stood up to racism and fought to enact laws to protect its victims and outlaw many of its most visceral and institutional expressions is one of the most hopeful demonstrations of our democracy and innate morality that we can ever hope to witness. Our racist character will persist, as seen in Charlottesville and other places, and in the letters Mr. Yancy is receiving. But we all must keep our eyes on the prize. And we must persist in leaving behind a legacy of that persistence for our children. Our work is not done, but we cannot allow the spirit of this ongoing transformation be muted by those who continue to fear it, despite the gift they are truly being offered.
1
Mr. Yancy doesn't want a dialogue; he wants to preach about the sins of my race. It's not working. Trying to make people feel guilty for the actions of others of the same race has never worked and never will.
What actually would improve lives: 1) Recognize the tremendous achievements that have been made in reducing white racism since World War II; 2) recognize that the achievements made were the result of blacks, whites, and others working together (not just the result of black protest and certainly not the result of riots and reverse racism); identify projects including law creation around which true coalitions can be built; and listen in equal proportion to talking.
The truth is larger than Mr. Yancy lets on. The United States is one of the least racist countries in the world (and that includes Africa, with its intense tribal conflicts). Progress has been made but there is much to do. Black leadership must step forward bravely if we are going to move past the present impasse, brought about just as much by blacks as by whites.
20
Dear David N: Perhaps you mean well, but as a fellow white man but with a black family and many white and black friends, I need you to try and reboot your views. Radically. You are living in a fenced off fantasy world of white privilege. It’s understandable and forgivable because white institutional privilege was set up for you and me never to have to face the much uglier real America, one where for instance my wife is pulled over by the police for implausible reasons, where my granddaughter is pinned to the floor of her school bus by older white boys who laugh at her about her skin color, where my wife who earns twice what I earn and is a conservative user of credit and never ever misses a credit card payment has over the last 20 plus years consistently had a credit score 50 to 100 points lower than mine and... I could go on and on and on. But, please, when someone like the author of today’s article cries out in pain, stop dismissing it and consider that there might be reasons for it you’ve been protected from understanding. That would be a very good start.
3
The reality of our nation's history with regard to slavery and racism (institutional and personal) cannot be changed.
If I understand his point, Prof. Yancy is suggesting that the first step to overcoming this history is for everyone (not just people of color) to acknowledge it and to recognize it in all of its current incarnations.
Humans have proven remarkably resistant to accepting "the other" throughout our history. I wonder if the professor feels there will ever be a point where that stain has been completely erased from the white population. (He seems pessimistic about this.)
One could continue to rage at the racism that continues to exist, and lament the fact that it may never disappear entirely, but that level of anger is toxic when it's sustained. It seems healthier to also recognize the tremendous progress that has been made.
Sisyphus must have thought he would make it to the top of the mountain at some point. He kept going because he could move that rock, even if it kept sliding back.
We too have to keep pushing.
1
This may be one of the most powerful reflections to have appeared anywhere in print in a very long time. The wind that has unsettled your heart, in the face of these threats and the howling corruption, is present in the lives of many of us. Just this weekend I was reading the passages from Baldwin to which you refer -- in order to prepare for yet another "discussion on race." In this nearly suffocating darkness, the words of both James Baldwin and you, glimmer. Look, look at the stars. And see yourself.
3
In the age of Trump is clear that racism is now comfortable enough as a concept that white supremacists are literally removing their hoods when they march. This is horrific. But its also not the totality of "white people." We're not all alike - very far from it as I know you are aware. But chances are that the racists among us is far more likely to respond to you're communications.
Yes, give up on saving/educating "white people". Instead I we all have a duty to find ways of reducing tensions across society, including race. But it has to start with getting to common values.
Diversity and inclusiveness are clearly not as widely shared as bedrock American values. This needs work -long-term generational work. Electing a black president caused as much a backlash as it did to open others eyes toward new possibilities.
Some of us stare into a diverse world and see promise and opportunity. Others see fear and failure. This is still the work of all of us as we hopefully move toward a more perfect union (hopefully we can at least stop running away from such a positive hypothetical place).
1
Yes. Mainly because the approach you are taking doesn’t work. You won’t change white people, their world will change and they won’t have a choice but to change or cease to exist or go down with the fight. Declining birth rates, interracial marriages, immigration (no matter how hard they fight it) will continue to change the composition of this country. After 60 years of being black, being the ‘first’ and sometimes the only one in business and social environments, I’m tired of worrying about white people, their fears, their feelings, their attitudes, etc. Let’s worry about ourselves for a while. Use some of that intellect to bring awareness to black students about the history of this country and how they can best cope with it. Teach them about why acting out in violence to one another only plays into the hands of the racists. I’m saying fight to the death to maintain or create additional legal protections for our people but give up on idea of changing their hearts.
2
Dear Professor Yancy, I can't help but feel that you are being a bit self-aggrandizing here. Surely you know that anything written online these days results in a flurry of attention-seeking trolls replying with vile threats. I read an online sailing forum and watch explicit death threats flying back and forth in response to benign as yacht design opinions. That's obviously sad, but it's wrong characterize this as some kind of especially vitriolic response to your article. A better question would be "Should I give up on online media as a forum for debate?".
17
In my personal life I do my best to look at people one at a time and not as part of a demographic.
9
Thank you, Dr. Yancy, for this deeply honest article.
I disagree with comments suggesting that racial or tribal bias are "hard-wired" in humans.
From my own experience, I know that they are learned behavior and attitudes.
Since my father was in the military, I moved around the western US a lot during my formative years.
In Texas, I learned that the general "approved" prejudice was against African-Americans.
Then we moved to the state of Washington, and suddenly I observed that Native Americans were the group generally approved to be feared and avoided.
Then we moved to southern California, where the prevailing "approved" prejudice was against Hispanic Americans.
But I did not encounter anti-Semitism until I moved to Minnesota.
By then I was 18, and politically and philosophically curious, and had read about virtually every religion and philosophy, as well as history and the horrific things that had been done throughout history toward people whose ethnicity, gender, or religious preference put them in a group designated to be "hated". Naturally, I noticed that, just as in my personal experience, the people to be attacked and hated changed with location and the political/religious "preferences" of those in power.
None of the prevailing prejudices toward any group of Americans (or anyone else) "stuck" with me because I had experienced personally that prejudices changed with location and the local culture. Therefore, there was no way I could regard them as "real".
1
This makes me very sad - the thought that we are giving up on each other. I can't say, as a white female, that I've ever experienced the level of pain and disrespect that Prof. Yancy has. I can't say, either, that I can relate to those who seem to have a pervasive distrust of black people, ever after having lived in a major American city for a quarter of a century.
When I left home in the 70s from an almost completely white small town to attend college in a large city, my father (a European immigrant with a seventh grade education) took me aside and said he wanted to tell me one thing before I went away. He said I was going to be meeting different kinds of people than I'd ever met before in our small town. He said he would be ashamed of me if I ever prejudged anyone because of their race or religion, because the best friend he'd ever worked with was a black man, and the best boss he ever had was Jewish. "Everyone's an individual," he said, "and don't you forget it. I don't want to hear that you ever treated anyone otherwise."
I don't really know what to say to anyone who has been exposed to the haters that live in our society, except that there are some people like my late dad, who formed his philosophy based on the best people he met in his life.
4
I'd say "retire" not give up. You can sit in the press box applauding the youth in our communities of color who are stepping up to the plate via social media. Retire to California or NYC and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Our people adore you and owe you tremendously for it. Thank you.
Professor Yancy,
What happened to you is hideous, and I hope Emory University offers you and your family more than adequate protection.
But, why the tone of despair? So many of your brothers and sisters, who work in far less privileged jobs and circumstances, quite literally cannot afford to give up.
So, I sincerely hope, that readers of your piece will sympathize but not adopt the despair.
2
Two of my great-grandfather's older brothers wore blue in the war. Both were wounded; one was captured but escaped and walked through enemy territory for several weeks to get back to Union lines. They made $13 a month. One of them donated $5 of that $13 to the Freedmen's Bureau.
2
Prof Yancy, there are nasty people of ALL races out there, and in the days of the internet, they have a very convenient venue to act out their nastiness. I've posted what seemed to me innocuous posts on various home forums and have been attacked viciously for not having the same taste/desires as they have. I don't care how they decorate their house - it's theirs! But apparently how I choose to decorate mine is offensive to them in innumerable ways. I have no idea why and I was shocked at the viciousness of the comments I have received multiple times. I have no idea the race of the people involved - I think they assumed I was white, which I am.
If we look for good people and the good IN people, we will usually find it. The same is true if we carry a chip on our shoulder and look for the bad or what we THINK is bad. Often, a comment is not intended to be hurtful or racists but the person may be awkward.
When I was a child, black people could not shop on the square in my mother's Arkansas small town. They had to move from a Pullman car to a crowded regular car (having paid for a Pullman seat) when the train crossed the Mason Dixon line. The list goes on. Clearly, none of this happens today. Perhaps the progress is not fast enough for you, but it IS progress.
I have chosen to live my 74 years looking for the good in people and also their good intentions, even if awkwardly expressed. It makes for a lot more happiness than doing the opposite.
9
My question is, “Should I give up on the United States of America?” Most days lately I want to.
3
Dear Professor Yancy:
You should never give up. You should fight until your last breadth. But in my opinion, things are likely to get worse before they get better. The reason why you are on the receiving end of so much hatred, in my opinion, is the same reason that a con-artist like Donald Trump got elected as President. There is a large portion of predominantly white blue-collar Americans (and increasingly many White-collar Americans) that are loosing their livelihoods and future due to technological, social and economic change, and they are looking for anyone to blame (blacks and immigrants being the obvious target). This previously coddled class of Americans has been detrimentally impacted by free trade, immigration, the digital revolution and soon will be additionally impacted by the artificial intelligence revolution. How will these people react? My guess is with increasing hatred and desperation. If I remember correctly the industrial revolution caused a similar upheaval in the working classes and resulted in the growth of fascism, communism and other forms of totalitarian regimes and eventually led to both class conflict and armed conflict among nations. Let's hope that the sane more educated voices in society will prevail in the future, but I am not terribly hopeful for the short term outlook of America.
One of the sure signs that a group is emerging from being the victims of racism is that it begins to produce its own share of racists to pay it forward so to speak.
I read the writings of Mr Yancy and some of those who agree with him here and I am encouraged to see the racism emerge to signal that another group is transitioning from oppressed to would be oppressor.
6
Just reading those execrable tirades made me fear for the future of our species. Anyone receiving such vile threats would be justified in responding with shock, horror, and rage at being diminished as a human being, regardless of “color”. That such hatred for our fellow humans exists is itself a sign that human evolution has a long way to go.
White skinned people are no more or less "racist" than black skinned people, if the author is not willing to grasp that then I'd say by no means abandon your mission, because you have a long way to go and some serious changes to make.
Human nature is not race dependent. The case just so happens to be that in America we sit at a place where some people own and run the country and some take orders and try to get along as best as possible. The maxim in play is ancient: as attributed to Thucidides in 400 BC, "The strong do as they wish, the weak do as they must." Skin color is not a factor. If you were to investigate social structures where Black men dominate, you will see the same behavior as where another race is in charge, be it White or Chinese.
The job of a teacher is to elucidate truths, not make believe they are agents of change. Perhaps Dr Yancy is in the wrong job and should try finance or politics.
14
Should you give up on white people? As a white woman, of course my first thought is NO. We need your courage and strength of heart. I may be white but I think of myself as an ally in the fight against white racism and hate. But then I think of what some folks say about Muslims...it is their job to educate the extremists, to take responsibility for those people who hate to the point of murder and rebellion. So I must ask myself, is it not my responsibility and the responsibility of other white people to educate and eradicate white racists? To stand up in the face of hate as was done in Charlottesville? The answer to that is yes. White folks must stand up to white racism and hatred. I must stand up to it. I have not really done that. Oh, I have posted on Facebook or twitter. I have written a couple of letters and called my representatives. But standing up to hatred is more than that. It scares me because I dislike confrontation. But then I think of you Mr. Yancy. I think of your courage in the face of hatred. Thank you from a woman learning how to face the reality of and learning to take responsibility for white hatred.
As a non-white immigrant, I know how exhausting it is to continually explain things or be the recipient of hate speech/bad behavior. POC shouldn't have to be the educators of the majority culture but they often are, though many do not want to be educated or confront their own implicit biases. I hope you will not give up, but would completely understand if you do.
28
Is giving up on white people any different than giving up on the human race? Although the scourge of black white racism in America has its own unique stench, I’ve yet to hear of a place on this planet that’s free of violence against some perceived “other”, and skin color is far from the only dividing line we humans conjure up. We all need to constantly confront and challenge our natural born ignorance and ingrown prejudices and stop thinking that the world’s problems are always someone else’s fault.
9
Well, if you smack a hornet's nest with a pole, don't be surprised when the occupants come storming out and sting you! Or, as Dr. Ben Franklin said: "Duck low beams!"
5
Throughout these comments, it seems that white people are looking to acquit themselves and argue that they do not hold the retrograde and ugly attitudes that Prof. Yancy ascribes to all white people.
I would argue the opposite. Just like with black people, it is insulting and utterly despicable to be put in the position of having to prove you are “one of the good ones”.
15
Dear Prof. Yancy,
It's absolutely horrible that these threats and hideous slurs were aimed at you. I hope none of them amount to anything, and that you stay safe and have a long, happy life. Most of these racists are cowards, so I think you'll be OK.
I'd ask that you not give up on white people too. I'm white, but I'm actually not racist. I've been the beneficiary of white, male privilege, but I've never asked for that nor counted on it. I have nothing against anyone based on the color of their skin, the length of their hair, the size of their ears, and so on. Ludicrous to think of hating people because their ears are too small, right? But that's what racism amounts to.
In this time of Trump it can seem like humanity is too unintelligent and filled with hatred to bother with trying to help them anymore. But I think the better nature of humanity will win out, that this is just a very nasty potholed section of road we're crossing to get to the future. Every few decades, looking back, things were far worse than they are now.
So again, I'd exhort you and others not to give up on white people. Imagine if you heard me, a white man, say, "that's it, I give up on black people". It would sting, and seem like the wrong approach, right?
1
"Do I give up on white people"
Please don't. I am white, 58 years old, and advocated against racism just last week after a knucklehead implied that the low % of blacks in Vermont was due to the lack of welfare there. I told him, point blank, that that was a racist idea and beyond ridiculous. Additionally, I bounced this incident off a ~45 year old friend of mine to confirm I was right and he agreed that I was. My wife and children are not racist either and are actively anti-racist. So keep your head up and remember that there are some whites who have your back.
2
Thank you for this column, Prof. Yancy. I don't know how you can bear it, but I thank you for your sacrifice in withstanding such hatred in your mission to teach us all. As a white woman, I am increasingly astonished at how terrified some white people are of blacks, of change, of their perceived loss of privilege. What cowards they are. What emotional cripples.
1
I reject that there is any value in Yancy's "honest talk" about racism. I see no value in the obsession with racism at all - it tends to lump very diverse groups together based on skin pigmentation. I care as little about Yancy's views of white people as I do about kkk's views of black people. Both are filled with irrational hatred, Yancy just cloaks his hatred in flowery language. I prefer Farrakhan racist approach, at least he doesn't pretend.
16
I'm white. I am very sorry for the pain, fear, and humiliation you describe. Give up? No one right-minded could blame you; protecting yourself, your mind & heart, and your family is well justified. But I wonder if this might work: quit opening the hate mail, quit opening yourself up to that much pain. It hurts you.... it amplifies them... it gives them power. Do you really need reminders, need their racist message reinforced? They win if you stop teaching, writing, speaking out. So stop listening. Hear that kinder, more truthful voice.... your own.
1
Yes you should give up on that small minority who would stupidly do these sorts of things. How about you focus on improving the lives of those that you care about.
