10 MORE Things Black People Wish White People Would Stop Doing
If you haven’t read the first 10 items on this list, you may do so here. Let me also repeat that this list can go on for much longer and so please don’t think this is all some of you do which irks us. And by ‘us’ I mean most Black people, but not all. I’m sure if you read other Black authors, they can present even more items without even repeating the ones I’ve listed. Imagine that.
Continued…
- Until society-at-large appropriately credits Black people as beautiful trendsetters to be celebrated and emulated, do not take hairstyles, clothing styles, musical styles, language styles and other “styles” which originated among Blacks and rebrand them as the hottest new trend among White celebrities, artists, kids, etc. It’s mad disrespectful to appropriate our culture without proper attribution. Especially when we’re labeled as ghetto for wearing certain things or speaking in certain ways… only for the same styles to go “mainstream” (i.e. White) and suddenly be the coolest thing since rock and roll (which we also don’t get credit for).
- Do not dismiss us as angry when we point out the ways in which our people and our culture have been (and continue to be) disrespected. For one, we have every right to be angry and if you hold any compassion at all toward what we’ve endured as a people, you should be angry, too. Dismissing us as angry, telling us how to protest or telling us to be quiet is tantamount to telling us to, “shut up and accept” mistreatment. And it is definitely sending the message that you are content with the way things are and do not want equality for all people.
- For those of you who want to fight racism, do not call yourself an ally, yet try to tell us how we should think/act/feel/react toward oppression and injustice. In fact, don’t CALL YOURSELF an ally at all. If you truly act as an ally, it is for us to give you that designation, not you yourself. An ally label suggests that we can trust you and that we are laboring on the same side. Due to your history, you don’t get to just step up and claim that mantle on your own. We need to see the work first and then we’ll get back to you.
- Do not suddenly “blacken” your speech when you’re around Black people. It’s distasteful and you sound crazy. Be yourself.
- Do not go out of your way to make self-deprecating jokes about your own race when around us. You do not need to belittle yourself, your people or your culture to be accepted.
- Do not argue with us from your textbook definition of racism. We don’t care how some White (and whitewashed) academics define the word and we don’t care what Webster’s says. We are intimately acquainted with racism and don’t need you to point out or ‘educate’ us on what it means, what it looks like, what it feels like or when we’re faced with it. We have a sixth sense about racism. We have to. Our survival has always depended on detecting and navigating our lives within and around a racist society. It doesn’t matter how many books or statistics you’ve read, you’ll never have the relationship with racism that we do. Even if you’re from another oppressed culture, you may have some idea, but the assault on Blackness in the U.S. is such that is so different from every other oppression until it’s best for you to just trust us when we say that we KNOW what racism is and don’t need you to instruct us at all.
- Don’t expect any one of us or even a small group of us to represent the thoughts, attitudes and opinions of all Black people. I know, you were reading this list and hoping to get all of the answers about what annoys Black people. But truth is that we have many different thoughts, ideas, opinions and ways of being. Not one of us can speak for all.
- Miss us with the “pull yourself up by your bootstrap” speeches or the “If my Irish grandparents made it in the U.S., anyone can” stories. You and your family’s immigrant, humble beginnings are vastly different from our history of enslavement, brutality and oppression. Your Irish, Polish, Italian, Jewish and Arab ancestors emigrated voluntarily, kept their history, their culture, their languages, their families and became White a long time ago. Black people have always been and will always be gloriously Black. Never will we be a privileged class and our bootstraps will always be of a different brand and quality.
- Don’t tell us that we’re acting like victims. We are victims. Not of a whimpy whiny variety, but in the word’s true definition. We have a right (and a duty) to tell our stories and call America out on racial hierarchy Europeans created. That we haven’t lost our collective minds and have done our best to cooperate in this society means that we are also victorious. Respect that!
- Stop being so doggone defensive about racism. It’s natural for you to have some racist viewpoints, reactions and stereotypes. We were all raised in a racist system…many of us (Black folk) have also subscribed to a system of White supremacy and have to be reprogrammed, too! No one is calling you a bad person because of this. You are only a bad person when you recognize your racism and your privilege yet refuse to do a thing about it. Or worse…when you deliberately avoid acknowledging either.