From Writing for Social Justice Blog (White Privilege)

The Blame Game

So, I might go over the word limit with this, but I am so tired of people playing the blame game when it comes to racism. No, not every problem that black people face has to do directly with a white person. While some issues are directly and indirectly related to racism and prejudice, sometimes a black person really didn't lose their job because of The Man (in the form of their white boss) but because they had been showing up to work late and stealing from the store for months. Sometimes it is what we do, not what has been done to us, that leads to our detriment. Does it then mean that black people really do "suffer deservedly, because they do not take advantage of the opportunities offered them", or are "innately lazy and less intelligent...lack will power...[and prefer] welfare to employment..." (Lipsitz 86)? According to the polls it does.

That aside, what also tires me is when white people get defensive about the effects racism has on their lives. Either they are victims of "reverse discrimination--by which they usually mean race-specific measures designed to remedy existing racial discrimination, that inconvenience or offend whites...", or they are upset at being made to "feel guilty or unduly privileged because of things that happened in the distant past" (86-87). When anyone is dismissive about the legacy that slavery and post-Reconstruction has had (and still haves) on this country I am highly irritated anyway, but to lump all of the exasperation concerning problems plaguing the Black community as "grievances soley with slavery" and that they or their family didn't own slaves negates the reality of the experience black people had/have in this country because of it. What about "racialized social policies, urban renewal, or the revived racism of contempory neoconservatism" (88)? Or how about institutionalized racism, constitutional slavery, Jim Crow and the Black Codes, and all of the other post-Reconstruction practices that have been implemented and have nothing to do with owning slaves?

Not to mention that you didn't have to own slaves to benefit from slavery. As Lipsitz states, "This view [of not owning slaves] never acknowledges how the existence of slavery and the exploitation of black labor after emancipation created opportunities from which immigrants and others benefited, even if they did not personally own slaves" (88). This also applies to people who didn't live during segregation, and don't feel responsible for what their parents or grandparents did. The issue is not if they did anything but whether or not they benefitted from someone else doing it.

On the flip side, these same people never express any concern for what Black people have to live with and had passed down to them. Fear, distrust, anger, shame, pain, depression, etc. are a reality for those who are the descendants of slaves. As a Black person, distancing yourself from slavery means dismissing what your ancestors went through. If you honestly think about it, their ability to endure slavery is the only reason you exist today. Sometimes I really don't think people (white and black) really understand this. Forgetting isn't really an option. I digress...