It could all be so simple. Though eradicating racial hateration should be an intraracial undertaking, undoing centuries of Olympic-level oppression and curing chronic multigenerational Caucasian terribleness is frequently placed on our to-do lists, along with setting trends and keeping the Electric Slide alive and sacred. A shame.
Your co-worker’s favorite decadently mediocre second-rate diva Lady Gaga recently took a break from collecting shrimp shells and silica packets for a ball gown to ask the blacks how the good whites can help save Westeros from the heinous dumpster-hearted wypipo so everyone can live nappily ever after.
And because I know how stressful and draining it is contending with life in a post-Teen Summit society and microaggressions from the hateful, unmoisturized masses on the daily, allow me to make your life easier by providing a few customizable options for responding to inquiries on racism’s cheat code.
1. “Girl, bye.”
As House Mother Oprah once said, “No is a complete sentence [so boot scoot boogie the fuck out of my face].” So if you’re not down to engage and educate a well-intentioned Caucasian, refusing at the onset could prevent your frustration and a potential deluge of white tears at the arrival of an uncomfortable truth. See what happened with Fox News contributor Melissa Francis, who was emotionally overwhelmed by a discussion on race. Poor thing. Spare yourself, your pressure and your criminal record.
2. Take the Malcolm X approach, telling them “Nothing,” then continue on your black-ass way.
Miss Sofia also said that sometimes, the dumpster-hearted, old-timey bigoted fucknuggets “just have to die” for race relations between the dastardly whites and everybody else to improve and for draconian policies and oft-excused geriatric wretchitude disguised as mere stubbornness to end. One option is to let Father Time and natural selection do their thing and watch the antiquated swamp donkeys dry up and wither away on their own like a Bad Boy career left to rot in a cardboard box in a dumpster at the back of a church parking lot. As the ancestors intended. If decades of news coverage, impassioned pleas and evidence from the oppressed, and historical data about injustices do nothing to open your eyes to the fucked-up-ness of the world, I’m out of my league and out of patience for guiding folks through the fog into the land of reality. Fuck ’em.
3. Send them your PayPal, Venmo, Cash app, Google Wallet or banking details to set up a luchini transfer as compensation for your emotional labor and possible retraumatization due to reliving and reflecting on harrowing experiences.
Especially when they demand a satisfactory, detailed explanation of some complex social or cultural issue (via Twitter or your website’s contact page, for instance) that you’ve talked or written about previously or they respond to a gracious Google redirect with, “but I asked YOU.” As Aja Renée wrote in “On Educating White People: That’ll Be $90. We Accept PayPal” for the Extraordinary Negroes:
I’ve been patient. I’ve laid my spirit out and repeated myself 50-11 times to answer the same questions over and over again, begging people to see my humanity. And still, people center themselves, pour white tears all over their posts and flouncing/rage quitting groups after PoC have lost their patience with them. They feel entitled to MY energy, MY kindness, MY brainpower and then discard it all by deleting comments, blocking me, or leaving groups. They think MY intellectual labor is not worth THEIR money.
Don’t be like Silk and Diamond. At least get your automobills paid.
4. Remind them to take some of that zest for changing the world and shove it up their ass look within their own communities and families to find the seeds of hate, fear and ignorance that help this country’s cancerous, faux-puritanical institutional shitbaggery thrive.
You wouldn’t ask an abuse victim for ways to get their abuser to stop whipping their ass, would you? Time to redirect that energy and goodwill. “Accidentally” dropkick cousin Jenny-Bob when she gets to peppering her rants with slurs and Klanerific asshattery, upholding the white supremacy and hatred that allegedly keeps her up at night. Don’t laugh along with Eugene the Co-worker’s poorly masked bigotry. Shoot him in the cheek with an arrow instead. Flip the dinner table and put a knife to Meemaw’s neck like Miss Celie did to Mister next time she calls the neighbor or her half-black grandbaby a mongrel in your presence. Tackle your nephew, the rap-loving wigger with problematic views on social classes, when he gets to tripping while “trapping” again. Gotta make sure it sinks in. It’s the only way.
5. Tell them, when in a position of authority, to hire more people of color.
Here’s a revolutionary idea: Instead of tasking Kimberly the intern and Brock the underqualified project manager—who know 2.5 full-time black folks between them—with producing authentic content or products for folks of color, inviting a vicious, delicious curb stomping in the media after the inevitable public misstep, find an actual black or brown person for the job.
6. Remind them that dance parties and sheet cake are definitely not the fucking way to combat hate and that believing otherwise helps the ashy-spirited troglodytes win.
7. Tell them to stop touching my hair.
8. Tell them to read a motherfucking book not published by an ahistorical fable-spinning sore loser who, for example, thinks the South will rise again.
It won’t directly impact anyone’s life, but it will teach them about someone’s experience other than their own.
9. Tell them that their delicate feelings and comfort level are irrelevant when lives are at stake.
You’re not required to deliver uncomfortable truths and advice with a smile, a ribbon and a dance routine. Weaponizing your allyhood or rescinding support when your punk-ass feelings are hurt or your “Official White Savior” ladybug broach isn’t praised makes you a self-involved dickface and a drone-strike- and eternal-bedbug-worthy threat. Proceed with caution. Unlearning the habit of centering oneself and one’s imagined oppression in all things and conversation is no easy feat, but it’ll do wonders for race relations and the anxiety-fueled stabbiness of folks of color.
10. Advise them to drop the I’m-so-surprised-by-all-this-new-and-unseen-racism-that-Obama-started act.
It’s tired and draining, sponsored by delusion and is the sign of an oblivious, fact-averse fuck nugget. What we’re seeing is nothing new. The anus-mouthed Diaper Genie-in-chief has just made lashing out because of untreated melanin envy fashionable again. Denial is getting us nowhere.
Cut that shit out.