I have a friend with whom I seldom argue with, partly because we usually agree, but also because he is wiser and kinder than I, and those are the most annoying people to argue with. But a few weeks ago, we got into it a bit on the topic of racism. He thinks that rational people need to be taught that racism exists and is bad.

I think that’s a lot of malarkey. No one with a shred of decency or an ounce, or maybe two, of intelligence needs to be told that racism exists and is wrong. My friend thinks it’s important for Churches and businesses and social service agencies to conduct seminars and teach classes and educate us on the prevalence and evil of racism. I think that’s just wheel-spinning. All we need to do is pay attention, as the latest slaughter targeting Black shoppers in Buffalo should make clear.

The thing about well-meaning programs purporting to educate us about racism is that the people who need them never take them; and, too often, I fear, the people who take them afterwards give themselves a quiet, gentle pat on the back for being “woke,” and then slip back into their own versions of normal. But even a well-intentioned white person’s version of normal does not include daily fear of being hunted down like an animal because of how we look. It does not include talking to our children about how to scrape, bow, and agonize over every move and word when stopped by a police officer. It does not include a heritage of practical genocide with our ancestors hunted, enslaved, beaten, raped, and brutalized — our families cruelly torn apart and even pitted against one another for survival.

Those are not part of a white person’s normal. But hey, if we need to go to a class to learn more about racism, if that will help us, by all means, let’s go! Let’s widen our eyes at learning that The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. thought Chicago was at least as bad as the South when it came to vicious racism. We can be stunned at the kind of insidious racism endemic to the North and still going strong in segregated schools and housing. We can gape at statistics of how Black people get sicker, die younger, go to prison more, have fewer opportunities to buy healthy food, or get a good education. We can pretend we didn’t have any idea!

But when we’re done with the class or program, driving home, or signing off Zoom, let’s consider this: it’s not enough to vote for a President who is only half white. It’s not enough to say "please" and "thank you" to the clerk at the store. It’s not enough to smile approvingly at commercials with mixed race families. Until we are willing to feel the horror of a Black parent who hears that a Black child, maybe her own, has been beaten or taunted; or experience the anguish of a Black man whose wife died of COVID because they didn’t have enough money or power to get treatment; or comprehend the suffering of a Black grandmother visiting a grandchild who was incarcerated because the family couldn’t get a decent attorney … well, then at least we took the class. Nothing else to feel guilty about. 

The writer is a resident of New London.