Thanks for your response, Joe!

First thing to note is that racism is just one of the power structures that inform unacceptable white behaviors. Racism, sexism, classism, etc. are all tools on the white supremacy tool belt that aim to maintain whiteness as the superior norm. There are plenty of ways to imitate white supremacy, and racism is just one of those ways. The “Trump 20202: Fuck Your Feelings” character in the warehouse represents how sexism in its systematic devaluation of emotionality bolsters the allegedly emotionless white man’s non-existent superiority… yes indeed he actually does feel inferior, but he probably won’t admit to feeling anything because he’s a white man, and his behaviors are ways to cover up the conscious recognition of feelings of inferiority…

It thus isn’t necessarily the case that the guys I’m describing here are racist, or that I think they are and am trying to convince readers of this… In fact, I think it’s really unfortunate that racism is discussed as an individual attribute someone might or might not have when in reality it’s a social structure that implicates everyone. Perhaps you’ve heard the claim that all white people are racist, which if interpreted as an individual attribute, then results in defensiveness (e.g., “I’m not racist, I have a black friend!”). If, however, this claim is interpreted structurally, meaning that white people are all socialized into a systemically racist society that differentially and unfairly allocates resources on the basis of race… then this claim is more relatable, and, in fact, true: the United States would not have become a world power had white folks not systematically exploited African slave labor for hundreds of years before the US even became a country.

Debating who is or is not racist is like arguing about which application on a computer is or is not an instance of the operating system. For example, if you’re using Windows 7, it’s like opening up Solitaire, Internet Explorer, and Notepad to determine which of the three applications is “most Windows 7.” “Solitaire? You’ve been around for a lot longer than Windows 7 — I’ve played you with cards! You’re not Windows 7… Internet Explorer, though, you’re sooooo Windows 7, Microsoft made you!” This is a ridiculous example because it’s clear that all applications are running on the same operating system, and that they are all equally representing the operating system… in this same way, it’s ridiculous to argue about who is or isn’t racist because racism is like an operating system that runs the US, and white people designed these systems just as Bill Gates designed Microsoft. This is why racism is absolutely a white person’s problem, and the more we try to deny this the more absurd we probably seem to communities of color who have to deal with the consequences of racist social regulation on a daily basis. To stick with the computer analogy, we white folks should be focusing on the operating system (i.e., the social structures that inform our society) so that we can design a new one instead of opening, closing, and trying to optimize individual applications (i.e., the personal qualities of individual white people).

I also want to mention that I like how you included some information about the variation among people in your family… research shows that being exposed to and being able to empathize with people from different social backgrounds is necessary but not sufficient for white folks’ affiliating with racial justice. I recently finished a master’s thesis about the role of emotion in white racial justice activism, and found that all of the activists (who were all white) described being either oppressed in virtue of some aspect of their identity (e.g., gender, sexuality, ability, etc.), or being a minority among people of color as reasons for why they started to care about racial justice. One must experience what’s it’s like to not be privileged by a social system — even if that means being the only white person on a high school track team like one activist in my dataset described — in order to be able to empathize with the pain that accompanies systematic oppression. I’m not sure how the social variation among your family has affected your relationship to these issues, but I venture that it had some role in opening you up to these realities… unless, of course, it translates into something like “look how diverse my family is, I’m not racist!”