6
I cannot undo the wrongs of others, but I can at least apologize to you on behalf of clueless white people. I was not raised with overt bias, and as a Jew I knewvthat extreme prejudice is always near us, sometimes sleeping, sometimes waking. But I never grasped that for people of color, no matter their accomplishments, the beast is always awake, stalking every moment of daily life, prowling openly through houses, schools, workplaces, shops and streets.
Conscious or unconscious, open or covert, systemic or personal, it is around us, but we white people seldom recognize; the beast is transparent to us; we do not visualize its presence because we don't have to. We imagine our world is yours also.
I have been clueless, but I am educable. My turning point was Rodney King -- that police looked at black men the way Nazis looked at Jews, and committed atrocities against them. Our first black president, who embodied everything white people tell black people to do if they want to be treated like white people --was still described in racist stereotypes, no matter what. I could go on.. The more I looked, the more I saw.
It is not your job to persuade white people; it our job to be alert to hidden racism and to persuade our fellow oblivious white people that although we may not be "racists," white reality is not shared by people of color. And it is our job to apologize for the wrongs we have committed simply by not seeing what is in front of us.
1
If you give up the monsters win by default.
If you give up with the excuse white people are all the same you use the same excuse for dismissal of humans of different shades exactly the same way those people dismiss people of color.
The way to win is not to adopt the ways of evil. The way to win is to fight back.
2
The author and most of the readers assume the hate mail came from white people. Unless they identified themselves by race, my question is "How do you know this"? Isn't this a racist assumption?
3
Mr. Yancey, you do with white people exactly what black people object to most, paint us all with the same brush!
14
“Their white history speaks louder than their words.” My “white history” is not my history. I don’t support racist laws. I don’t accept the myths fed to me about Black people. And I don’t feel any kinship with the lineages of slaveowners, segregationists, and Trump voters. Please. White history is not my history.
2
We will ‘inherit the wind,’ and as the crow flies, drive straight into an oblivion of our own making. America’s inability, unwillingness or an amalgam of both is destroying our country's promise and due to our inner-connectivity, it will also destroy the world. We are long past the age of Enlightenment, the end of institutionalized chattel slavery, and the outlawing of Jim Crow laws, yet here white America finds itself, hundreds of years hence, still viewing those with more melanin in their skin as less than fully human, not fit to be welcomed into the brotherhood of man. Dr. Yancy, you have every right to feel hopeless in the face of its irrational hatred, just as do I, a “white” American.
2
In answer to your question Mr. Yancy, would it really matter if you did?
Most of what black America wants is to live separate but equal lives anyway.
Too much hatred and blame of whites is the reason why harmonious integration will remain just a pleasant dream.
7
This country needs to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to finally deal with the racism that is rampant in the US. White people do not understand how the history of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation has affected the lives of blacks in every way. The scabs of racism and hatred need to be torn off and Whites need to feel the pain they have inflicted on entire group of people. The Civil War still rages and the Southern Strategy is alive and well in the Oval Office.
1
Yancy has a Ph.D. His salutation should be Dr. or Prof. not Mr.
3
If a white nationalist had a Ph.D and wrote a racist column in the NYT would you show him respect by referring to him by his credentials? Nor would I.
3
Please don't give up on all whites. Many of us are completely frustrated by the fear and ignorance shown by bigots manifested as hatred and intolerance. Know you are loved and respected by many. Those with courage will stand at your side or actually in front of you and resolutely between you and the haters. Not all, but many will. Will time heal bigotry and hate? I hope it will, but if it doesn't, I stand with you.
1
America has become a very ugly place; and it's becoming even uglier each day.
The only silver lining that I see is my age.
I thank God that I'm old.
2
No person is or could ever be either less than or more than a human being.
1
This is a heartbreaking post. No one would forgive you for giving up on whites, but for the sake of all of us, I hope you will continue to fight to protect black lives and black rights, and also the fight to humanize white racists. Fighting the despair of our country's enduring racism must be a priority for all who care.
2
You probably should.
Many white people are waiting for the black people that they abused in slavery in America's past, including when we were colonies, not to mention all of the abuse since slavery was abolished, to rise up and "get even" with the whites.
They cannot comprehend that people just want to get on with their lives, and be treated fairly now.
Sometimes ignorance is not bliss, it's fear.
2
Your racist views are intended to provoke, but it is unfortunate that some can’t articulate a response past threats. The idea of “giving up” on a race is fraught with assumptions, stereotypes, and racism. While your writings suggest that change is impossible for you, indeed a lot of America has moved on. Young people (mostly) don’t see race, many have interracial friends and relationships, and are drawn to a common American culture. Decrying “white privilege” is a false charge for the problems that face blacks. 90%of America lives hand to mouth and struggle to afford education, health care, and just get by. This is not a race issue but an American issue.
16
George, you do what you feel you have to do. Me, I haven't given up on people - any people.
4
After reading both of Mr. Yancy's essays I'm pretty certain that he will never "give up on white people" because by doing so he would also be giving up his raison detre - and that is to "with love" give white people his "gift" of incessantly telling them how at the very core of their being they are all evil (i.e. racist). Thanks but no thanks for the "gift" - especially when it's given with an unpleasant air of smug moral superiority. No race has a monopoly on vice or virtue on the issue of race and until writers like Mr. Yancey realize that they will only be preaching to their respective choirs.
19
The expanse and amplification of hate that the internet has enabled is horrifying and yet it is there and real and I cannot imagine calling directly to it and being attacked the way you were. Any voice of reason and compassion must endure this slander and psychological violence, so it is even more crucial that you go on teaching and talking and writing because your work is what will pull us out of the centuries old pit of racism and hate.
To all the very sad, very offended white people who responded to this article with endless variations of “I didn’t do it” and “don’t blame me” and “I’m not the problem here” - wrong answer. Here’s a shocker: it’s not about you. It’s not about your wounded ego. It’s not about your offended pride. It is about a man who has been targeted and attacked with vicious, vile hate mail and threats. His crime? Daring to try to have a conversation about racial prejudice in America. The right answer? Shock. Horror. Disgust. Empathy. Sadness. A firm resolve to fight against and condem all purveyors of hate and violence and threat. So stop nursing your grievances and start empathizing with the pain and anger and fear that Prof. Yancy legitimately feels. You would demand such treatment if you were in his shoes. Be mature enough to offer it to him in turn.
3
To claim it’s “not about you” is disingenuous. It *is* about us (white people) because Prof. Tandy has accused, tried, and condemned *all* (not just some, not just the ones who sent him hate mail, but all) white people for being racists. In any rational world how could that not prompt a defensive reaction from white people? It’s like slapping someone in the face, hearing their angry reaction, and saying, “u mad, bro?”
5
As a black woman, I say yes, give up. Only white people can change other white people for the better.
It's not our job.
If someone can't acknowledge you're fully human, they certainly aren't going to come around to accepting your argument that they are flawed and need to change.
It's time for the good white people to step up and take on this work: talk to your friends, your cousins, parents. White people: when someone says something racist and you don't check them because 'oh they're too old to learn' or 'well i don't want things to be awkward' or 'it would be rude to imply they are racist', then think back on how this man has literally put his life on the line to help educate white people and think of how cowardly you are that you're not even willing to ask your family member/friend/coworker to examine their actions and do better.
Although I do validate your feelings and experiences, please keep in mind that many who are not black suffer persecution for different reasons. Many blacks are racist too and discriminatory. Black men discriminate against females. That your accusations against whites is discriminatory too. Most whites I know do not tolerate racism. Why would Obama win twice for the presidency if Americans, who are mostly white, were racist? The Republicans won the election because whites are exhausted of accusations of racism. Race politics is totally out of control these days. Blacks suffer from crime from other blacks much more than from whites. In education, it is mostly black kids who misbehave and do not do their work disrupting classes and expecting good grades without doing the necessary work. Then they call their teachers and professors racist if they are expected to follow the rules and do their work. Employers are afraid to hire blacks because they are called racist if criticized for their performance. Moreover, students need their professors and teachers, of any race or gender, for protection and support. When professors and teachers behave in an emotional weak manner, students feel uncomfortable and disappointed when they don't have a role model to look up to. Therefore, focus on excellence instead of persecution. This does not mean there aren't racist hateful people out there. But these individuals are unethical, negative, and hateful in all areas of their lives, not just racism.
3
Very insightful post.
When a co-worker asked me to cover her shift so she could attend a civil rights luncheon, she explained that as a "black woman", it was a matter of importance to her. I quickly agreed but admitted I was confused by her "black woman" reference and asked if she'd call me a "white man". Puzzled, she replied, "of course". I asked her to lay her arm on my desk and then placed my sun tanned arm beside hers and asked "What d o you see? Startled, she exclaimed, "Oh my! You're darker than I am!"
I replied, "all that really matters is that, By the Grace of God, we are sister and brother. I think She would like us to drop all those other lies."
So, Professor Yancy, I think it is high time that both you and I "give up on white people"... and "black" people. Because there are none such. Chalk is white. Charcoal is black. Neither describes an actual human pigment. Those words are lies. It's time to refuse our consent to their use.
9
Ok Professor, It is time to let the cat out of the bag.
The only way to fix racism is to fix the race. I come from the quintessential melting pot family. I am 68% Southern European, 10% West African, and 13% Native American and a little bit Jewish.
My father looked like Bing Crosby and my mother looked like Pocahontas. I come from a family where the instincts to integrate are very intense. My mother’s advise to her children was to always marry the one with the “light skin and blue eyes”
Was my mother a racist? No! She was a woman with an intense awareness of the world and a superb judge of the human condition. She also knew that it was irrelevant to try change people, and that the only way to improve the lot of her children was to encourage them to marry men and women of lighter skin complexion, preferably with blue eyes.
Racism in the USA will not change till intermarriage becomes more common and the racial makeup of most people resembles my family’s. And, guess what. When I did the genetic tests for inherited diseases, I got none of the inherited disease genes, plus the gene that gives your children traits of a Olympic athlete. My father referred to it as hybrid vigor.
So, my mother’s wisdom was right on the money. She fixed the race of her children and we became white in the eyes of others. And, all her descendants are healthy and strong.
Go ahead, marry someone who looks exotic. Your children will thank you for it.
That idea harkens back to the late teens and twenties of the 20th century.
We gave up on Germany and then had to return the next generation- and then we didn't make the mistake, we didn't give up and today we can be proud of Germany and what we did by not giving up on them.
To that end, don't give up on white people. We Jews didn't give up on Christians and after a few thousand years they came around.
People should be free to live with whom they want. It is OK that some people do not like like other people. I may not be paying attention to a color of your skin until you remind me for a hundredth time that your skin color is different from mine as if it makes a difference. I am always shocked when all black neighborhood is called "ghetto" while all-white neighborhood is called "suburb." My ancestors have lived in white "ghettos" so they are not race-specific.
NO! It’s not about white verses non-white people; it’s about enlightened people and unenlightened people.
If a purple dog bites you, we tend to fear all purple dogs; this is a natural defense mechanism. But reality is much more complicated.
Good/evil exists in all races; if we judge each person based on character rather than color of skin, race or religion, the world will be a better place for all of us.
4
Give up? Probably not. But do acknowledge that racial, national, religious animosities are as old as humanity. And will probably last as long.
“For when the One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name,
He writes - not that you won or lost -
But HOW you played the Game."
Grantland Rice, "Alumnus Football”
“...nor do I want to be a martyr.” And yet I persevere, for if I do not defend my dignity, what lesson do I leave for my daughter?”
You should give up on people. As in a collective sense; all people. Because attempting the opposite of giving up brought you crazy grief; I am surprised you are emotionally and intellectually healthy despite. This is my surmise because you serve at Emory; an amazingly alive place - intellectually speaking.
Just out of curiosity, Mr. Yancy: did you think that the literature you read is a student of philosophy was talking about you?
No one, not Aristotle, not Kant, not Nietzsche, not Dewey the pragmatist, wrote for anyone outside of western European white dude sensibilities.
Renaissance may date to the 1500; Europeans had human zoos so that African natives and South Sea Islanders could be observed as we observe gorillas in a zoo in the 1900s.
Did you think you were going to change that?
So what on earth are you devoting your life to anyway?
As an immigrant, I have faced prejudice from all races, and from my own who live here. Seems like social acceptance is a commodity not for sale, not given to reason.
You are more learned, and more cerebral than me; and decidedly more accomplished. Hence the following will not resonate; I will risk it anyway.
Get rich. It is easier than being accepted. And changing people is well beyond you; or do you fancy yourself as the next Jesus?
Kalidan
2
Mr. Yancy says he got a bunch of hate mail in response to his previous "love letter" to white people (which, upon reading, actually accused all whites of being racist--not your typical love letter). He then relies on anonymous letters from the lunatic fringe to support his theory of pervasive white racism. Seriously? What about the white people that he actually knows and interacts with on a daily basis? How do they treat him? That would seem like a much more pertinent sample of white behavior (or does he think they just pretend to be reasonable while all the while harboring racist thoughts?). This is a country of 300M people. If there are a 3,000 people that would send him these sorts of ridiculous messages, that would be 0.001% of the population. Yes, there is a tiny percentage of absolutely evil people in any society. That hardly makes the US a racist country, but that is an implicit argument in this article. The US has serious racial problems that need to be addressed. But how about serious attempts to address them rather than absurdities like this article?
184
Your comment here sounds like it is preaching enlightenment, but its tone and your self-righteous, superior arguments show you are not really interested in understanding how Mr. Yancy feels. Or any other person who has had his reaction. I suspect any discussion would be nothing but rationalizing and diminishing their experience.
There are ways to make your point, a way that would leave the door open for conversation. Your choice not to do that makes you an example of your own complaint.
23
The "Not all white people" and "I don't see color..." crowd is out in force here today. Amazingly enough, none of you cited being on the receiving end of anything like what Professor Yancy has endured. Would you get it then? I like this definition from Nell Scovell, author of Just the Funny Parts: "Moral licensing" is when no one wants to admit bias, so they search their brains for examples that disprove the accusation. This is better known as the "Some of my best friends are..." defense. It's not enough to be aware of the injustice; you must also understand that your knee-jerk defensiveness is a big part of the problem."
8
I have many times been on the receiving end of prejudice and stereotyping (including reading Yancy's OpEd). Yancy's piece is a classic example of projection, casting his own racism out onto other people. The point that commenters are making has nothing to do with whether or not "they" are prejudiced. They're making the point that Yancy is racially prejudiced, a point which seems beyond question.
9
Had I published what many would consider a racist argument targeting black people using terms very similar to Yancy's you could bet that I would get similar hate mail. It was a function of the racist argument he made. Black folk are not unique in getting hate directed at them.
6
In what ways, if any,Prof. Yancy, does the heading of your anguished-accusatory-plea "Should I Give Up on White People?"-which homogenizes so many people whom you do not know- serve as a bridge for creating and sustaining menschlich well being? For many, if not for all.In what ways do these words,and their derived implications, and meanings, serve as yet another barrier to risking creating mutual trust?Respect? Caring? Mutual help, as needed? Failing often, but each time "failing better?"Does pain, be IT physical, psychological, spiritual, economic, words or deeds, etc., have color? Nuanced or not? The racism which you so rightly focus on is but one face of an ongoing, daily, toxic, infectious WE-THEY violating of selected, targeted "the other!"Exclusion, as both a policy which can be, and is,legally anchored, as well as "principle-of-faith" underpinned ( by "faithless" many) is colorblind. Genderblind.Religiosity blind. What roles, Prof. Yancy, can/does, philosophy have for the compacent, of whatever color and identitiy, who are complicit in violating-as-a value-and-norm?Or for those amongst a divided US who have mastered willful blindness about what IS and should never BE? Deaf to the voiced worded-pain as well as exhausted-muted sounds of the innumerable-marginalized and "homogenized," whose human identities are increasingly transmuted into labels?And even into dehumanizing numbers. "Give up?""Give in?"No, Prof. Yancy.You know better!Give what you do best."Fail better!"
