A tall, heavyset Black man got onto the subway dressed in a three-piece suit. The man was sharp as a tack and obviously dressed to the nines for a reason. Out of nowhere, the whole subway car hears a Black woman say, “OKAY, LUTHER!” and every Black person, including the man in the suit, burst out laughing. That is a small glimpse into why I love being Black. I love our joy and ease among strangers.
I love that, second to War and Imperialism, America’s biggest export is Black Culture. The way we dress, the slang we use, the music we listen to, and the food we eat is exported around the globe. Korean fried chicken is so good because Black soldiers taught them how we do it in the South and they made it their own — they didn’t make ambrosia salad or casseroles into a universally recognized variation of a classic.
I’m proud of myself as an individual person for overcoming so many hurdles and still managing to claw my way into the top 10% of US earners. I’m proud of myself for doing that while Black because I’m only a couple of generations removed from slavery and my mother picked cotton in the morning before school.
It tickles me to no end that Simone Biles and Serena Williams and Beyonce are Black. If they were white, there would be no debate about whether they are the greatest in their field, but we have to mention Larisa Latynina and Margaret Court and Taylor Swift to put a coda on whether they should be considered the best or not. I’m proud to be alive and Black at the same time that they are because I’ve watched how much racism they had to push against to reach the heights they’ve been able to climb.
As a white person, what is there about being white that gives you a sense of pride?
Let’s be absolutely clear: there is nothing wrong with being white. Half the people I know are white (said in my best I have a Black friend voice). No one should feel guilty about being born with whatever characteristics you have, whether you feel like they give you a leg up or not. Tall people get paid more. Attractive people are offered more opportunities. If you’re born to a rich family, you’re more likely to land a job that will keep you rich. And if you’re born white you’re less likely to be murdered by the police, falsely accused of a crime, arrested for a low-level drug offense, passed over for a promotion, denied housing — these are just facts. No one chooses to be born white, and if there are any feelings of guilt, then it’s up to that individual to learn how to separate personal guilt from the uneasy feelings of benefitting from the systems put in place by your ancestors to give you a head start in life.
So the guilt is off the table. I hereby give you permission to not feel guilty for being white. Now, there is a big jump between Releasing White Guilt and Feeling White Pride. My expectation is that most normal people should land somewhere in a neutral middle, because defining White Pride would mean finding characteristics about existing as a white person that make you love whiteness. What are those things?
It’s easy to see why Gay Pride exists. Straight people are always trying to legislate the community out of existence. Queer people are demonized and villainized for political points whenever it seems beneficial to do so. From losing jobs to being denied adoption rights to barely clinging on to the ability to marry, the community is always under attack, and yet we persist. We throw huge parties for the sole purpose of putting on ridiculous outfits and meeting each other. There’s a whole language of pop culture that we speak to each other. We make the internet fun and we’re the reason why your favorite celebrities look good on screen.
Black Pride is our celebration of who we are and what we’ve been able the accomplish in the face of white opposition. We’ve been free in this country for less time than we were in chains, and even if those freedoms are valid on paper, they aren’t applied equitably across the board. We have the most easily recognizable and poorly imitated cuisine in the country and we made it from the scraps we were allowed to have. The music you listen to can be traced straight back to our churches, our celebrations, and our Motherland. Your nails, your hair extensions, and your body goals come from Black women. How “cool” you are is directly proportional to how much Black culture you’ve managed to ingest and whether you can make it seem authentic to yourself. Your favorite pop vocalist learned from Whitney. Your favorite dancing diva learned from Janet. Their producers learned from Babyface and Quincy Jones.
We did all of that without fair access to housing, education, or healthcare. We did that while being persecuted by the police and railroaded by the justice system. We did that while the US allowed the Contras to send planes of cocaine from Nicaragua into our inner cities to fuel the crack epidemic because our government was funding them to overthrow the Sandinistas.
If White Pride has any validity, if there are genuine feelings of accomplishment to be had by being a descendant of Europe, it’s the fact that as white people spread out from that continent to colonize the planet, they had the deviousness to create a racial hierarchy so they could create laws that would keep them in power. Humans who lost their melanin as they walked further away from Africa were lucky enough to find themselves in an area of the planet with animals they could domesticate, which gave them a reason to settle, live with those animals, contract their diseases, and give those diseases to brown people once they figured out how to get on a boat. They were smart enough to use Christianity as their weapon of subjugation and justify the ends of entire civilizations with the Bible. Anything to be proud of after that point is nullified by the fact that you already started in first place. If you start a marathon at mile 20, how proud can you be that you finished it first?
Because of this, White Pride cannot start from a place of dignity and joy for overcoming roadblocks. It cannot symbolize persistence or resistance because no one has put you in danger. It cannot be borne of that sense of accomplishment you feel when you have succeeded despite all of the odds, because white people stacked the odds in their own favor.
White in America is a malleable category itself that allows more people to participate in the privileges of being white as it suits the powers that be who decide which Americans should have more rights bestowed upon them. We don’t have fights between the Irish and the WASPs anymore, because they all get to participate in white privilege now. The Italians and Greeks get to participate in white privilege now. As “white” needs more numbers, more people are allowed to participate in whiteness. White-passing Latinos? Y’all are on deck now, especially Republican Cubans, so stand by for your induction over the next few decades.
The notion of being white in the US is explicitly tied to power, privilege, and supremacy in ways that directly contrast what it means to be Black or be queer. As a collective race in America, what can you be proud of, as an entire group or as a reflection of being white, that is not tainted by the circumstances in which those accomplishments were realized? Don’t be mad at Black people for having pride. Be mad at your ancestors for creating a world where you can’t have it too.
White people should be proud of their individual efforts. Period. Racial pride should have no piece of that effort. You got that job you always wanted? Celebrate. You grew up poor and now you bought your mom a house? Congratulations. Lady Gaga sold out a tour? Good job, Lady, for your achievements on behalf of Stefani Germanotta. Leave White Pride out of it because there’s no way for you to define what that is without pointing toward the subjugation of a whole lot of other people on the way to that position.
But Beyonce sold out a tour? Yes, I am proud of my Black sister. Black Pride all day.
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