Savvy has lived in South Africa where she was a minority, and has bi-racial children, one who appears Caucasian, and one who doesn’t. She was briefly enamored of the BLM movement. In her journey to Conservatism, she lost family and friends. Sound familiar? Here’s a list of the beliefs she has come to reject.
Belief 1: “IF YOU DON’T VOTE THE SAME WAY AS ME, YOU’RE A RACIST. IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ME ABOUT ANYTHING TO DO WITH RACISM, YOU’RE A RACIST.”
I had deep concerns about the racism of both candidates in the last election. If your side looks glossy white to you, while the other side looks like a pile of bird shit, well, get honest with yourself. Are you
1) using politics as a way to feel superior to other people and then
2) bragging that you are voting for the love of all humankind?
How can you say you’re better than Republicans and that you are loving towards all people? Those two attitudes are incompatible with each other. People don’t vote differently than you because they are bad people. It’s just an ad-hominem attack. Focus on ideas, debunk ideas if necessary, but character attacks benefit only you (and not for very long. They are bad for you, too.). Let’s say, for the sake of demonstration, I don’t think micro-aggressions are always valid concerns, 100% of the time. If you think they are, convince me using research, logic, examples of how they are. There is no way to prove I am not a racist to you if you are determined to think it. But if you are going to call me a racist, I challenge you to prove that I am a racist. If you’re going to attack my character, you should be ready to prove it with demonstrable evidence. If not, your argument is thrown out.
Belief 2: “VIOLENCE IS NOT PREFERRED, BUT PEOPLE CAN’T HELP IT WHEN THEY’VE BEEN IGNORED FOR SO LONG.”
This is the biggest problem I have with BLM. After every violent riot, BLM advocates share a quote by MLK about violence being the language of the unheard. The way they use this quote is dehumanizing. Minorities are just as capable of self control as all people. Having lower expectations for the black community does not raise them to the same level of equality and empowerment that white people experience. I have also been chronically misunderstood and unheard; I do not use my trauma as an excuse to burn random buildings, riot, or assault people I don't even know. Violence is not a tool to convince anyway; it just puts another person on mute. In contrast, respectful debate changes minds. And, no, setting random buildings on fire because you’re mad at another person is not self defense! It’s just being a part of a mob.
Belief 3: “IF YOU ARE NOT SURROUNDED BY DIVERSITY, YOU’RE A RACIST.”
A friend recently told me he was concerned his children would grow up with prejudice because our town is majority white. As the mother of biracial children, this concerned me (My 2 children are ¼ Asian, but one looks lily white and one looks even more Korean than my husband! As the BLM crowd says, one of them “passes for white,” and is “privileged.” Go ahead and throw the family history and heritage out the window to prove a point…). When I was a teenage American living in South Africa, I remember what it felt like when someone said they wanted to hang out with me because they wanted to see what Americans were like. All along, I thought she wanted to be my friend, and then I suddenly had that shock of feeling like an oddity. I never want my children to be used like that at playdates. Passing racism on to your children now looks like selecting your friends because they are black, or just not-white, in the name of diversity instead of liking who they are as a person. If you are a good parent, your kids have good chances of growing up to be decent people who can think through racism for themselves and settle into the belief that every person who has ever been born is equal in the eyes of God.
Belief 4: “IF YOU ARE WHITE AND YOU SAY NOTHING AFTER A MAJOR EVENT INVOLVING RACE IN THE NEWS, YOU ARE EITHER RACIST OR ALLOWING RACISM.”
After every shooting or riot, the constant pull is that you *have* to say something on social media denouncing racism. By now, if you are on my friends list and you don’t know if I’m racist or not, you don’t know me at all. Period. Allow people privacy, to be quiet, to grieve, to think, to process the way they do... Furthermore, it is especially difficult to stick your neck and say something when accusations of racism fly around at the slightest wrong step or unexamined attitude. The practice of denouncing racism nowadays appears to be more about signaling that you’re not a Republican.
Belief 5: “IF YOU ARE WHITE AND YOU ADVOCATE, YOU ARE STILL VALUING YOUR VOICE OVER THE VOICES OF BLACK PEOPLE. LET BLACK PEOPLE SPEAK.”
This belief is in direct opposition to belief number 5, but nobody cares that the Left is wildly inconsistent. White people are encouraged to take a day of silence or just in general not talk too much, because it’s black peoples’ turn to take the mic. Why can’t we all be vocal? The BLM answer is that whites have had the attention for centuries and their voices are more privileged than black voices, so it’s time to let black people take a turn. But any movement that allows a more free society will never silence your voice or anyone else’s. You were created unique by God, your voice is not the same as all white people, your thoughts matter as an individual, not a representative of your race. Free your voice. I owe credit to my friend for teaching me this bit--Any movement that does not empower your voice is not a movement for freedom. If we really want black people to be equal, we must all see them as being UP to the level of freedom, not move whites DOWN to the level of oppression.
Belief 6: “ONLY CERTAIN TYPES OF OPPRESSION COUNT AS OPPRESSION. WHITE PEOPLE DON’T SUFFER AS MUCH AS BLACK PEOPLE.”
Without getting too far into my own personal story, I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD. I’ve gone through EMDR therapy to help my body and soul move out of complex trauma. I do not want to use my story to get ahead in a political debate or prove my point in a way my opponent would look like an asshole for logically refuting me, but so many in the BLM movement (and maaaany other people today) do that with their own stories. They use their wounds as a way to verbally pound someone in a debate, or as excuses to take up actual weapons without the need for self defense. Many people, of every colour, have gone through tremendous suffering and trauma. To you that have, your story of suffering is too precious to use it politically or to one-up others. Guard it and keep it safe from that. If you are tempted to use it that way, focus on what aspect of your heart still needs healing.
Belief 7: “SINCE WHITES HAVE A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE TOWARDS BLACK PEOPLE, I AM COMPLICIT AS A MEMBER OF THE WHITE RACE.”
Differentiation from my family history was a hard-won battle for me in therapy. I sat on that couch and I sorted out who had done what and what I was and was not guilty of. I am not guilty of the sins of my relatives. Why would I then be guilty of the sins of a few more generations up? Why would I even be responsible for apologizing for something my relative did? I am done carrying the shame of other people’s evil. I am not undoing that difficult healing work any time soon. I am also ¼ Native American. Am I also guilty for the sins of any of my Cherokee and Cree ancestors? Or just my white ones? How does that work?
Belief 8: “NO WHITE MALES NEED APPLY.”
So often, we hear that to “progress” we need to “move into the future.” Has the past taught us nothing? Do we think people made signs like, “No Irish need apply,” or “Whites only,” because they woke up one morning and decided to be a monster? Or maybe they felt there was a good, logical reason for discriminating? Maybe modern day Leftism is just as deceptive. What I do know is that when I look at little white boys and think that people will assume someday that they have an unredeemable character, I know that is discrimination.
I know that is wrong. So I’ve walked away.
(Posted at the WalkAway website, where former Democrats, progressives, Marxists, socialists, and the totally confused or apathetic, share their stories. )
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