5
I can't say whether or not you should give up on us. But I can say that over the past few years, I have become MUCH more aware of my own racist beliefs and fears. Though I am white, I belong to a multi-racial family. My own children don't like/make fun of white people. I realize
that acting non-racist is one thing. Not having any racist thoughts or feelings is something completely different - I don't even know what that looks like. But I am open to progressing.
2
Yes, Professor Yancy, give up on white people.
Give up on the idea that for black people to progress, white people need to change, or American history must be forever adjudicated. Stop demanding endless white patronage of black people. Stop making a living plumbing the depths of white psyche. Stop handing power over to white people.
Find happy, healthy, flourishing black Americans - there are a lot of them - figure out what they did to become that way, and teach that.
The solutions to many black Americans' problems - even while most are due to the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, and remnants of institutionalized racism - are in the hands of black Americans, NOT white Americans.
White Americans are holding the doors wide open and are just as desperate for our black brothers and sisters to walk through them as you seem to be.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."- Marianne Willamson
16
Thank you for your writing, your humanity, your courage and your continued dialogue, but I disagree with you about the way your characterize some people.
The problem in America isn't whiteness. In fact, there's no such thing. The problem may be the idea of whiteness, but that's just another way of saying the problem is those people who divide our world and contend... against all evidence... that some people are better and worth more than others.
The idea of race is offensive to our shared humanity, and those who would use violence to enforce its stratified world are enemies to all of us.
Thank you again for your work, but please do not describe those hateful bigots as "white," because it gives them too much.
In solidarity,
Bob
3
I’m so sorry you have had to go through this. I wonder if we also need to think about the power white supremacists have been given in recent years. The kinds of attacks you experienced are very similar to the ones many prominent (and not-prominent) Jews have received over the past year and a half. Should Jews give up on Christians? I don’t think so, but I think the common denominator here is the white supremacists. We need to call out these injustices, support our country’s minorities, and most importantly, elect leaders who don’t empower this type of behavior.
7
Professor Yancy, full knowing what you were doing, you threw a bomb and, perfectly predictably, were injured in the blast. Now you wish to parade your wounds as evidence you were right to throw it.
There is no doubt about racism in America. It exists and is far more prevalent and robust than the post-Civil Rights Act liberal tale of racial history and progress would have us believe. But the question is what in the world led you believe that trafficking in the thoroughly discredited quasi-religious, quasi-psychotheraputic tropes and paradigms of white liberal guilt would be at all helpful. For that is what you did and that is what you are doing now.
It hardly matters what I as a "white person" see when I look into my heart of hearts, my soul of souls, places which, frankly, do not exist as sources of human motivation outside particular ideological discourses. What matters is how I vote and how I conduct myself in life and in business. Any mea culpa on my part for being white would be as cheap and easy as your illustrative mea cupla for being a man. It truly does no one any good, satisfying only those with an appetite for deceiving themselves that they have done something significant in reciting a self-deprecatory credo.
Don't "give up on white people." Give up on working the same old, tired white liberal guilt trip. It lost its magic long ago. And while you are at it, give up on seeing the world as Black & White. We Latinos are not amused.
24
Mr. Yancy, it is not my place to ask, but I hope you won't let these threats, lobbed from afar and without consequence, silence you. I read your piece in The Stone and thought about and shared it for months afterward. I thank you for it. Please know that there are many white Americans who would stop arrows and bullets with our own bodies before letting these cowards carry out their threats.
5
Being Jewish in America today means unconsciously adopting a watered-down fiction of whiteness as one's own, then denying and feeling guilty about the privilege that comes with it. Jews must question the "price of the ticket" with a deep look in the mirror. What is it mean to identify and be identified as white when it is convenient? Imagine walking the streets with the yellow star pinned to the front of your jacket.
"People of color" must endure this every day.
Our theories of whiteness die on the vine unless there are people of color to distract from the mirror.
Professor Yancy, the mirror is all pervasive. So in that sense, you don't need to carry it. We all carry a haunted house of dark reflections within and deny the underlying suffering and oppression that seeds them. Some will lob blame and recriminations across an imaginary chasm, all stiff as cadavers with self-righteous indignation.
Let's not waste energy on that, but uncover the root causes of systemic repression, before uniting to go after it. It's all about breaking up families, communities, and denying basic access to health education and a decent standard of living.
Please continue educating us that the mirror we need to look at is everywhere in and around us. It reveals the obvious: that the crimes of history need to be addressed through a process of accountability, shared grief, and reparations. Then we might be ready to counter our true common enemy.
1
The quick answer is "Yes."
Should I Give Up on Black People? Should I Give Up on Yellow People? Should I Give Up on Jews?
If an acquaintance of mine posed these kind of questions, and advanced a predicate that some subset of the population in question, large or small, had behaved in some fashion that the acquaintance considered objectionable, I should not hesitate to denounce the question as profoundly in humane.
2
First of all, I'm very sorry for what you've had to endure. It's not right. As to the question of whether you should give up on white people, I guess I can only wonder if we should give up on all people.
Dear Professor Yancy,
Thank you. Your honesty is so necessary and your pain hurts me. I am so white, so priviledged and so lost right now. Racism is white and its toxic. As a white male who teaches high school students, I am trying my hardest to stand up to hate and stop racism but I can see and feel what is happening to some of our young white male students. Their immaturity makes them susceptible to Trump's hate and racism and their parents embolden them behind the closed doors of their houses, pushing these nasty falsehoods to keep their power.
I wish this hate did not exist and that these threats were not real but it is and they are. Its up to white people to change and stop racism.
1
Don't think that these issues are singularly American. As a world traveler who has lived in several different cultures, I can assure you - sadly - that there is nothing unique about them. Ignorance and hatred exist everywhere and have tragically harmed innocents throughout history.
Racists are not born, but made. Understanding how this happens is the key to conquering hatred.
One more thing. It may be hard to realize at times, but racists are far worse off than those they hate. Think about it.
1
My wife is of Portuguese ancestry on her father's side and has an ethnic/Latino appearance. (Her mother is white). As a result, over the past ~30 years her black coworkers have told her things that they would've *never* said to a white person. Black people are, on average, far more racist than white people. I'm quite serious.
My mother, R.I.P., my son and I have been on the receiving-end of eleven black-on-white crimes: seven thefts; two assaults; one attempted break-in by kicking in her front door while she was home; one broken car window, presumably looking for something to steal. My wife & I got married 7.5 years ago. We were discussing it some years ago and I asked her how much black crime she'd experienced. "Oh, too many times to be able to count," she replied. This all happened in Houston. "Black people are the only group in America that believes that you have to have a rap-sheet in order to have street-cred." --Charles Barkley (May not be an exact quote).
Crimes that the four of us have committed against black people (or anyone else): zero.
18
Please don't give up on us. Some of us are honestly trying to move past our ignorance and trying to make things better. Like trying to get other whites to see how our privilege permeates every part of our lives so that it's hard to see. And believing that we could live just as well, maybe even better, in a world where everyone is acknowledged and appreciated.
1
The minute you presumed your PHd somehow qualified you to a greater degree to speak the truth, whatever it may be, you invite the response. So, so many people want to just live their lives without suffering the distortions of these cultivated views, racist or anti racist.
Giving up on anything is giving up on yourself, perhaps the philosophy professor needs some counseling. Rendering your views in your narrow context only serves to alienate a substantial number of people who would other wise empathize and appreciate that the institution of white racism exists and thrives due to the elaborate and inscrutable mechanics of it.
You and your students are welcome to have your therapy session that results in being positioned to out earn (for no good reason as far as i can tell) a large number of people who don't raise their voice so you can hear, simply because they are earning a living, caring for their family, or have a thousand other demands on their time.
As you represent us all with the worst of what you've seen, you perpetuate the very basis of what you claim to despise.
4
I don’t think I’ve read anything you’ve written before but what I got out of this is:
You racialize people
You overgeneralize and abstract the large mass of “white people” that creates
You seem to evaluate / define that group only in terms of perceived negative impact / interaction with the black group you posit in opposition. Neither scientifically nor humanistically regarding them fully or holistically.
This seems to me to partake of many of the qualities you find offensive when you perceive them to be expressed by “white people”.
While certain your perspective is sincere and authentic, I find it sterile and divisive and unproductive; I won’t engage further.
10
It is sad that Professor Yancy sees the vast majority of us "whites" ( a racist term) as hating all other "races." Not all whites are racist, I beleive that most of us are not.
It is not racism to object to Professor Yancy's condemnation of every white person but is is racism to condemn every white person. Building bridges and ending institutionalized racism can only be successful if we all take each other as we are and work together.
5
As a white person, I cannot identify with your pain. I can, however, feel the ignominious result of that pain and want nothing more than to ameliorate the feelings you must have.
That is why I don't understand this article.
You allude to the likes of Dr. King, Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson. These were people who never gave up on anyone, and treated all people with love and respect despite the hatred issued (by those very same people) their way. The idea that giving up on white people somehow solves a problem is equal to the problem itself: we cannot classify an entire group of people based on the worst attributes of some.
I never want to see people pained as the result of the vitriol of others. I know many people who feel the same way, many who are white, privileged, and never susceptible to racism, classism, or general lack of ease. These are not the people sending you vile notes on legal pads. They are the ones buying your books, protesting, and donating to organizations that can hopefully lead to better societies for all people.
History may lack virtue, "But history, I say, is not fixed. And as human beings we are protean."
Don't give up on white people just yet.
1
I more & more get the impression that there are more race hatred than I thought in USA. However I do not live there so what do I know. It is also the democracy that voted for a man of color twice, so who knows. In any case the letters you quote for are horrible & sick. Can only been written by bitter people who need to vent their anger. This is most likely a small but load minority. The only judgement of another person can only be the actions of that person-all else, color, gender, looks etc is irrelrvant. "Race" is just a human made idea. We are all a mix of different DNA & on that level persons with different color may be more related than some with the same. However we are all individuals & noone can be blamed for what their ancestors did do. We cannot punish the Germans today for what their grandparents did. This goes for all historic ills. Any induvidual can only get blame for his/hers actions. However the systematic oppression still part of a system needs to be addressed, but this is in many cases not caused by conscious choices, but anyone having a privilige is probably not noticing this. When becoming aware it is our responsability to change it. Even if I know I am white & male I define myself as a human with the same value as any other human- no moore - no less.
1
As I read this piece I was brought back to Ralph Waldo Ellison's "Invisible Man" as if the unidentified narrator was giving us an epilogue having emerged from the shadows.
Racism is the deepest ingrained ill in American society, experienced both by native peoples whose land was stolen and by immigrants from Africa forcibly brought here to reshape the landscape to suit European settlers needs. It is so ingrained and so pervasive yet often enough subtle in its modern incarnation that many descendents of Europeans no longer acknowldege that it exists. They deny it at the peril of the American project which can only prosper if union becomed ever more perfect.
But let's not forget that racism itself is colour blind...it is about power and subjugation...people of all colours and creeds are equally capable of it if they have the power to exert it....in America it just so happens to be dominated by majority "whites"....
3
I would think that a fair assessment might lead you to want to give up on all people, regardless of their complexion. Neither whites nor people of color have any monopoly on either virtue or evil. and you will indeed find execrable qualities among them all along with some good ones.
Sadly, Mr. Yancy is ensconced in academia, which is an industry that specializes in creating straw men, and then in building specialized areas of inquiry around the many varieties created.
Yes, racism does exist, and sad to say hitting people over the head with it will is not likely to get them on your side over the long run.
10
Dear Professor Yancy,
Thank you for ‘unsuturing’ so many of us around the world. For laying bare the truth of the neocolonial gaze and the semiotics of blackness.
Your writing has helped me so much,
With great love and deep gratitude,
A man of colour from Australia
2
I have grown up in a world in which my ancestors experienced legal slavery, my parents, their siblings and their ancestors experienced legal segregation. The Civil Rights Act was signed in 1964, Brown vs. the Board of education outlawed school segregation in 1954. Between 1863 and the 1950’s over 4,000 innocent Black men, women and children (and many we will never know) were lynched often to the cheers of White men women and children all across the south. Thousands of postcards of these events were mailed at US Post Offices. A new museum has just been established bearing the names of many who were lynched because they were Black. The attitudes and beliefs that permitted and encouraged such awful things do not change that swiftly or miraculously disappear. My point is that White supremacist hatred and value systems are in the DNA of America and are passed along in subtle and in the most virulent forms from generation to generation. Recent examples include the racist murder of nine Black worshippers in their church and the White Supremacists marching in Charlottesville. Experience shows us that over time, (a long time ) the virulence of this disease will lose some of its potency. There are many hopeful signs especially among the young and yet much work to do. The memory of the past and the origins of White racism are often erased in history lessons, replaced with more palatable stories and romanticized versions of the American story. America cannot fix what it will not face.
The so-called white people who cling to whiteness don't realize that lots of so-called white people are oppressed by whiteness. White often is shorthand for power and to feel white is to feel like you're in power, but so many so-called whites have so little power and it's a convenient construct, an illusion, for the maintenance of a certain kind of elite power. As a gay so-called white man, I know my body as a white body is protected, respected, and valued in a way that black bodies aren't, but that doesn't mean that it's a space that is wholly respected or valued. A lot of people would like to see me put in my place too. And a lot of those people are white and cling to their whiteness and their perceived superiority to me and others they regard as inferior. Keep going. We so-called whites who acknowledge our privilege and understand human vulnerability and human love are out here. We stand with you.
2
Here is question that underlies all of the questions asked by the op-ed: are we to be judged by the worst among us or by those who are far more enlightened in attitudes and conduct? Likewise, is American history, a glorious example of high aspirations based on a fundamental belief in the just capacities of humanity, to be judged by the worst of our ancestors and then only viewed from the perspective of our present day, self asserted morality?
There are multiple story lines in the lives of most people; you could oversimplify it and reduce it to the good, the bad and the ugly, and there are multiple story lines of America. Are we to be judged by the actions of the southern states 150+ years ago, subjecting 600,000 citizens to death to protect slavery, or by the thousands of white people who fought and died to preserve the Union and bring an end to this horrid chapter in our history?
White people have risked their lives to fight racism and to try for a better, more just and enlightened society. I would have done likewise, except that I was not old enough during the most active civil rights struggles to take part at that level. Yet, from about the age of 14 onward, social fairness and the eradication of racial injustice has been a central cause of my life. It is true everyday still.
Let the evil haters who tried to enter your life go. It is not white people who oppress, but SOME white people who wish to continue. Freedom is in part a state of mind, one of liberation.
4
Dr. Yancy, thank you for your sacrifices in continuing to talk to white America. A couple of years ago, I may not have understood this, but because of you and other Black writers and thinkers like yourself, I have a much greater understanding of the struggle and what I can do ... and not do ... to try to be a useful ally.
Mr. Yancy, I'm deeply sorry that you've had to suffer so many hideous, hateful attacks. I can't fathom how such venom is created but I can imagine how profoundly upsetting it must be to receive it. Please know that I and many others like me are filled with compassion for the pain you've experienced and deep respect for your brave response. I would be honored to stand by you.
The problem is some of Mr. Yancy's tone and language. I have to wonder if he has even one white friend. Just as no white person would want to be around some who's clearly very bitter and 'racist' in their thoughts about (all/most) white people, (hetero) men would similarly not want to be around (hetero) women who have 'given up on (all) men' and are misandrists.
It's one thing to have had bad experiences with (even many) members of a certain group, but I think we'd all agree that no individual likes to be considered a certain way, and simply because they happen to be members of that group. Surely a black male should be capable of understanding that?
If Mr. Yancy truly hopes for change in his own relationships with white folk, he is going about it the wrong way.
