Charlottesville is on us. All of us. We all have allowed racist sentiment to fester around us and emboldened the fascist, Nazi, and white supremacists who converged yesterday on the University of Virginia. This is the result of our silence.
Before you say, "Not me. I'm not racist. I've condemned what they're doing. I speak out against such things," I ask you to think of this: How many times have you let racist or bigoted comments from family, friends, and coworkers slide? Maybe you didn't feel like getting in an argument. Maybe you were worried about alienating someone. Maybe you didn't think that they were "serious;" that they were really joking.
Every time you, and I, let those comments slide, we fed into the nationalist hatred that we saw plastered on the media over the past 72 hours.
Every time we decided that our discomfort wasn't worth standing up for people of color and other marginalized groups, we fed it.
People of color have lived with this hate for centuries.
White people, on the other hand, have that luxury of deciding when and where to engage with these people. We are protected by the privilege of our white skin--we are unlikely to ever be on the receiving end of such hatred.
But if we truly believe what we espouse, we can't stay silent. It isn't the job of the black community and others to combat racism--it's ours, because it's our communities that are perpetuating it. These white supremacists aren't hiding under sheets anymore. And let's be honest: They never really were. They're not just in the South; they're not just in backwoods small towns. They're sitting next to us at work. They're worshipping in our churches. They're policing our streets, making our laws, sitting next to us at the dinner table.
It's time we stood up for all Americans, not just those who look like us.
It's time we step out of the shadows and actively work to stop this cancer in our society.
We have to speak out. We may lose friends. Coworkers may stop socializing with us. Family members may stop speaking to us. It's not going to be easy. But it's time we stepped up and really started taking ownership for the disgusting hatred being displayed around us. And we need to do it now.
It's OUR responsibility.
