White guilt?

We have erected many ways to silence people before they even begin talking.  A lot of times it can simply be respectability politics:  "Why was he wearing a hoodie?",  "Did you see how Beyonce was dancing and dressed at the Super Bowl?", "This is not very Christ-like", and so forth.  These have the effect of casting aspersions, usually on victims, so that their story is immediately shrouded in doubt.  Their is immediate invalidation.  When this happens we, in effect, silence tears...

Tonight I stumbled upon what was actually an excellent interview from December 2014 on the Hot 97 radio show Ebro in the Morning.  Hosts Ebro and Rosenberg talk with rapper Macklemore, always a lightning rod for controversy, about racism and appropriation within the industry.  It is actually a really compelling discussion with a kind of frankness that you don't often see in entertainment interviews

Macklemore and Rosenberg

There wasn't much genuine controversial content, however.  Macklemore and Rosenberg, both white, talk about their roles in an industry and culture that was founded and is fueled by black people.  They go over the lines between appropriation--- essentially stealing other's music and style and passing it of as your own--- and appreciation.  They intone that being white and a part of hip-hop means constantly educating themselves, willingness to take a back seat, and the understanding that their success would often not be afforded to black artists.  Host Ebro admirably guides the discussion and describes the differences in his experience in the industry and life as a black man

I made the unfortunate mistake of scrolling down at the comments (a mistake you should never make on the Internet, anywhere).  A number of these excoriated the two for exhibiting "white guilt."  Here is one of the most enlightening:

"And to think that I used to like Macklemore's music when he was singing about Irish pride and all that shit. By the way he looks and acts now it's like some corporate black guy came round to his house and offered him money to start a campaign of white guilt. Now THAT would be selling out alright. Imagine selling out your own race."

These are quite frequent in videos where white people acknowledge racism and their roles in it and especially when they resign themselves to sometimes not being at the center of the discussion. Macklemore is somehow "selling out" white and Irish people because he has expressed support for fighting the realities of racism.  Other comments refer to the two as "self-hating" white people

I've pondered this phrase for quite some time.  I've thought about the word guilty conjures in the mind.  I get feelings of uneasiness.  You want to take it back.  In that sense, it is usually distant and in the past, something there is at least some regret for

The other way guilt is often seen as is legal:  it's some kind of criminal accountability in a court of law.  It means jail time, fines, community service.  There is less feeling around it because we have a definite yes/no as to whether the defendant is guilty.  We see less grey area

White guilt is also often used in the context of slavery.  For example, the silencers will invoke it and say "She is so sad about slavery but they had nothing to do with it and it's not their fault."  In a very limited sense, this notion has some verisimilitude, as no white person living today had a direct hand in slavery.  They may be descendants of slave owners or confederates but they never owned a single slave

This clearly misses the ways white folks have benefited from slavery and black folks have suffered:  massive gaps in intergenerational building of wealth, distorted images of beauty that favor white skin and features, denial of black people into many facets of the workforce, and so forth.  If you ignore history has played a role, then you just haven't studied it

The issue with guilt, however, is that implied distance.  We can recognize how draconian slavery was but the focus around it implies that there is a period of post-slavery.  Making strong, visceral connections with a past phenomenon can be difficult and onerous.  But what if we saw that history as present?  What would that mean for actions and language?

We know that slavery didn't die after the Civil War or Emancipation Proclamation.  Jim Crow would come shortly thereafter.  Sharecropping followed.  Police would round up vagrants and take them to prison (this is where chain gangs got there start).  As rapper and prominent media face Killer Mike says in his song Reagan

"Cause slavery was abolished, unless you are in prison
You think I am bullsh**ting, then read the 13th Amendment
Involuntary servitude and slavery it prohibits
That's why they giving drug offenders time in double digits"

Slavery is still much allowed for inmates.  As Jim Crow receded from being the regnant system, Reagan would sweep the nation and institute a third wave, that of mass incarceration.  Millions of men and women locked up, millions of families torn apart, and most communities decimated

This slavery, this oppression, has clearly not passed by.  It lives and breathes with each moment.  Perhaps we need not spend too much time in quandaries about our great grandfather's actions, but truly probe our own?  This leads to two ways of engaging the problems, which Macklemore grappled with the difficulty of doing in the discussion above

The first is white accountability:  I am aware of all the ways I am still oppressing my black and brown brothers and sisters and I will make sure that I take action when I am doing wrong or others are doing wrong.  This is beyond just merely apologizing or acknowledging failure, because if we continually ask for mea culpas without also seriously outlining paths for growth and improvements, was the apology even sincere?  White accountability forces us to worry about what is here and now, what we can touch.  It leaves us with little choice but to be urgent in how was are aware and active

White appreciation is the second piece.  Rosenberg touches on how when he first entered into hip-hop, he only wanted to be around black rappers and didn't like the white MC's.  It was because he wanted to learn about other's experience and had a certain admiration for the music crafted.  When we appreciate and admire, we cultivate a sense of awe.  In this sense, we create space and distance needed to subsume messages that we wouldn't be able to learn on our own.  When we appreciate, we recognize others capacity for beauty, truth, and authenticity, and we demonstratively let that live without having to validate it.  We allow the experiences to ring out and we trust them as true

Don't let people tell you that you are secretly guilty for something you believe in.  Don't let them confuse you into think guilt is subconscious below immense love, appreciation, and accountability.  It's more than that.  And while healthy doses of guilt can and should at least partially drive decision-making, it can only create so much.  That's why we operate with accountability and appreciation