9
Part of being a teacher involves accepting people where they are. You are so brave in calling out racism, which is literally wrapped in our DNA. People's identities are going to be threatened at their deepest levels. Also, people have to show their true colors in order to change. They've got to go through the ugly phase, so to speak. Don't get discouraged. This is a natural process that is necessary. Us women go through the same thing when calling out patriarchy. As a fellow teacher who also believes in being vulnerable, I commend your courage. Be vulnerable, but don't give up. We are with you. We want to change. We want to be better. Keep moving forward in love and truth.
1
A sabbatical in the U.S. Virgin Islands might do Professor Yancy some good. It is a territory nearly completely managed, directed, and policed by people of color, and the vast majority of residents are as well. A little philosophizing after a few months here might be beneficial for both the professor and the territory.
4
It breaks my heart to read the vitriol directed at you, Dr. Yancy. Haters gonna hate, but it’s imperative to put forth the truth. As a white woman who grew up in the South, I've spent many years looking into that disagreeable mirror with the hope of exposing and eradicating my own racism; a difficult and painful process, but nothing compared to what you and so many others face on a daily basis. I am awakened every day to new evidence of my privilege and feel a great responsibility to do all I can to change the system. Your words inspire me; please don’t stop.
Race does not have any basis in biology beyond the sharing of some characteristics with our parents. The examination of DNA across all people shows only a small set of common characteristics among people sharing the appearances used to indicate race. Race as it is understood is a fiction based upon our collective imaginations. We should see racial attributes like eye color, accidents of nature that just don't represent more than what it apparent.
White supremacy is nothing more than people trying to deal with bad conscience, to blame they way they are mistreating others to exploit them on nature or God.
Ignorance does not go away until the mind becomes aware of things about which it was unaware. Racism reflects ignorant minds. This is no excuse for the harm done. Most of the harm done by people is due to ignorance or indifference but we tend only to hold people accountable for malicious intentionality.
As a society we never made the effort to confront racism and to eliminate the false concepts upon which it depends. Even affirmative action was never undertaken as a sincere effort to help minorities overcome the lost opportunities of centuries of discriminations, but a penance to be performed like a ritual but without any real personal commitments.
Today, the legacies of racism are far from over. Racists conscious and unconscious are still too great a proportion of our people to be considered a minor cause of distress for others but they no longer dominate the majority.
I'm so grateful for this commentary. These are important truths that white people need to hear, myself included. Meanwhile, some of us are listening and looking deep within ourselves at patterns of oppression we reflect in our attitudes and behaviors. And we recognize that we are responsible for dismantling this toxic system - hand in hand with others committed to this work - and are working in our communities to challenge systemic racism. We understand how insidious racism is and that it lives in all of us. I am not saying we are "good" white people, but that there are white people trying to create a more just and equitable world for all of us and want to heal our communities. I hope you don't give up, but I wouldn't blame you if you do. Self-preservation is important and, if at some point you realize that struggling to stay engaged with white folks is too wounding, I hope you do what you need and disengage more. But, selfishly, I hope that doesn't happen because your voice is so important.
When I was six my mother had tuberculosis. She was institutionalized. My father hired a housekeeper to care for me and my brothers. Her name was Dorothy. She was black. This was in Detroit a few years before the riots. I grew to love Dorothy like my mother. She was soft and kind and I always felt safe with her. Not so my friends and neighbors. We were shunned.Our friends were not allowed to play with us or at our house when Dorothy was there. They would yell "chocolate drop" and "Aunt Jamima" at her. I didn't know why they hated a woman they didn't know. A woman I loved deeply. I think it was my first jog from childhood innocence that something wasn't right in this world. The night of the Detroit riots, we sat on our porch and watched the city go up in flames. I never saw Dorothy again after that but I never forgot her. As an old woman now, memories faded, Dorothy still lingers in place in my heart because she changed me.
6
Nice post. Guaranteed to be read; and enjoyed. Our common enemy would have the powerless neutralized.
1
Please do not give up. Some of us do get it. The difficult part to swallow is that "getting it"--really understanding what you are saying to be true--means that we paradoxically will never get it. It hurts in a chronic, ugly way because we know it will never heal. It is the "original sin" for us white folks. And, since I am not a religious person, I do not believe we are simply forgiven free of charge. All we can do it love and come to know each other.
To that point, being atheist puts me in a somewhat similar place against Christian privilege. Like the white man who wishes you well and has black friends, people tell me that God loves me or utter "God bless you" as if God is a norm for everyone. It is offensive but I do not dare challenge it in some social situations.
While I am on the topic, religion has been front and center in the oppression of non-white people. Recognition of this is my gift to you. But back to your topic...
Although I realize that I can never fully understand the oppression of my fellow human beings who are of color, I also cannot fathom how so many white people have done--and still do--this. It sickens me to the core. It sickens me because I love people and it sickens me for what damage it does to humankind.
I am raising my children to love everyone. They are learning about how their genetic code allows them advantages that they need to recognize, and use that knowledge to improve society for everyone. Keep holding up the mirror.
1
Terrible people come in every size, shape and color, including white, and their terribleness can manifest itself in a wide variety of ways that may or may not be related to their size, shape, color or provenance. Focusing on your (albeit justified) hatred one type of terribleness and attributing it to a huge superset of those responsible (i.e. racial stereotyping) is harmful, unfair and wrong. There's just nothing positive that can come from it. "Giving up" on an entire race because of the atrocious behavior of some of its members is pretty much the definition of racism. If you struggle to find the wisdom and strength to fight the temptation of racism, perhaps that will help you better understand those who have not succeeded in this respect.
6
Obama proved that the majority of America is ready to judge people on their character rather than the color of their skin. I'm afraid that Mr. Yancy has so many enemies not because of the color of his skin, but because of his character.
6
Dear Dr. Yancy, Please don’t give up. I’m sorry more people aren’t ready to hear what must be said, but it must be said. You are burdened as one of the few who can, so you must endure. Perhaps it’s the price you must pay for having such eloquence. We need to hear you. Many of us understand, and are grateful. You have made me try harder, and I thank you for that.
I am in white male in my mid-fifties and I’ve never understood why so many white people have such a hard understanding and accepting simple truths, such as
1. Black people are fully human.
2. Racism is a system and is distinct from conscious bigotry at an individual level. As a white person I may not have any animus towards black people but I do have white privilege and have benefited, whether I wanted to or not, from the systematic oppression of black people.
It’s time to drop the “white fragility” act, people.
3
When Yancy asked the question about whether, "Should I give up on White People?" he is reacting to racial stereotyping with racial stereotyping. This is fair but it prevents ending the problem because the problem itself is being perpetuated, not any solution.
The consequences of a false concept being used to justify bad behavior always tends to lead people to retaliate in kind. Even today after an African American was elected and reelected President, all whites are being perceived as hopelessly racist and advocates of white supremacy because some clearly happen to be.
Yancy gives up on philosophy and just lets his feelings guide his ruminations. Race is a false concept. White supremacy is a false concept. White, black, yellow, and red people who are informed know this, those who are not, don't. Philosophy is a rational study. Psychology is a different discipline which studies feelings. Anthropology studies human cultures. Yancy needs to decide which discipline he is going to use to address the issue and to stick to it.
1
I often think that we have spent time talking about the psychological effect of being a slave (and the legacy of that) for black Americans but not enough time talking about the psychological effect of owning a slave (and that legacy) on white people. Being slave owners messed up white people -- and I don't mean that they deserve pity. I mean that white people, especially in the South, had to become hardened to witnessing suffering; they had to learn to dehumanize three quarters of the people living around them; they had to be perpetually afraid because the people living around them generally hated them. It is that fear, deeply embedded, that lingers the most. The rest of it, the layers of dismissal of black people, come from that terror. If those racists truly believed blacks were inferior, they wouldn't need to terrorize them.
It isn't all white people who have that level of hatred, though. I think what most middle class white people have is a much lazier understanding of the world. (e.g. "If you don't want babies at 15, don't have them" etc) A kind of simplified "just world" view where poor people probably did something wrong and just need to start doing things right, that's all. This is why white people can like their black neighbors but think the people living in the black neighborhood down the street probably caused their own problems.
To fix all that is tricky. But I think it starts with discussing it.
2
Dear “Black America”: as someone who regularly checks the “white” box on my doctor’s-office registration forms (the designation used to be “Caucasian”) I am here to tell you that you need me as much as I need you, so go ahead and wallow in the stew of historical injustices you fancy pertain especially to you, but I can match you injustice for injustice on my end if I feel so inclined (which I don’t) so don’t even start that fight. Meanwhile, Black America, please tell me why I as a precious “white person” should believe that George Yancy speaks in your name? And why would it matter if he did, since you are just a journalist’s platitude anyway? Getting along with people is a daily chore for all of us, and distinctions of speech, age, class, custom and history always make it even more trying. Making people hop by throwing accusations of injustice in their face is a stale power play, and I’m not buying it.
29
No, you can't match the injuries and suspicions blacks encounter day in and day out. I'm a white woman, and I've always been aware enough to realize that if I'd been black, my circumstances, down to the very neighborhoods that I have lived in, would have been very different. I always hope that white people who say the kind of things you're saying will be karmically reborn as black. And then you would see what nonsense you're spouting. Yes, life is hard for us all. No one says otherwise. But close your eyes for a second and think about how much harder it would be for you had you been black.
3
I am your ally. I am a white man who is your ally.
4
As a bi-racial American, I find George Yancy’s words not enlightening but divisive. Outrageous racists comments are used to simply paint all white Americans as racist with the expectation that those who are not will figure it out and not be offended. There are black, brown, and Asian racists and using their minority numbers to paint the entire group is as wrong as he has done with White America.
40
Well Chris how many of those hateful letters do you suppose came from those black, brown, and Asian racists you posit exist in droves?
Should you give up on white people? In a word, yes. If I were you I'd say something like; "Look, it's you not me, I tried, it's been like 400 years, it's not working out."
I think I just felt the spirit of Dick Gregory, sometimes all we can do is laugh at the human condition, I hope it helps a little.
2
If it makes you feel any better, I get treated this way, too. Right now, on Twitter, I have some random white man calling me a bitch, telling me he doesn't care what I think and that it isn't okay for me to use my voice to advocate for change. My advocacy, by the way, is with the Pope, and my bully seems to think my advocacy - as a social scientist aimed to end practices that create instead of resolve the problems they are targeted at - makes me a bad Catholic and his bullying makes him a good one.
But here is what you and I get to know. These people who target their hate towards us don't represent all of any one color or shape or religion or culture. They are antisocial, lower natured, filled with wrath for even a variety of reasons. One possibility for attacking us is they have a sadistic streak and are attempting to appease some insatiable and perverted need to experience their dominion over another and create suffering.
Because some people are like that, and others are dependent on those people, and still others expect people to be mean so they are too.
Some are just depressed.
And so what do we do? Well, we advocate, because that is what is needed. That is what works. Elie Wiesel said it best, the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. So you and I do what we do, because it matters. This is how we matter. We take a stand.
How many of us will take a stand? It completely depends on how many of us will take a stand.
Build your resilience people, and take a stand.
9
The supposedly racist United States elect a black man to the highest office in the land. Where it not for white support this wouldn’t have happened. Given where we were in the 1950s this is a remarkable improvement, but there is always going to be more to go.
18
Should you give up on white people? Yes! It's not your job to save them. Our ancestors broke free of their chains a long time ago. Only white people can free themselves of theirs. As kind as we black folks feel we need to be to everyone, this one they have to do for themselves. They're killing themselves in large numbers, others are reliant on psychotropic drugs to feel. The Buddha got it right that we're all interconnected. In such a universe you do what you can, be kind to everybody no matter how mean or cruel, but please stop trying to save people who don't want to be saved.
111
I doubt the Buddha would have swept millions of people, either positively or negatively, up into one big, monolithic "they"...We are indeed all interconnected; we are also all suffering and deluded...
9
A lot of white people want to see change, starting with themselves. And we need enlightened minds to help show the way. Evil exists, but it shouldn't prevent you from seeing - and helping - the good.
5
In fairness, it took a lot of dead white people to break those chains.
4
You're going to give up so soon? Don't throw in the towel yet! Humans have only been around a couple of hundred thousand years. At least we're getting to the point we can talk about accepting each other without killing each other on sight. It'll take a while as the world shrinks and people start to look more and more alike, but it'll happen. You won't be around to see it. But don't be a quitter.
But let's not get started on religon.
Of course, lumping us all together, making assumptions about our characters and motivations because of the color of our skin is fundamentally racist.
32
which is just what Yancy did
2
I disagree that racism can be addressed by hoisting it into the epic significance of history, philosophy, or the inherently racist option of "giving up on white people."
How racist is it to blame a single race for racism? I was in a shopping mall in Japan when a 3 year old child pointed at me and in a firm, loud voice called me "gaijin!" How fundamental to a national culture must a concept be to appear in the vocabulary of a toddler?
How racist were Malcolm X, Louis Farrakan, Eldgridge Cleaver? At what age do black children, or Chinese nationals, first learn the phrase "white devil"?
I take the minority view that human is a dumb animal even in its angelic parts, and like any other animal it is mired in species behavior. I see racism as a species behavior. the idea that racism can be eradicated or assigned a guilt as another assault on species behavior by cultural control -- "sin" in the middle ages, "sex" in the Victorian era.
Why are individuals racist? I believe an honest person admits to no certain answer, except to feel it personally as a failure of humanity and compassion.
The fact that individuals can learn to overcome racism does not weigh against its global expression and species persistence. It does suggest that race guilt and race blame are not an effective way to deal with it.
9
To answer your question, yes you should give up on white people. Racism is rampant, and it’s not going away. Liberals are a little better at suppressing it, but it’s there- deep and biologically driven.
Black America must find its own way. Build black communities, black education, black businesses, and a proud identity. Depending on whites for anything is guaranteed to fail.
3
It is to me undeniable there is a horrible racist bigotry that permeates the US socia-cultural reality. We damage our citizens of color in so many ways and blacks especially. This suffering is basically horrendous and needless. And l can feel the pain when listening to the stories of suffering. But if blacks and others want to really change white America, you need to include in this story telling and damage reporting all damage that whites perpetuate on themselves by being white supremicists. What does mean to whites to be so racist for we are not even yet at the point of acknowledging our sins, how can we make amends and find it in our hearts the simple acts of contrition needed to the damning.realities we face.
3
Having grown as a white in a largely black school it pains me to see the lack of progress during the last 50 years. Some sort of reparation for slavery makes sense....perhaps a guaranteed annual income for black women who are being forced to raise 3 or four kids alone on fast food salaries. Long term the problem will solve itself. We have approximately 200 million whites and 40 million blacks. 25% of black men marry whites and have phenotypically black children. We can expect that in three generations of 25 years that the white and black population will be roughly equal and and both will be minorities. That is assuming the intermarriage rate stays the same but we probably will see more black females marrying whites over time as well so equilibration may be sooner than we think. It is hard to be very prejudiced when your grandbaby is black.
1
I can't imagine a worse situation that to give black Americans a salary for being black. It would be the ultimate stigma. It would infect black Americans with self-doubt as much as anything. This is like giving a child permanent training wheels.
Stop insulting black people with such patronizing attitudes!
As for the single black African American mother raising "3 or four kids alone," the first question is "why is she a single mother?!"
80% of all black children are raised by a single mother (or grandmother). Can we start there? How about asking black people to stop doing self-destructive things like becoming mothers without fathers to help out? Is asking our fellow human beings to raise their children blaming the victim?
When does this stop?
2
No, you don’t give up, you continue to fight back, as exhausting as it must be. Your
humanity, your dignity that erodes inside you as these hate filled people so afraid of their demise would like to see. If you give up don’t you concede to the power of their ignorant words? All of us need to fight back, to VOTE, to speak loudly in front of our friends, our family and say enough is enough.
