When I was staying at a youth hostel in Melbourne, I had a conversation with a young man from South Africa. When I asked him who is in power, he said, “Monkeys.” This is racism: Real, crude, ugly racism that deserves a punch in the face.
Here is what is not racism: Taking black people on for the wrong things that they are doing. This is not racism. This is equality, and with it accountability. It is not racism to call Idi Amin a dictator and it is not racism to call gangsters parasites. White people who act like Idi Amin or the gangsters would get criticised as well.
Black people deserve to be treated like adults, not like little children. And part of being an adult is being accountable for one’s actions. There are many black people who understand this and act accordingly. There are however any number of both white and black people who appear not to understand this. These people see as racism things that aren’t racism; and as they continue to shout wolf they keep making not credible themselves and others when a real wolf comes out of the woodwork.
Such as, for example, the man from South Africa I mentioned above.
I, for one, am not a racist at all. I have been a part of majority black cultural events, and I saw these people as brothers. I have maintained serious, lasting friendships with black people, and at no point did I treat them as anything less than myself. There are many people who think that because they don’t have racist attitudes they are enlightened and better than others. Most of these people have done nothing to benefit black people, and their attitude is worthless. Whereas I actually have had extensive goings-on with black people, and I treated them right.
A black Republican once told me that the problem with America is that black people have been slaves, and they’ve never been able to get over it. He himself has done quite well. So have any number of other black people I know. Black people in America these days don’t have an excuse. America has had a black President. And a vast amount of effort, including both black people and white people, has been made – and continues to be made - to fight racism in America. In this black people received a lot of help from white people. Their hatred of white people is therefore meritless.
And what is especially meritless is their nastiness to the white people closest to them – big-city liberals who believe in civil rights and want to see the situation for black people improve.
If you want to fight racism, fight people such as the man from South Africa I told you about. But I do not think that people involved in this have the guts. It is much easier to attack people who don’t bear you ill will than to attack people who do. So we have abuse being heaped on white people who support black people, while real racists go on with their ugliness.
What we see here is cowardice and hypocrisy. And that does injury to the black man.