“Being neither a ‘good’ white person nor a liberal white person will get you off the proverbial hook.”

“Dear White America,” begins a New York Times op-ed by black Emory Professor George Yancy. In this discriminating Christmas Eve “gift” only to white people, Yancy asks “to let go of your ‘white innocence'” and bring yourself to the point of admission of “the racist poison that is inside of you.”

“Being neither a ‘good’ white person nor a liberal white person will get you off the proverbial hook,” Yancy states. This is for everyone, well, at least, everyone that is white.

Yancy wants his white readers to feel a bit of pain reading this letter: “After all, it is painful to let go of your ‘white innocence,’ to use this letter as a mirror, one that refuses to show you what you want to see, one that demands that you look at the lies that you tell yourself so that you don’t feel the weight of responsibility for those who live under the yoke of whiteness, your whiteness.”

And the professor isn’t interested in your defenses, he’s heard them all: “Don’t tell me about how many black friends you have. Don’t tell me that you are married to someone of color. Don’t tell me that you voted for Obama. Don’t tell me that I’m the racist. Don’t tell me that you don’t see color. Don’t tell me that I’m blaming whites for everything. To do so is to hide yet again. You may have never used the N-word in your life, you may hate the K.K.K., but that does not mean that you don’t harbor racism and benefit from racism. After all, you are part of a system that allows you to walk into stores where you are not followed, where you get to go for a bank loan and your skin does not count against you, where you don’t need to engage in ‘the talk’ that black people and people of color must tell their children when they are confronted by white police officers.”

Wallowing in self-victimization, Yancy continues: “As you reap comfort from being white, we suffer for being black and people of color.”

So, here is what Yancy expects from white people:

What I’m asking is that you first accept the racism within yourself, accept all of the truth about what it means for you to be white in a society that was created for you. I’m asking for you to trace the binds that tie you to forms of domination that you would rather not see. When you walk into the world, you can walk with assurance; you have already signed a contract, so to speak, that guarantees you a certain form of social safety.

What does Yancy want in return for this gracious “gift?” Love, of course. And what better way to do that than to “unmask” your “white supremacy:”

White America, are you prepared to be at war with yourself, your white identity, your white power, your white privilege? Are you prepared to show me a white self that love has unmasked? I’m asking for love in return for a gift; in fact, I’m hoping that this gift might help you to see yourself in ways that you have not seen before.

However, this open letter wasn’t the only gift. Yancy offered another — one that truly needs the “deep breath” he asks readers to take:

If you have young children, before you fall off to sleep tonight, I want you to hold your child. Touch your child’s face. Smell your child’s hair. Count the fingers on your child’s hand. See the miracle that is your child. And then, with as much vision as you can muster, I want you to imagine that your child is black.

Does everybody feel better, or at least super guilty? Great.

So, how does Yancy know so much about the racism of all white people acknowledged or otherwise? Because, as he explains, he is “sexist” and continues to “falter” and “oppress” women, though it is “unintentional.” See?

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/emory-prof-dear-white-america-admit-racist-poison-inside-you