1
Slavery is a stain and a ruination on this country. It was not only a horror show at its time, but those who trafficked in slaves put a cancer into this country that metastasized into a disease that eats progress. Your title is so sad to me. It is full of pain, anger and contempt. You have been provoked. Sad too as it feels like it fires a bullet into a foggy monolithic idea of whiteness. Do you simply mean not black? I am mixed race. Do you mean me? How pale does one need to be to not be deserving of a bullet? It is also sad because as you write to this NYT audience your heart must feel the need for white people of some description to hear and understand. And this is where the tension lives. We all need empathy and forebearance, we all need to feel we are not to blame for the skin that the cosmos cast us into and for the villainy of the past. There are cold hearted people the world over. And warmer souls too. Forgiveness is also human. And history is not Protean. Your words. When you say ‘give up’ there is a hint of threat too against generic whites Just like you sense in the word ‘quickly’. I am not sure any American has the luxury of giving up at this point. Please do not give up. I hope you can take the words of haters and turn it into the conviction that our world needs our love and strength in the face of all the new atrocities humans create daily. Bless.
3
Thank you for your wise and compassionate words. They echo my thoughts.
1
Difficult problem.
The best help I have in understanding the racial situation in America today is the realiztion and acceptance that a large part of American history of the last 400 years is in fact a LIE.
The real treatment of minorities and especially African Americans and Native Americans by the majority in power (white people) has been covered up, whitewashed, and blatantly lied about.
African Americans and Native Americans know that the history is a lie.
White people typically don't want to hear this... and they simply do not believe it.
2
Obviously the racial hatred espoused is wrong. But as usual, the whole "as a white it's my job to dismantle the system that benefits me" bit is where I draw the line. Many whites have it bad. Many whites have been discriminated against historically in this country. Is operating under the assumption that all whites have some underlying malice not racist in and of itself, notwithstanding that it's simply untrue? And I've seen plenty of vitriol thrown by non-whites at whites indiscriminately in this vein, mostly out of fury and frustration due to perceived injustices.
I obviously feel terrible that anyone should receive treatment like the form in that letter. But until this "us verse them, all white people are evil mentality is dropped" I really can't throw my weight behind any party. Racism in all forms is wrong, and making assumptions about white people in this manner, as well as all the actions taken in the name of "social justice" targeted at whites that aren't being addressed here, is racist. End of story.
22
"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
-Atticus Finch
3
It is just as dangerous to generalize White People as it is to generalize Black People. I identify with those hateful whites (I am white) about as much as Mr. Yancy identifies with the pimps referred to in the letter, that is to say not at all. So I resent the generalization that because I happen to share the same skin color as many ignorant racists, that I am somehow responsible for their reprehensible behavior.
What if I posed the same question back at Mr. Yancy? Should I give up on black people because they're poor, uneducated and all drug dealers and gang members? That, to me, is as idiotic a statement as the one he poses.
I get this this is supposed to be provocative and incendiary, but it is NOT helpful to the conversation. We're seeing right now what happens when you give credence to ignorant and racist beliefs simply by repeating them publicly. It begets more racist speech. Instead, let's facilitate their fade into obscurity by refusing to share the microphone. Instead, engage in the dialogue with those "whites", to generalize, that are open to the discussion and WANT to improve the situation and dialogue. And there is no quicker way to shut down that conversation than to assume that the white person is guilty until proven innocent. The heart of the argument against racism is that you shouldn't stereotype an entire race because of a few examples. But this has to go both ways.
27
Things on this planet are not black and white. They never were and they never have been. Racists come in many colors and fly the flags of nationalism. The rest of us want to live in the protean world of love and compassion, for humanity, the animal world, and the planet. United States institutions are going through transition and transformation. We have a chance to remove the rigid codifications of injustice and create a more perfect union with liberty and justice for all. I refuse to allow the ugly old white racist (and sexist, and homophobe) that lives in my DNA from finding expression in the world. I have seen it in the face of generations of hate who attempt to goad me into living an unspoken entitlement and privilege that feels foreign to my soul. I am sickened by it. I am ashamed of it. I am persecuted by it. I am impoverished by it. It is my struggle, and losing that struggle would turn me into the monster Dr Yancy describes and who he would also become if he gave up on people who happen to be white. It is human instinct that lives in us all to find refuge in tribalism and similarity. Banishment and isolation are deadly to the great apes, and those who find sanctuary in sameness can become dangerous and deadly because of their fear. There is the possibility of a genetic basis associated with the lack of melanin, but my guess is that it is the teratology of the species, and an artifact of power, not of a morphological variant.
3
I don't like being referred to in the aggregate "White America" any more than African-Americans like being referred to as "Black America." THAT is dehumanizing. Don't confuse philosophy with logic.
21
Follow these words from Michelle Obama that this white man tries to follow (and fails more often that I would like to admit): when they go low, we go high. It is tough. I also suggest reading (or in your case probably re-reading) of Frankl's "Man Search For Meaning."
3
Dear Dr. Yancy,
There error here is yours.
When people don't value your life, or the lives of your children and kin, they cannot be taught.
Because white people trust other white people,
unfortunately, only "white people can teach white people."
We see it anywhere that there is a power imbalance,
women should shut up, immigrants have no rights and rather than protest, be grateful, to be on U.S. soil.
I feel your pain.
2
The short answer is yes. I am a 60 year old black man and I have long since resigned myself to the belief that a very large segment of white Americans are hopelessly racist. It is not your responsibility to heal that sickness. Let it go and you will feel a lot more at peace. Instead concentrate on healing the tremendous damage that these people have done to black folks.
181
Wow, "large segment" means majority in my book. That's painting a pretty broad brush.
16
I am of similar age,and the same race as Norman. I wholeheartedly share his sentiments and the election of Mr. Trump has forever cemented them.
Thank you very much for your post.
Yes.
You should give up on white people. Trump has demonstrated that they will vote for a white supremacist leader.
Worse, while many are active racists, still more are ok with racism. Trump said Judge Curial could not do his job because he was Mexican, Paul Ryan said “that is the text book definition of racism”. But Paul Ryan went on to support Trump, as did many others, basically saying it is text book racism and I’m ok with it.
When DOJ and FBI agents serve a lawful warrant on a white person, they are slandered as gestapo thugs.
When police officers shoot a black guy in the back six times, that is a reasonable police response, and blue lives matter.
So yes, give up on white people.
83
White people are not the only racists, you have to know that don't you?
5
In the cold hard light of the merciless day, it is an unpalatablr truth that the only reason people of color (i.e. black people) are in the US in any numbers, is because of slavery, the need to have a dehumanized workforce of easily replaced and interchangeable drones, who could be worked to death... All this, in a society that prided itself on its exemplary Christianity and its exceptionalism.
In fact, this exceptionalism, which is still prevalent today, is another way of saying hypocrisy, of saying "the rules must be respected, but they don't apply to me", of saying "do as I say, don't look at what I do".
We see that every day, on the theater of international politics, but just as well in what Professor Yancy describes. Hatred and intolerance appear to be an unalienable part of the DNA of (many) Americans. It has always targeted the blacks, but was never limited to them. Look at how the native population has fared! Look at the "no dagoes!", "no Irish!", "no Jews!", "no Japs!" and all the other expressions through the ages with which the good God-fearing heirs of the Puritans approached the newcomers.
Of course, because of the very nature of slavery, a particular kind of opprobrium is reserved for Americans who descend from bondage. In the eyes of too many whites, the very fact of being white elevates them, and demeans the others.
Wishful thinking and bland bromides aside, there is no solution to this...
2
"We've got some difficulties ahead, but it really don't matter with me now, because I have been to the mountaintop". MLK.
Social change, in this case curing racism, does not come about without a countinues leadership to guide that social change in the right direction. MLK, of course, was one such leader. Mandela and Ghandi were similarly such leaders.
And look what happened to them. They were either assassinated or imprisoned.
Sometimes, and sadly, that is the price a society must pay to bring about change. What I am trying to say is that a leader must get to "the mountaintop" before he can lead.
And where is the mountaintop? I think one reaches the mountaintop when one is willing to become a "martyr".
4
Professor Yancy, my heart cried in response to the cruelty you endured. You and I live in a perverse society where people are more likely to recoil from seeing a dog beaten than a human being beaten. I wonder how much less likely white people are to recoil from seeing a Black person beaten.
I am a member of the Baha'i Faith which teaches, among other things, that we must eliminate prejudice and that racism is America's "most challenging issue". We are a diverse religious community in which inter-racial and multicultural marriage is supported.
As part of my personal journey as a white woman in this society, I have faced my own privilege and biases over the years. To be
honest with oneself requires pain as well as careful study of what the Black experience is and has been. I find, though, that frying to talk to other white people about how terrorized Black people are by the police, (for example) I don't get very far. But I can speak of these of these things with other members of the Baha'i Faith because they know, from long familiarity with people different from them, that this is not a fair country.
4
I am shocked by the white racism that elected a Republican government which used Race to motivate an electorate. I have been rattled by what the " black lives matter " has shown us. I had thought we were passed that and the next challenges were to figure out how to overcome the unfair legacies of segregation ranging from red lining to de facto school segregation and the puzzling difficulties of implicit bias. But unconscious bias is not the same as explicit racism.
But let us not forget our previous president, Obama, a great man of integrity was elected as a black man( although he is both). The majority of Americans did not vote for the Trump racism. We should celebrate the progress made, and now we should be fully awake to how short that progress is, and commit to continuing forward.
3
Dr. Yancy, I am a white 48 year old male, and I am truly sorry for the way you have been treated. I hope you can find the courage to forgive those who hate you. I hope you can find peace in forgiveness. May I be bold and ask you, what do you want from white people?
1
I recently had a fall-out with a friend over her racism. I am a white American who is and has always been acutely aware of my white privilege. What astounds me that many are not. I ran into a woman whose racism I had always expected, but since it hadn't been spoken out loud, she continued to be a friend. Finally, in a group, she declared it in no uncertain terms. At that moment, I was so stunned that I couldn't think of anything to say, but later in an email I told her as kindly as I could what I felt. My opinion was not received with any understanding, but with great vitriol. It may be hopeless to expect any white person with such prejudices to listen to those of us who speak up. But I will continue to do so simply because it is the right thing to do.
4
Thank you, Dr. Yancy, and I'm very sorry about the repulsive correspondence that you received. No doubt you could not fully appreciate the irony --denials of white racism, cloaked in hideous threats of racist violence.
I am a 50-year-old white guy, continuing to awaken to the systemic racism and sexism that surrounds us. There are many white people who at least recognize it, but not nearly enough, as evidenced by the fact that 58% of white voters went for Trump. That fact alone justifies giving up on us, if not for ethics and morals, then for straight up stupidity that should not be allowed to pollute the gene pool.
Sorry, I don't have much of a rationale for continuing to engage us, other than the fact that the younger generation is getting more diverse and more aware of racial issues. My 17- and 14-year-old kids can discuss race in a more sophisticated and nuanced way than my 77-year-old mother. When I recently pointed out to my mother that something she said was subtly biased and racist, she said it couldn't be because she had volunteered for our town's fair housing council 50 years ago. As if racism is binary, a 1 or a 0.
I think we are having that "national conversation about race" that racists cited as a way to shut down debate. It's a hard conversation, and it's a lot harder for the black and brown people that it is for us white people. But we need to own the conversation too, and own our complicity in the system.
5
I've been closely observing, researching, and discussing the dynamics of this issue for years, and there's a very clear pattern in the sentiments of concerned, worried white people: "What should I do? How do I help?"
The question is rarely ever answered. If it is, the response is to educate themselves further about the issues, and address racist comments or behavior when they see them firsthand.
There's a collective yearning for a more direct, focused place to put time and energy once those steps have been taken, but there doesn't seem to be one. There are massive stores of untapped energy and passion here, and somebody should harness it for collective action towards specific goals.
While it's understandable to place the responsibility on white people themselves to find solutions, we've generally listened closely enough to understand the absurdity of organizing fellow white people and attempting to educate them ourselves. Surely without black leadership, that would simply center white voices and be a self-congratulatory waste of time? Similarly, the more one listens, the less clear it is whether the presence of white people at events related to visible organizations like BLM would be welcome, or whether it would be presumptuous and intrusive.
Don't give up on white people. Just tell us what to do, how to help, and what goal we're specifically working towards right now. Because I personally have spoken to dozens who would exhaust their resources to help the cause.
4
"Just tell us what to do, how to help, and what goal we're specifically working towards right now."
No- it is NOT up to people of color to instruct us white people in unraveling this. How much more clearly could the problems be outlined for you than in this essay? You might find the text 'What does it mean to be white' illuminating. When read with a group of white friends, neighbors, or colleagues, perhaps it will allow you to see places in your own community, neighborhood, or workplace where you as white people need to take the lead in recognizing oppression and working to dismantle it. Plenty of people of color have spoken up over decades to share examples of ways in which white privilege have elevated some over others. It's not their responsibility to then hold your hand in figuring out what to do about it.
I honestly don't know how you could read my comment and conclude that I needed to be told this. I specifically acknowledged why that sentiment is entirely valid.
I have literally studied this in an academic setting for years, and I arrived at the conclusion that plenty of people end up spinning their wheels trying to "recognize oppression and dismantle it." In many cases, attempting that would appear indistinguishable from inflicting microaggressions on people of color, or having a "white savior complex."
The Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act were collective efforts that dismantled oppression in a top-down fashion. It was only achievable after decades of sustained, focused effort not only from black people, but from many other people of color, and from white allies who were able to leverage their privilege and persuade southern senators in the 60s to provide the votes needed to pass the bills.
I understand that it's "not up to POC to tell white people how to fix this." But if the question is "Should I give up on white people?" my answer is "no, not until at least considering that part of the reason you don't hear from people who care is the simple fact that they are terrified of inadvertently doing something harmful attempting to help. They are never going to be the ones who solve the problem; many don't know there is one, and if they remain frozen in their uncertainty, it directly harms you. Attempt to engage; there is still hope."
I found your original article thought-provoking and important, and I appreciate the work of you and your colleagues, which is pushing us to face ourselves more honestly and open our minds and hearts. I have been aware of my innate racism since I was very young, thanks to the Civil Rights movement and living in integrated NYC neighborhoods. I am always ashamed when racist attitudes and suppositions pierce my complacency, and force me to own them. The 2016 election and the groups that have been emboldened by this presidency have removed any foolish notions I had, along the lines of "most white people don't think that way."
Like you, I have wondered if white people can ever be redeemed, when our society continues to reflect the imbalances wrought by enslaving people so long ago. It may sound fatuous, but I thought the Civil Rights movement, and the involvement of so many whites in it, was an attempt to address those wrongs. Now I understand that most blacks find the Civil Rights movement to be a failure, while whites believe the opposite. So, we still have a big problem.
Two final points. I believe there is a lot more wrong with your meat-hook letter writers than their whiteness or ethnic roots. I don't think you should give up on white people because of them. And, maybe I will never know what it's like to be black in America, but women who write forthrightly are subjected to the same filth all the time, and we don’t (okay! generally don’t!) give up on all men because of it.
4
Dr. Yancy: I am sorry. My heart breaks that, by standing up, you have been exposed to this hatred and vitriol.
I'm not sure if provides any comfort to know that there are people out there who respect you and what you are saying. I hope it helps to know that people of all origins are standing with you and supporting you.
Thanks for your courage. We need it. Now we all need to match yours and stand up together.
3
I am white and I am close to giving up on white people too.
I have read your letters and they have touched me to the core and taught me so much about myself. While I like to think of myself as one of the “good white people“, the truth is that I am racist too. Whether you need to give up on white people or not (and I understand if you do) I will not shirk my responsibility for this.
Thank you for your courage, wisdom and love.
6
No, don't give up. Don't stereotype white people in the same way many of them tend to stereotype you.
