Summary

The article is an impassioned plea from a person of color urging white individuals to cease viewing people of color as educational tools about racism and to respect their humanity and individuality.

Abstract

In an open letter, the author recounts a personal experience at a bar where they were subjected to invasive and objectifying questions about their racial identity and profession by a white woman and her companion. The author expresses deep discomfort at being treated as a curiosity and a means for the white individuals to engage in a game of guessing their racial makeup, likening it to a social studies lesson. The article emphasizes the importance of recognizing people of color as individuals rather than as representatives of their race, and it calls for an end to the entrapment and dehumanization that comes from such interactions. It underscores the need for white people to scrutinize their privilege and to engage in genuine, respectful conversations without reducing people of color to mere check-boxes in their understanding of diversity.

Opinions

The author feels degraded and objectified by the questions posed by the white individuals at the bar, which were aimed at identifying their racial background and profession.
The author is critical of the tendency to view people of color as a blend or mix, akin to food or paint ingredients, rather than as whole human beings.
The author rejects the notion that people of color are responsible for educating white people about racism and views such expectations as an unfair burden.
The author points out that the privilege of asking about someone's racial identity without causing offense is not equally afforded to people of color, who often experience such questions as part of a broader pattern of othering and discrimination.
The author calls for a shift in conversations from a focus on differences to commonalities, suggesting that this would be a more respectful and inclusive approach.
The author challenges the idea of colorblindness, asserting that true inclusivity requires acknowledging and

An Open Letter to White People: I Am Not Your Social Studies Lesson

Please stop making BIPOC a stand-in for educating yourself about racism.

Photo by Creative Hina By.Quileen on Unsplash

Dear White Lady at the Bar,

Both of us walked into the local pizza joint yesterday as strangers, owing and knowing nothing of each other. One of us walked out feeling crummy and dejected, wanting only to rush home to her safe space, while the other left feeling the same as when she walked in: self-assured and contented.

How did that happen?

It started when you and your White male companion, both perched at the bar, stopped me with a question. “This is a game we play. We ask strangers two questions to see which of us guessed right.

First, what do you do for a living? I guessed law and he guessed real estate.”

I should have turned around and walked out then and there. But, I’m a social person; I default to assuming positive intent. “Neither of those is correct, although I do love real estate,” I smiled, visions of buying more investment properties swirling in my head.

“Oh, ok,” you continue, “the next question is what are you mixed with?”

“What am I mixed with?”

My mind flashes to the pizza I’ve just ordered, still thinking about my choice of toppings. But, that can’t be right — you’re not asking me about pizza toppings.

“Yeah, what’s your heritage?”

“Oh.” I immediately feel uncomfortable. Each time I’m asked a version of this question I am caught flat-footed, surprised by the inquiry, and shocked by the choice of words. “Well, I suppose a lot of things. Bye now.”

I walked out feeling degraded, my shoulders drooping and the smile wiped from my face. I felt foolish like I had naively fallen victim to entrapment, picked over by the unwelcome white gaze. I was not prepared in the moment, but now I am ready to tell you what you need to hear.

I am not an object. You do not have permission to break me down into the analysis and valuation of my parts, likening my skin color to coffee drinks, comparing my hair to home cleaning sponges, or referring to my body parts as sizeable physical structures. Choosing to wear my hair natural — whether letting the curls run free or refusing any longer to douse my greys in chemical colors — does not give you permission to touch my hair. For that matter, you do not have permission to touch any part of me.

I am not mixed. Curry sauces are mixed; heavy on the turmeric with a dash of chili powder brings a pungent flavor to any dish. Cans of paint ordered at Home Depot are mixed; a dab of cyan and a splash of yellow go a long way to light up a room. Human beings are not food or paint. When you ask me what I am mixed with, much like a can of paint, you are insinuating there is one default to mix into — White.

I am not entertainment. I am not a novelty for your amusement. I do not exist to do soft shoe in the corner for your benefit while you linger over your beer and flit between conversations with your friend and the bartender. Your misdirected curiosity is not a sufficient excuse for turning me into your guessing game.

I am not exotic. Because I do not neatly fit into your preconceived notion of Black or White, as if our town exists within a binary code of color and character, does not volunteer me as a chapter in your World Civilizations study book. That my skin color is different from yours does not mean I have a nice tan. The difference in our physical traits, even if yours are more prevalent, does not permit you to treat me like an exotic pet for prodding and poking.

I am not a check-box exercise. Humans are inclined to want to categorize, to neatly fit our understanding of the world and each other into predictable little boxes. Racism thrives on these generalizations. But I have no intention of contorting myself to fit into the uniformity you seek. If you want to have a genuine conversation about who I am, have the courtesy to ask a respectful question. If you are only interested in check-box surveys, go work as a census taker.

I can guess you are thinking, “When someone asks me that question, I don’t take offense.”

When you are asked the same question, you might see it as a fun opportunity to recount your entire 23andMe report, detailing the percentage of Irish, French, and Neanderthal you’re walking around with — as if that gives you any sort of ownership over an entire nation of people and their centuries of cultural heritage. For you, it is about making connection and celebrating your similarities.

For People of Color, it is a question that heads up a collection of equally distasteful inquires all premised on the idea of otherness, such as “what are you, where are you from, what’s your nationality?”

These questions are designed to exclude us from the community — to make it seem we do not belong. They are crafted to remind us we are something other than the norm. It is the very same othering that White people have for centuries flown as a banner of entitlement as they drove native people from the land, enslaved Africans, redlined People of Color out of their neighborhoods, and continued a legacy of annihilating Blacks in the name of community security.

I understand the genuine interest in wanting to engage and learn about others — the intellectual curiosity that drives us all to spark up conversation with strangers. There are tell-tale signs, however, that differentiates authentic interest from a façade of pseudo-curiosity. A thoughtful approach would be to start a conversation based first on our similarities, not our differences. An option would even be to recognize when it is not the time nor the place.

That you chose to racially objectify me for your entertainment is emblematic of the very issue at the heart of White privilege — it is not enough to recognize you have it but to consistently scrutinize how you wield that privilege at the expense of others. It requires looking past your own entitlement to consider, every time, how your question potentially perpetuates the very basis upon which discrimination is founded.

If you believe in creating connections and in building an inclusive community, if you support Black Lives Matter, and if you claim you don’t see color, please do us all a favor and save your drinking game — designed to make you feel comfortable in your self-righteous liberalism — and focus on the real problem at hand: your own privilege. In this one instance, I feel confident speaking for a vast swath of Black people and People of Color in saying that it is not our responsibility to help educate you about this. While we continue the fight to reverse centuries of structural racism, teaching you is not on our agenda.

Sincerely, your local mixed girl