You should know as well as I - or better - that there was a time in America when African-Americans were regarded as "sub-human" nationwide. It wasn't just a Southern white obsession.
Supposedly "distinguished" writers made their reputations on the bedrock of racism. Children read Edgar Rice Burroughs's 'Tarzan' series without a thought about the vile racism contained in them. Charles Darwin was misinterpreted to the point of bringing about a notorious trial based firmly on racism. And there was human bondage based on race.
In short, to better understand where we are, look back to where we've been. There's not only solace in that, but promise too.
Openly expressed racism is now looked on with contempt by the vast majority of Americans. Such people are indeed considered deplorable. Although expectations of fair and equal treatment haven't yet reached the level enjoyed by most of the white population, consider what once was versus what is.
The sweep of history is on your side, and nothing has ever been achieved by giving up.
Not surprised, but deeply saddened.
1
Dr. Yancy, Thank you for continuing to expose the ugly racism that plagues American society. In my lifetime great progress has been made yet much more needs to be done. The election of Barack Obama is a high point of this progress. The election of Donald Trump is, in part, a backlash from some of white America who feel economically left behind in the modern economy. Charlottesville was particularly appalling and Trump's response despicably low. Most of we privileged white people are working on being 'woke' to the legacy of slavery that is racism. I look forward to reading your book and working on positive change (protean). Thanks
3
There is an article in the NYT (one of last week's "Best Reads") about the effects of racism on the rates of death among black mothers and children. It provides the clear scientific back-up (facts) for its conclusions, unlike Professor Yancy's generalizations. Yancy may suppose that Americans are familiar with the many studies showing the often unconscious bias leading to discrimination which are systemic and structural in our society. Many are not aware of them. Many who are still try to wiggle and wriggle out of the obvious conclusion: systemic and structural racism is still a part of our culture. Reading the comments on the article about the crisis of black mothers reveals the extent to which many will go to remain blind to the conclusion and it's factual basis. It's very revealing.
I have only one suggestion for Professor Yancy. I wish he and the NYT would publish in book form both his original essay and all of the letters he received in answer to it (good and bad). The NYT could print the comments sections to these opinion pieces in a separate section, and perhaps include those which were deemed unfit to print.
I think we should all ask ourselves honestly whether we remember, even years afterward, vicious or even just nasty and unfair words spoken and acts done to us. Then try to imagine our reaction if they were are frequent occurrence and threatened our lives.
3
To think we are not racist is a lie and to think we are not obliged to make amends for the grievous harm we have done is immoral. I am a white person and am embarrassed by what we say, think and do for the most part. I will continue to try and make a difference one day and one person at a time. I feel angry and what we are like as a nation and cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to be a person of color in this country - what bravery is required just to want a cup of coffee. I hang on to the hope that we can and we will do better if only we can begin to be honest with ourselves and others. I pray I am not kidding myself.
5
Of course not all whites are like those who've sent Dr. Yancey these sickening letters. But Dr. Yancey has a point. Enough of them did vote for a disgusting, unfit man for our nation's highest office, not despite his racism but because of it. And they continue to be in lockstep with him, as they hear him say that neo-Nazis and the KKK are some very fine people.
I think we need to call out this huge group of white Americans as what they are -- bigots. They are not "otherwise" nice people. Maybe they never threatened or assaulted a person of color, but their silence speaks volumes. And they care not at all that we have a president and an Attorney General who are avowed racists. The last presidential election was decided on color lines, with whites voting overwhelmingly for Trump.
While I'm not African American, I'm a native born American of Middle Eastern ancestry. I have experienced many of the same things that Dr. Yancey has. I've received the slurs, the threats. The hatred by whites is palpable. This is not "imagined" victimhood.
And so we have to ask ourselves that when the facts suggest more than half of white Americans believe as Trump does, why shouldn't Dr. Yancey, and others, like myself, give up on them? Just last week a Trump nominee for the federal bench would not say that she supported Brown v Board of Education. There was no outcry from the white community about this proposed appointment. No protest, no objection. Their silence tells me all I need to know.
4
This would have been an excellent theme for professor Yancy to assign his class. Choice readings should have been King’s “letter from a Birmingham Jail;” but most emphatically Camus’ “Letter to a German Friend.”
Camus knew he was writing to an enemy—specifically Nazis. By Prof. Yancy’s reaction to the negative responses, he clearly wasn’t expecting an enemy to be part of his general grouping of “White People.”
Should he give up on “white people?” yes, a lot of them; but there are some Blacks that he should give up on also on some Blacks.
Prof. Yancy should determine who his white enemies are, and, if he feels compelled to talk to them, he should know what he expects his talks to produce.
He needn’t be a Hegelian or Marxists to know that the formula of “thesis + antithesis = synthesis” works... sometimes.
He’s a philosopher and this is how philosophy could be made as relevant in today’s algorithmic-driven world today as it was to the ancient Greeks.
"Keep on pushing..."
Attach every single hateful letter, postcard, printed email,etc that you have received from whites to a series of boards and display said boards in a prominent location on the Emory campus or another public space in Atlanta. Put some sunlight on devilish activity. Let everyone see exactly what is going on.
2
Someone please rush a copy of this to David Brooks and Ross Duothat before their next installation of “ We can’t have nice things because of Liberal Intolerance”.
2
I guess Prof. Yancy should count his blessings he was not born a she, of any race.
10
I know understand Dr. Yancey’s point and his motivations, but this essay circles around a question that is fundamentally racist and bigoted. The essence of bigotry is taking the most despicable (such as those that send threatening hate mail) as exemplars of a group and extrapolating to be he entire group.
Would the New York Times have published a similar Op-Ed by a white professor struggling over whether to give up on black peoples?
11
I suggest you judge people by the content of their character and leave race, whatever that is, out of it.
I am a white man. If you judge me by that information alone, and presume to know my beliefs and attitudes by it, you are a racist. Your victimhood does not give you moral authority. I did not victimize you, and for all you know, I have risked my personal safety to protect black people under attack by racists (I have). For all you know I have been a victim of racism (I have). For all you know I have advocated, with my limited skills and reach, for the end of racism in our culture (I have). We all have tendencies to prejudge people, but for all you know, yours are worse than mine (I suspect so).
If you open an article with a title that refers to “white people,” you are a racist, because you have failed to distinguish me from other white people based on the differences in our character. The fact that you conclude by not “giving up on white people” does not redeem you. I don’t need your approval.
Institutional racism will never go away completely, because to judge is human, but it will wither if a majority of the majority race believes it exists and that it is wrong. On a pragmatic level, all you are doing by judging white people by their skin color is to delay this evolution by alienating them, as you have me.
19
You experienced racism or bigotry? I mean you weren't systematically segregated by law in the South. Were you? You haven't been the victim of systematic racist practices in the North and throughout the country, not if you are actually white and in the United States. Institutional racism can be all but eliminated with the right policies, what will never go away is personal bigotry. I suspect if you can be so easily alienated (from Dr. Yancy or from fighting for racial justice?) by one NYT article, something would have "alienated" you sooner or later.
1
You presume a lot. I lived in Asia where prejudice against white people is common.
You presume that one article is enough to alienate me. It's far more common that you think. The first college newspaper I read at Berkeley had a black, female student government leader writing that "self-aggrandizing white males" should stay out of student government. That was 30 years ago. These days it's standard practice.
It's really simple: if you judge people by the color of their skin, you are a racist. Your victimhood does not absolve you.
The last election had the unfortunate side effect of giving the worst among us a voice at the table. Those are the people who inked this letter. They spew their hatred and, what is even more upsetting, they infect their children with this disease assuring the racist hatred will not die. I agree with GWE we (all sane white people) have to be vocal and vigilant. I am sorry this happened to you Dr. Yancy. Please know you taped into an ugly cancer that has infected our society for far too long.
1
The anti-Semitic hatred that has followed Jews for two thousand years and resulted in the holocaust is at heart the same base and basic hatred that you can see in anti-black bias. The “advantage” for Jews is that here in the US their whiteness and a name change made them a bit more difficult to point out. But don’t think for a minute that the enmity ends when you look just like everyone else.
In Europe the economic obstacles kept Jews down as a community for centuries. That is essentially what Blacks in the US have now: spoken and unspoken economic bias that denies (or depresses) opportunity to education, access to borrowing (because it too is based on money) and therefore at its base the law continues to prevent self-investment, communal investment and a real economic future to large numbers of darker skinned Americans.
The only “solution” if there is one is to continue to push for real opportunity and recognition, to work towards communal investment from all sources including the monies of the small percentage of extremely successful members of the black community. Blacks are no different than other “minorities.” They just stand out because of skin color and that allows bigots to hide behind their own. The US recognizes only the green color of money when it comes to “value.” Darker skinned minorities don’t have leisure to “give up” on whites, but that doesn’t mean they can or ought to forgive those who cannot let go of ignorant hate and actions based on it.
2
Dr. Yancy, if you give up on white people then you give up on humanity. Don’t do it. You got hate mail from hundreds but you did not from millions. This white person is with you and I am not unusual. Keep writing. Keep faith.
4
There is only one multicolored biological DNA genetic human race species that evolved fit in Africa 300,000 years ago.
What we call race aka color is an evolutionary fit pigmented response to varying levels of solar radiation at altitudes and latitudes. Primarily related to the production of Vitamin D and protecting genes from damaging mutations.
What we call race aka color is a white supremacist socioeconomic political and educational historical American malign myth meant to legally and morally to justify humanity denying African enslavement and separate and unequal African Jim Crow. One legacy of both regimes is blacks like Barack Obama.
The black freedom liberation struggle has followed two paths. Accepting and making the best of prejudiced segregation. Pushing for and moving towards more integration.
While white people have pushed back on two fronts. Outright naked bigotry. Or a presumption of white supremacy merit and qualification.
Among white people there were John Brown, Viola Liuzzo, James Reeb, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. And there are blacks like Clarence Thomas, Ben Carson and Shelby Steele.
4
This is what should be taught in first grade.
It’s true that being a member of the majority racial or ethnic group has its advantage. According to the Census Bureau, the United States is percent 76.9 percent white, up from 72.4 percent in 2010. The Census Bureau’s most recent projection, released in March 2018, is that America will be 68 percent white in 2060. However, in “Who Is White?: Latinos, Asians, and the New Black/Nonblack Divide,” George Yancey expresses his fear that non-black minorities—Asians and Hispanics—will adopt the perspectives of the white majority group and become assimilated and acculturated. He’s probably correct. The Census Bureau counts most Hispanics as whites, and on our most populous states—California and Texas—intermarriage between “Anglos” and Hispanic whites is becoming as much the rule as it is the exception. Intermarriage between whites and Asians is increasingly common. Yancey is right to worry. Since a large part of what is perceived as racial prejudice is actually class prejudice, reducing the racial income gap is the surest way to reduce prejudice against African Americans.
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/demo...
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045217
4
I'm sure some of the violent and racist language directed at you came from ignorant and mean-spirited whites. But how much? I think we put far too much time and energy into 'social media'. The Russians and others know this. They use social media of help fan the flames of hatred here. Some fool in Australia had the largest Black Lives Matters site. So what do you mean 'give up'?
I won't give up on you or anyone. We are the human family. Some are vile and greedy, and others are paid by the vile and greedy to foment disorder. Sharecroppers in America weren't a problem until the poor whites and blacks came together. That's what the rich, of the world, do not want: common, working people seeing economics as the real answer to ending poverty and the suffering that comes with it.
I taught poor, high school students in Arkansas, and they came in all colors. Poor. That's the problem. The Republicans and Trump just cut taxes for the rich, blew-up the deficit and blame that on the poor (and will now try to cut benefits). So, where do you stand on that? What is your answer to poverty? When that is answered, the racial problems will not be as overwhelming.
2
Those kinds of hateful letters expose the senders for the inhuman beasts that they are, it's realized this may not ameliorate the pain they cause you.
I feel hope with the Parkland teen survivors including David Hogg. They have exposed the authoritarian gun tyranny for what it is and who support it, mean hateful and bullying white people who embrace guns as a form of oppresion over unarmed whites and minorities. It exposes a plantation style democracy, all about intimidation and subjugation using guns and money as tools against freedom and democracy and has zero to do with white American exceptionalism and meritocracy, as their white racist version is a sham. They support tyranny not open, free and fair democracy.
We should reach out to human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Greenpeace and others and keep resisting and protesting the tyranny that the racists and authoritarians want to entrench in the USA, like the present adminstration is trying to do. It would help if Obama was more vocal, and we should enlist people like Bono, Angela Merkel, Theresa May, Macron over in France and Trudeau in Canada too to recognize and condemn violent American political movements and their ongoing perpetration of human and civil rights violations of all American citizens' rights to free nonviolent speech, the first amendment, and freedom of movement like for the Starbucks Two and all the unarmed Americans executed in public by authorities, take these cases to the UN.
1
Don’t give up on white people. Just wait for my generation (Baby Boomers) to die out. That will eliminate a lot of the problem.
2
As if all racist people are Baby Boomers, and all Baby Boomers are white. Please, enough with the ageist slams--and I don't give a hoot if you're of that generation or not. It's an ageist point of view. Stop. Enough. You don't speak for me--how dare you.
as a white man, am I to blame for the acts of our modern day Nazis?
Are all Muslims to blame for Al Qaeda?
Are all immigrants to blame for MS13?
Is the author to blame for the African American who robbed me?
if the response to White tribalism is black tribalism, we will have eternal conflict between tribes.
when I read about the letters the author received, I feel sick, but when I read the title I care a little less
22
Please keep writing.
1
Why not give up, I have. Not on individual white people but white "culture" as practiced throughout the world? Who wouldn't give up on that?
1
Please don't give up. We can't give up on each other.
I've heard Clarence Thomas, Maya Angelou and others tell me that a northern white liberal like me is worse than an overtly racist KKK member, more to be feared, more racist, more dangerous. I struggle to understand, but I keep struggling. I won't stand with those overt racists, though. I try to look deeper to see my blind spots, and, yes, they are legion.
You offered me a gift, in love. In love, I want to accept it, and I want to give you a gift in love in return. I may not know how, but I want to learn. I know we can all do better. Please don't give up on us.
2
Firesign Theater: "Everything you Know is Wrong".......The world view of the 1960s is no longer relevant. the 40 years of wandering in the Civil Rights Wilderness is complete. time to reflect on where we americans came from, where we are today, and where we will go in the 21st Century. 1790, 1st Census, 75% "white" and 25% other(ie...slaves, indins, foreigners).......2010, 23rd(?) Census, still 75%"white" and 25%other........ie....America is still just as "white" as ever......only the definition of "white" and "other" has changed. As Dick Gregory famously said,"I look forward to the day when I am no longer refered to as black-american....but refered to as American." White is not a color. America will always be "white".....which is, in fact, the combination of all the other colors. E Pluribus Unum.
2
But what do we do? How do we fight the system? At this moment, for me at least, it does not feel like I have a voice within the "white majority." I feel bullied and defeated by Trump supporters and NRA supporters, racists, bigots, misogynists. When anybody with a heart speaks out, it seems they are berated and silenced by ignorance and hatred. Women and LGBTQA+ (or even anybody who looks LGBTQ) get similar death threats and hate mail that all boils down to the same message: this is not a place for anybody but straight white men; if you don't fall into that category, shut up and disappear. As a white person, I have no idea what to do about these crazy whites either, or how to stop them from making this country uninhabitable.
I thought your essay was thought provoking and insightful with only one misstep. The meant to be provocative at the end : “imagine your child is black” which was proceeded earlier in the essay with “Don’t tell me that you are married to someone of color.”
If you’d let “us” tell you that you might have known we didn’t have to imagine.
1
Anyone who invests their identity in the “white” label is trash.
Read Yancy. White white white white. It is what he has who he is how he demands privilege.
I wish that you could come and hang out at the bar I go to in Cambridge MA. You would be treated as, just who you are, a person. It hurts me to think that you might look at me and see "just a white person" and not the real me, just a person.
2
According to ADL surveys about a third of African Americans hold "deeply entrenched anti-Semitic views."
So I guess hatred is a human thing and not limited by race.
5
From one Black philosophy professor to another, don't give up. Where would we be if Douglass gave up, if Garrison gave up, if Truth gave up, if King gave up, if Rustin gave up?
151
Mr. Yancy's holding up of the hateful, homicidal letters he received is the kind of exposure such things need. Many white folks, myself included, may not have been directly responsible for much of the racism targeted at African Americans, but we need to be reminded that we do bear responsibility for change.
23
You left out Kennedy, truman, Johnson and other white leaders who fought to end institutional racism.
14
It's crucial for White People to be made aware of the experience of living in this country as a Black People. The more we learn about the actualities, the daily and compounded aggressions and micro-aggressions of implicit bias and rhizomatic racism all around us and in us, the better chance we have to correct these.
Not everyone will be on board. But many of us are.
We have seen progress. Americans of all races elected an African American president. The backlash of the current administration is disheartening but not that surprising, and my belief is that we must work together to correct for it, to continue the progress.
The burden of educating White Americans and pressing them for change should not be on the shoulders of Black Americans. But without hearing your stories we cannot improve. Do not give up on us.
11
The US needs thoughtful, caring people in it. You are such a man. Please do not leave us. You bring breadth of vision and integrity to the public forum. There are some white people, perhaps most white people, who want what you want... a country of fairness and goodness. The are some few are even working for that outcome.
Nice work! As you probably realize, you didn't fail that day in class, you fell short. There's a difference. The forces for good and evil battle against each other every day in the hearts of all of us. The racist outpouring you experienced stands as proof, and while some fraction of the individual perpetrators should be feared, all of them should be pitied.
Please don't give up on us.
1
It appears you've become exactly as open minded and accepting of others as the people you loathe. And, like them, you apparently loathe everyone who doesn't share your skin color.
6
It disgusts me that you receive so many vile, hateful messages and have to live with the very real possibility that one of those nut jobs might just carry through their threat. If you decided to give up on us, I don't think anyone with any sense of humanity would think less of you. But I think that the responses you get from from dark, ugly corners of the white psyche are indicative that your work is on the right track. It's striking nerves that need to be struck.
1
Professor Yancy, you might do best to stop wishing or hoping for a better white America. That is really the job of white people, and if we continue failing to take it on then your hopes are hopeless.
White America has given us Donald Trump as our president. If, as a whole multicultural collective, we manage to overturn that decision in 2020, then perhaps you, and I, have reason to hope.
You write, "Yet, there was a part of me that failed that day" that you revealed your true feeling and your vulnerability. You are a teacher and as a teacher you did anything but fail.
From that moment you describe, every student in the class learned something, in many cases doubtless what you wanted them to learn and in some other cases probably not. But it was a fine teaching moment and you should be proud of it.
I note that the hate messages you receive from the worst examples of my fellow white folks are sent anonymously. To me, this represents the height of cowardice.
It is one very rotten thing to hate, but to threaten other people with it under the cover of anonymity adds a craven reprehensibility that is almost unspeakable.
1
Maybe one should ask should we give up on America.... and Americans? Where once They led the fight and died resisting oppression, where many tens of thousand perished to preserve the union and end slavery, where good people came together to win civil rights, should all this counts for nought against the ravings of nut jobs, racist cranks whom the writer amplifies as representative of America? The US ain’t perfect, never was.
Do not give up on them; because there are too many of them. Approx. world pop: 12.5 % Negroid, 43.75% Mongoloid, 43.75% Caucasoid. The 87.5 % is better organized, better funded. Asking why is that so, at this point, might be more constructive. Consider Jews for example (% of population); how many? Considering most Blacks share a common religion with English speaking Caucasians, and one could wonder why Jews don't have more functioning problems.
1
I really had enough now of being addressed as "white America."
7
Those racists who target Dr Yancy are as despicable a group of inhuman beings as I can imagine. No sane, sentient person should tolerate their presence and should do everything possible to contest their racism.
That said, Dr Yancy doesn't help his or our cause when he continues to insist that all white people are racist, either implicitly or explicitly.
According to theorists like Dr Yancy, white people must admit to being racist or complicit to racism. White privilege, white complicity, white racism. There is no middle ground. Only by admitting to being a racist, is a white person ... what? Redeemable?
Then what? What is the next step?
Why should any white person who believes himself not to be a racist, or the beneficiary of "white privilege" submit himself or herself to Dr Yancy's judgement?
I can't imagine being the subject of the hate mail received by Dr Yancy. I can recall both my family and myself being the victim of black racist hate crimes. I equate both white racism and black racism as despicable forms of human behavior. There is no difference at the individual human level of experience.
If in fact racial harmony is predicated upon white people receiving benediction from the likes of persons such as Dr Yancy, well, its just not going to happen.
2
Dear Professor Yancy (I allow myself to address you personally because you do the same to your readers). I read your essays and, as a guide to the truth, I find them unconvincing. It’s not that I deny the existence of white racism. It is there, and it’s a stain on our society the we must strive to remove. What I object to is your method, which I would call “anti-Socratic”. You sit your protagonist down and you say “Shut up. I don’t want to hear from you, I already know what you are going to say. What you must do is look into yourself, and keep looking until you see what I see in you. Then, maybe, you can speak, but just a little”. I’m sorry, but that’s no good. It will not work as a way of making progress in America. Let me be honest: I don’t think you understand white people very well. In order to achieve an understanding, you have to listen as well as speak. Please try.
9
As a brown gay professor, a. what has this got to do with philosophy? b. it's not right to burden students in the classroom with the hate mail one receives.
10
The color of ones skin is an accident of birth for which no one deserves punishment.
2
If that letter was anonymous, how do you know the race of its author?
11
Those writing ghastly threats to the author are despicable and there are likely very few people like them. Most people I know form their opinions of others as individuals, not by some shallow racial stereotyping. But academics need to cultivate specialties to thrive and make names for themselves, and apparently obsession with racism is Professor Yancy's niche.
1
Mea Culpa.
I'm 68, raised in the South. My father would have been in the KKK (cousins were), but they were too "low class" for my parents. [Side bar: my dad was a strong sympathizer with the White Citizens Council & John Birch. The WCCs across the South were in an analogous relation to the KKK like the German National Socialist Party was to its Brown Shirts--its 'muscle.']
It took living among the very poor in India, years of social work in an NGO to even begin to realize my subconscious programmed racism. I have to observe my inner reaction with care every day to try to 'become a human' in a real sense of compassionate care for the Other.
Dunno. Keep paying taxes to a country programmatically vampirizing its minorites while ever-expanding its world-crushing military machine?
Systematically, the only thing that would really work (would take two generations) would be strictly enforced desegregation. I'm old and polluted. So, it's the kids; they're the real hope. They've got to live and learn together.
Second, reparations in some really significant way.
Those two seem impossible to enact here. So does Single Payer Health Care. But if we can be so extreme as to elect Cheeto, we can go the other way. We need a plan, leaders with courage and moral compass, and we just need to start going at it.
Or, I gotta leave this country.
1
Dr. Yancy -- as an educated man, you should know better than to judge "whites" or anyone else based on an incredibly small, unscientific sample, especially when dealing with the huge number of people in the United States.
A certain percentage of any group in any society is racist. Let us suppose that 99 percent of whites in America were not in the slightest bit racist, using any definition you like (which would be a great achievement -- probably every large group of people in the world have more than 1 percent racists). There are around 170 million white people in the United States, so that would still mean there would be 1.7 million white racists, larger than most cities. If only 1 percent of those sent you a racist letter, that would be 17,000 racist letters. I'm sure you got far less than that -- probably not even 1700.
So your receipt of racist letters, tweets or other correspondence shows nothing other than what anyone should know -- out of 170 million people, there are going to be some bad ones. It is of course upsetting to receive the letters that you discuss, but it is no reflection on the greater population of white people, just like bad acts by a few black people does not reflect on the greater population of black people.
Also, I should point out that you actually don't know the race of anyone who sent you an anonymous piece of correspondence. You are assuming it.
10
This article is a fascinating test: Which white readers are so defensive and brittle, the threatening headline leaves them unable to respond to or even notice the eloquent arguments and moving descriptions of pain in the text itself?
Will any of them realize that it's this very defensiveness... this appalled offense at the slightest implication that something about them could possibly be racist... that keeps racism alive in America?
4
No, actually, it’s the insistence by those on the left that millions of Americans, simply because they are white, bear all responsibility for every bad thing that has ever happened to a person of color in America from the beginning of time to the present. There are ways to discuss persistent racism today without insulting the very people you hope to recruit as allies, or saddling them with moral culpability for historic acts for which they could have no possible responsibility.
But folks like Prof. Yancy would rather provoke a fight than a discussion, which is what he got, and what he so disingenuously complains about now.
4
About the title of this Op piece. I've been taught to take the color out. So the title of this piece would be, "Should I Give Up on People"
6
I’m either guilty of overt racism or, at best, profiting from “white privelege”. I apparently lack the intellectual capacity to understand racism or, if I am counted as one of the enlightened, the will to do anything about it. I am evaluated by sweeping racial stereotypes. I should surrender all my ill-gotten gains, even after I had to fight a government imposed “equal opportunity” (a euphemism for favoritism) system to get them. I never wondered about any of this until recently. It’s enough to make me think about giving up on black people.
8
You are making a rookie mistake, Mr. Yancy: assuming that any side's extreme elements represent the mainstream. Just because you received death threats does not mean conservatives want you dead. All public figures and all business executives--even me--will receive death threats from unstable people at some point in their lives. They mean nothing.
10
I bought a house in a minority community with 2 small children 22 years ago. I am so proud that my children have grown up racially indifferent. My only prejudice is people who are lazy(Both black and white).
Why would you “give up” on all people with a certain skin color because you have received a large number of vile, racist messages from some people with that skin color? Some of those messages sound like terroristic threats to be reported to police. Others are trolls, others racist but maybe not dangerous, though clearly people who should be blocked and avoided. None are representative of all whites any more than you are representative of all blacks.
I know there is still racism in this society and I am incredibly sorry you got threats like that. I am white (99.6 percent white, according to 23andme, though the 0.4 percent West African was a surprise I’d like to know more about. Finding out about that ancestry which goes back to the colonial era led me to examine the complexities of this country’s history. One of my ancestors was probably black, maybe a slave or indentured servant, probably married or had an affair with a white, and probably kept silent about that ancestry.
The only responsibility I can personally acknowledge is to try to treat everyone with kindness and fairness, to vote in a way that will hopefully support policies that are of benefit to my country, and to read articles like this to try and understand different points of view.
2
I believe that some of white america is getting it, and I am so grateful that I can say that, as a white american.... I have enormous faith in the younger generation. As for the others, I also know how the toxicity of hate has created a cavern in many white folks' souls. They must let that go or they will crater and we will move on without them.
I am white, and I am deeply, deeply sorry for what people who look like me have said to you. I am sorry for what was my own ignorance and dismissal of racism until recently. I am sorry that sitting in Starbucks without having bought something can get you arrested -- I can't count how many times I have done that without any fear of arrest. I am sorry that knocking on someone's door to ask for directions while black can get you shot; that walking on the sidewalk while black can get you searched; that (as happened just down the road from my house last week) stealing a $2 can of beer from the corner store while black can get you shot and killed. My heart is only recently starting to break at hearing these things -- and I am personally sorry that it has taken me all these years to wake up to my own ignorance. Please keep writing and being patient with us white people. We desperately need to hear your voice, even if doing so makes us feel uncomfortable. Thank you for speaking up in the midst of such hate.
1
The letter was frightening, it was hateful and it was abominable, as are the convictions that motivate the words.
It’s never been an easy thing to be non-pale in America. One consolation for the non-white religious is that some years ago a number of ossuaries (boxes in which human bones are placed for entombing after the flesh has left them) were discovered in a cave/tomb that was discovered in Jerusalem after almost 2,000 years. Solid evidence suggests that they were the burial ossuaries of the family of Jesus of Nazareth, and included one that appeared to be that of Jesus himself. Needless to say, Israel guards these artifacts carefully, as it would call into question the whole tenet of Christian faith that Jesus rose on the third day and ascended to heaven – a global crisis of immense proportions could result if all this were publicly examined.
However, in the ossuary that could have been that of Jesus, DNA was extracted from the remains, and it was determined that the person in life had kinky, African hair. So, Mr. Yancy should respond to his detractors (and assailants) by posting on white supremacist websites that the likelihood is moderate-to-high that their messiah was a man with at least a high proportion of black blood; and that rather than attacking him (Yancy), they should be venerating him.
My advice to Mr. Yancy: keep up the good work, don’t give up on white people, and when given the choice between crying and laughing, choose to laugh.
Sorry to hear of your epiphany. I'm surprised, however, that it took so long for a sewer rat to get to you. This is an unfortunate outcome for me of the change in the public discourse over the decades: I have come to think of some people as being incorrigible. And for me, that is a sad departure. But the sun rises, the moon shines, and waters still make music in the mountains.
1
This summer, several hundred white supremacists came in from all over the US to my home town of Charlottesville to cause trouble.
Several days later, several thousand, mostly white people from the small town of Charlottesville came together to "Take Back the Lawn" in a totally peaceful protest against white supremacy. This was not well covered in the press.
I think that most people, white and black, are decent and try not to be racist. Let us not let a small minority of hate mongers destroy a sense of humanity in the US.
I suggest that readers listen to the BackStory podcast entitled "Skin deep: Whiteness in America."
The feedback Prof. Yancy received was certainly vile, disgusting, and hateful. But as a prominent black critic of racism, knowing the history of this country, did he expect to not receive these types of letters? Heck, I am a community college professor who had a nothing blog for a couple of years where I posted my thoughts on everything from racism, to immigration, to movie and television reviews, and it seemed the only people determined to read what I had to say where those who left the most unhinged, nastiest comments. I can only imagine what others who get national attention, like Cornel West and Ta-Nehisi Coates, receive in return.
Dr. Yancy seems to expect that the family of apes he calls white from the species of apes known as Homo sapiens to which he and I and all readers belong can someday will itself into a 100% acceptance of others. If that sounds like the impossibility that it is, then the second question to ask him, is why read the hate filled material? It seems he has never been so certain about his self-appointed mission of improving white America— a strange mission for any one individual to claim. Perhaps Dr. Yancy can write about racism, it’s origins, and it’s consequences without this odd, ego-driven missionary impulse. If nothing else, this might at least release him from focusing on the vitriol that will never stop coming from some elements out there, especially when protected by anonymity.
1
I can trace my slave heritage roots back to the early 1800's. I've seen the deed which transferred ownership of the slave woman "Phyllis" from her owner (a French Huguenot named "Benjamin Hubert") to his son Hiram. Hiram impregnated Phyllis who the gave birth to my great great grandmother, also a slave.
My family history is readily traceable from there. So what's my point?
We were slaves: abused, hated, reviled, whipped, murdered, lynched, subjugated, and more. Most white Americans hated us. But more than 300,000 fought and died on the side of the north in the civil war. Freed slave did as well, when they could. We have survived and we will continue to advance against those who hate. Why? Because we did not hate. Because we understand that hate kills the hater. Because we know our strength from our history.
There are whites who even now want to go back to their heritage of supremacy. Even now they try to erase Obama's existence and the rich history of our achievements.
The hate ship has sailed. It's passengers don't know it and will drown in its bowels as did many of our slave ancestors in the slave ship middle passage. Let them hate. We are winning. They can't stop it. Hate has never been our ally. Let it be their's.
The non-white population of the world dwarfs the white population. It continues to grow despite war and colonialism. That tide cannot be turned. Those who look backwards are doomed. Those who look forward will write the future. Those who embrace it prosper.
199
Some people with your background are able to see everybody as they are but more of them are affected by resentment and mistrust and their animosity towards white people is strong. When people are unable to freely express themselves they still feel what they feel.
1
The answer is yes - give it up. And James Hubert's last paragraph above is why. The people who can are not haters and can learn to change and work for everyone will change so you need not worry about them. The ones that can't are doomed. There way of life is rapidly shrinking. Unfortunately the more it shrinks the more irrational they will become. But eventually it won't matter because they won't matter. Don't spend your effort on them.
6
To condemn all white people on the basis of the actions of some is just as logical as to condemn all black people due to the actions of some.
People are individuals. There are good and bad parts in every one of us, myself and yourself included, and sometimes the good wins, sometimes the bad. White people as a whole are no better, and no worse, than black, red, or yellow people.
13
Last week a young a young Afro-American ex-felon for whom I had helped secure employment wrote me an email to thank me.
"Thank you again. You the coolest white girl I know. Stay black lol."
My first reaction was to laugh at what I considered to be his backhanded compliment to a sixty-six year old "white girl." Then I cried wondering just how many other white folks he could ever have felt open enough to share those words. I was actually proud to receive them (a reaction many white friends could not fathom.)
I have absolutely no illusions that in my lifetime I will ever see atonement for America's great original sin. But I will always cherish his personal email and it will remain with me for my last days living in this deeply flawed nation of bigotry, hatred and racism.
Perhaps it will take hundreds of years of future generations (as it has taken hundreds of years of slavery to fester) to erase this ugly stain on our nation's history and to finally see a glimpse of Martin Luthers's dream that his four little children "will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
It in the meanwhile I have always have my email (from my "brother from another mother) to give me a touch of hope for today and feel blessed to having received it.
5
There we go with the generalizations - all white people. So is it ok to generalize all black people then? As a Black man, I can't stand it. Generalizing only exacerbates the problem people! Not all Blacks, Whites, Asians etc, think alike or have the same behavior! Stop accusing/blaming everyone!
25
It sounds like what you are doing is really helping to bring us all together. Really?..
1
I read Yancy's original piece, and the fact that anyone could respond with hostility to it speaks to the deep evil and self-interest infecting the souls of so many Americans. It's amazing how ugly and selfish people in this "Christian" nation can be.
3
I can not begin to speak for you or any black person or even understand the depth and breadth of what you feel and have experienced. But, here, you focus on these letters and I want you to consider that these writers are unhinged representatives of our society. It is irrational for a person to be so mad, to have terrible and violent thoughts towards someone, or a group of people, that they don't even know. These are unhappy and angry people and perhaps have been subjected to abuse, neglect, or extreme anger themselves. You wrote a letter of love. A rational person would either be interested or uninterested. An irrational person would use it as an excuse to rant at you. I know that you feel white racism is systemic but keep looking for love. It exists. Find what you seek.
1
I've often said there are 3 kinds of racists: 1) Those who embrace it, fill themselves with hate, and blame their failures on "the other", loudly proclaiming that getting rid of the other. 2) Those that deny it, "I'm not a racist, but..." and are the Archie Bunker types. 3) Those that accept they have it, yet fight it in themselves, recognizing that it's not rational, not moral, yet merely emotional and must be confronted.
Realize, Professor, that the attackers are cowards. If they thought YOU could identify them, or could subject THEM to the same threats they levy at you, they'd cower back under their rocks. We've seen this again and again, since the KKK didn't attack MLK at night, knowing he was guarded by armed men, yet they murdered Schwerner, Cheney, and Goodman knowing they were NOT guarded.
Perhaps the left-wing "ban all guns" movement has it all wrong, and the Left and People of Color should be armed. It's a terrible thing to say, a terrible thing to think, but probably EVERY racist attacking has a firearm of some sort. It just goes together.
We saw, in Charlottesville, that when armed racists were confronted with equally armed and determined antis, they ran, they backed down, they cowered, or they pulled out their guns. They want us afraid, but they need to be the ones afraid. That's the lesson we keep refusing to learn.
2
Nah, don’t give up on white people.
And also don’t give up on black people.
With all our respective flaws, we are children of the Universe.
Surely things are unfolding the way they should.
1
You know, its sad, because I really wanted to comment on this article, but no matter what I write, I will be attacked as a racist. White people are no longer invited to the conversation about race, but are dismissed out of hand, because we are white. I have never oppressed anyone. It seems that the current narrative on race in America is in it self racist. The overwhelming majority of white people are not racist. We have embraced black culture. We have included all facets of black society into popular culture. Tell me how have I been racist. How have I contributed to the oppression of blacks? Some highly educated people like the author feels that down deep every white person is racist. That is ridiculous. That is the very definition of racism.
18
In a country of well over 300 million of course there are bound to be some stupid racists and too many too often receive hate mail for a great variety of reasons, but the question of a black American giving up on "white America" is as meaningful as a question of a white American experiencing some aspect of the higher back crime rate asking about giving up on "black America."
We need to get beyond race. Besides racism, we also need to recognize with a white majority we fought a very bloody war to end slavery, overturned Jim Crow, established affirmative action programs to help and even give preference to African-Americans, elected a black President (but not a woman, I know white women who gave preference to Obama over H Clinton in 2008 because they thought it more important to elect the first black than the first woman.) The glass is half-full as well as half-empty!
3
Yes, you should.
No, not every single one of course but, in general, yes and you should have a very long time ago. Give up on each and every one of them that voted for Donald Trump. Give up on each one that treated President Obama as an intruder. Give up on their apologists. And give up on the commentators hear making excuses, rationalizing racism and explaining it away as something other than white racist hatred.
I have, and I feel better.
4
Thank you for Dear White People and this latest piece. I feel bothered every day I’m aware of injustices against people of color—like the men arrested for simply waiting at a Starbucks.
I would like to have your back but I feel powerless to make a difference.
Just know your suffering registers. I am so sorry for what you have to live with every day even without the hateful trolls.
As for the intersection of systemic sexism and racism, have you read The Times Magazine’s heartbreaking feature about its effects on the health of black mothers and their babies? It reveals another front in the genocide of Americans with pigmented skin. Yet in it shines the love of a young mother for her babies and a doula’s loving care. Keep reaching for the love in your conversations with us white America. Don’t let the haters get through to you.
1
Professor Yancy,
"Nativists" in America have a long history of hatred and cruelty to others. By religion, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims have been treated to un-Christian animus. By national origin, Irish, Italians, Poles, Chinese, Japanese, and Latin Americans have been demonized. By ethnic group, Chinese, Japanese, and Hispanics have suffered from Nativist identity discrimination and cruelty.
But remember, white people have given their lives to end slavery, to support civil rights and to change our country for the better.
Remember, Barack Obama could never have been twice elected President of the United States without the millions of votes of white Americans.
Our country was founded on hope and ideals. People of all shades of skin color, eye color, and hair color can fall short in living up to those ideals.
Don't give up. You are not alone. You will never be alone.
2
Divide and conquer. It's an old, but highly effective, battle plan.
Saying, Mr. Yancy, that you are consider giving up on white people – the overwhelmingly vast majority of whom are disgusted by the people who directed those vile words toward you – is playing right into this strategy.
You and all others – regardless of color – who want to eradicate racial hatred and injustice should be embracing allies, not pushing them away and, in the process, widening the divide among people who should be arm-in-arm.
You are judging an entire race of people based on what a small handful of degenerate members of that race have directed at you. It is important to remember that Barrack Obama, twice, got well over 50 percent of votes in a country that is 62 percent white.
Your's is exactly the kind of piece that the forces of hate at Breitbart, Fox News and infowars will hold aloft and shout at max volume: Who are the real racists out there?
5
I read your essay with great sadness; it brought tears to my eyes and lump to my throat. As a gay white person, I've been continued to be horrified and angry of the overt racism I see and hear about every day, especially seeing all the black males wantonly murdered and harassed by local police and the mass jailing of blacks. I often feel like I'm living in a dystopian country. And like you, I am ashamed of my country and actually do want to live to a more civilized place but Europe and the Canadians won't have me. I too have been threatened with violence and death, and called awful names because of sexuality. Like you, I try to remind myself everyday that most people are good and that only minority of people are racist, malignant, (and homophobic.) Beyond that, I don't have any response to your essay. And please don't feel embarrassed to have lost your emotional composure in front of your students -- being vulnerable in the face of evil is not a weakness but a strength.
2
This piece breaks my heart. Please don't give up on us, Dr. Yancy. The horrible, cowardly trolls who write these wretched things to you are not representative of all white people any more than all the thousands of misogynists filling comments sections with threats to kill and rape women writers are representative of all men. There are terrible racist troglodytes out there, but they make up a minority of white people—an ugly, loud, scary minority, but a minority nonetheless. They are beyond the reach of rationality. But there are way too many white people who, while not holding such disturbing views, fail to confront them in others, and we all know that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. Equality requires that decent white people live their convictions by confronting racist views and speech when they hear them, by being honest with themselves about their own implicit biases, and by taking affirmative steps to address discrimination. I sometimes feel overwhelmed with rage and sadness about the persistence of sexism. That feeling gives me some small sense of how Dr. Yancy and other black Americans must feel about the racism that still imbues not just random individuals but also key social institutions. It must be enraging, frightening, disheartening, and ultimately exhausting. Please know how much your writing in The Stone inspired me to try to better live my convictions. Sending you love and gratitude and hope, Dr. Yancy.
1
I am sorry that you have received such hateful messages from small and cowardly people. The protection of anonymity gives a lot of bullies the feeling they can spew their vile thoughts freely - and that has led to the kinds of situations that have driven vulnerable young people to suicide, for one example.
Obviously white racism still exists, but that's far from being the whole story. A white woman gave birth to Barack Obama and white people raised him. Two out of the three young men who were brutally killed near Philadelphia, Mississippi, in the early 60s for getting black citizens to register to vote were white. Many others risked their lives in the same cause.
There is goodness in people of every racial background.
1
I can’t wait for the demographic change that is the horizon, when the young who are raised without the old white taboos marry who they please. When most faces are brown and beautiful and it’s impossible to apply the old categorizations. Let a tidal wave of love wash away the old white hate!
Frankly, this is not something I have , or choose, to dwell on.
You obviously think very highly of yourself and your importance, if you choose to give up on white people, than that is completely your choice, I don't believe it would matter much to many of the readers here.
We all have our personal hangups and issues we deal with, I don't expect other people to solve them for me
3
This is all a useless exercise--from Professor Yancy's cri de coeur to NYT readers' anguished self-examinations here--unless you FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Your 1st hint should have been the hate mail Prof. Yancy got after his 2015 essay in the NY Times. Do you really think NY Times readers wrote those letters? You can see blizzards of comments from the same sorts of people dominating comment threads of all the national news publications that don't moderate comments beforehand, as the NYT does.
The pattern is pervasive, consistent, never-ending. These ignorant bigots are willing pawns. Pawns who've been told for 4 centuries not to notice the robber barons who exploit them just as they exploit blacks. They've been told the lowliest white man is higher than the uppitiest black man. And they're so ignorant and so flattered that they fall for it, becoming selective sociopaths, unable to empathize with blacks.
Divide and conquer. The robber barons need us divided and squabbling with each other. And working class whites fall for it every time. They aren't called "Trump's chumps" for nothing.
Of course it's hard to be philosophical--even if you're a philosophy professor--when people are threatening to kill you.
But we have to look behind these soldiers of hate at the generals who have marshaled them & direct them.
This is industrial-scale, mass-produced trolling. And it works. Racial animus elected Trump more than anything else. But who profited from that? The robber barons.
3
You should not give up on white people any more than I should give up on black people. We're individuals, and some of us are bad. Others just talk bad, and given the chance to do those things to you, they would decline, even if they could get away with it. The rest of us are struggling with a legacy of exploitation, bad behavior, and racism that cuts both ways.
Admittedly, being white, I get a better deal than a black person, but I didn't cause that to happen. I don't hire or fire people and I don't give the police their orders or training. I have been threatened by blacks because I'm white, but I only hold that against those who did it, because of their behavior, not because they're black.
I didn't create this situation, I don't perpetuate it, and I wish it wasn't so, but there it is. I'm sorry you had to endure that abuse from people who look more like me than like you.
4
There's a word for people who judge others by the color of their skin, and a saying about two wrongs.
10
As a gay man, I know something about ignorant hatred because I have been on the receiving end of it. I was gay-bashed in Provincetown--of all places--by a 17-year-old black kid. But I didn't project from that kid to "all" black people.
I was raised in a lower-income housing project with many black friends and babysitters--highly unusual for a white kid growing up in the 1960s--and I have known too many wonderful black folks to buy into any notion that white skin somehow equals intelligence, morality, or anything else innate.
There are white racists who hate black people because they are black, and there are black racists who hate white people because they are white. I can't do anything about those people's hatred. I can only do my best to check my own internal racism and to treat other people--whatever their skin tone--as equal human beings, to judge them not on the color of their skin but on the content of their character, precisely as Dr. King dreamed.
I was a 10-year-old kid in that housing project when Dr. King was assassinated, too young to understand what he stood for and too used to the integrated neighborhood where we lived to know about poisonous white racism such as Dr. Yancy describes. It breaks my heart to read his words, to know of his and others' suffering because of racism.
All I can say, really, is I will continue to be a white gay man (I can't change those characteristics about myself) who does all I can to make others feel welcome and respected.
2
There is a growing consensus among the (white) people I talk to that, outside of certain extremist groups, the real racists in this country are black writers and media commentators. In my lifetime, the vast majority of white society has developed a "live and let live" toward other ethnicities. There is also a clear, unspoken certainty that, in the idea of many black people, enough will never be enough. I keep hearing "we need to have a conversation about race in this country", but all indications are that it will be a one sided,self serving critique, lauded by guilty white progressives, decried by right wing conservatives, and the same old show will go on and on...and some will profit from that.
Do you honestly believe that you can heal the racial divide by jacking up white people? People -
No room here for a full list of my bona fides re living among and with people of color. color. You don't speak for them, any more than a white race baiter would speak for me. You need to get that no one alive now is responsible for "the legacy of slavery". People are here just once. Most want their lives to be better; many are grateful everyday for the good they do have; some will never be satisfied.
4
I am reading "Grant" by Ron Chernow. I made it through the Civil War only to be brought down by reconstruction. It is so horrible. When I was in therapy, I studies the concept of the "shadow." Deep in the souls of all Americans lurk these dark thoughts. When will be really discuss them? It is expressed in music and art, but not openly discussed. Once I was at a gas station on Sunday morning. I was dressed in my grubbies, ready to fill gas cans so I could now my lawn. A black woman pulled up behind me, all dressed for church. I rushed over and filled her take so her hands would not smell of gas. We laughed. Then she said: This is the nicest thing a white person has ever done for me. I said: White people should be doing nice things for you every day.
1
America is a nation founded on hate and that thrives on hate; hate against Native Americans; against blacks; against women; against religions of every kind; against gays; against anyone who is different.
To many people, including myself, the election of Barack Obama signaled perhaps there was a turning point in the hate. Instead it exposed just how deeply the hate runs through the soul of our nation. The election of trump showed just how deeply and disgustingly it runs.
We can not change the past we can not forgive the present, but we can still hope for the future. There is a better world waiting for us as long as we never give up trying.
1
Racism is a pernicious evil evolved over centuries into the social instruments we (white people like me) use to dominate and punish those of color. We (white people) must accept our complicity in building these structures and must take action to reconstruct a society based on justice and recognition of the value of all people. Doing so is in our own best interests. The society we now sustain is unacceptable on many levels and contains the seeds of its own destruction.
Go ahead and give up. You will feel better, and life is short.
I gave up on toxic privileged heterosexuals a few years back, and I can assure you: “it gets better.”
2