The Call is Coming from Inside the House

Man of Shadows, by Joe Graham CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

​I was bullied from age 8 through high school. Why? In 1958, I desegregated my suburban, northern California, elementary school. No National Guard protection. No media stories.
 
The first week of school, a girl in my class who lived directly across the street from me handed out invitations to her birthday party to everyone in the class… except me. A couple of weeks later, my father brought home an adorable German Shepherd puppy. Kids from the neighborhood broke into our backyard, taunted us with the pup, and threw him in the path of oncoming traffic where he was struck and killed.
 
Another girl who lived across the street began taunting me every single day. “I choose you” was her daily call to fight. I was a sweet girl then. Although my father had been a boxer, I abhorred anything causing physical pain to anyone. In those first weeks I was utterly alone. Not wanting to disappoint my parents and their desire to “represent the race,” I said nothing to them. After several months, though, I’d had enough. I finally accepted that girl’s challenge. I knew nothing about self-defense, but something inside me broke. I determined I would rather die than continue to be bullied.
 
The fight began just outside the school gate. Because the school was half a block from my house, someone ran and got my mother who flew to the scene along with other nearby parents. The scrap ended within minutes. I don’t remember much about my physical condition (though I’m pretty sure my dress was torn beyond repair). My parents were furious with me, and never did ask about the origin of the fight. They let me know I let them down. Let The Race down.
 
But here’s the important part… I was never physically challenged again. Was I still bullied? Over the years I was called many names, excluded from all social events, and treated as a burden or ignored by most teachers. I never, ever, felt this thing people call “safe.”
 
So it was with fascination 30 years later when I observed a pattern where white, liberal women in antiracism workshops would do the equivalent of the white handkerchief drop, clutch their pearls, and whine about how “unsafe” they felt. The minute they were confronted with the horrific history of white oppression of Black and Brown people, they had feelings, and chose to identify those as issues of safety. No one yelled at them, threw things at them, or physically attacked them, yet they chose to identify their discomfort as lack of safety. Meanwhile, they felt utterly at peace with the people who would yell, throw things, and attack them in their own homes. The number one killer of white women is white men.
 
When DOGE attacked the first federal building a year ago, I was shocked at the passive response from federal workers. I came of age in an era where people would chain themselves to gates of nuclear power plants or nest in upper branches of old growth trees; where activism included ACTing. Why weren’t federal workers chaining themselves to their desks or barricading themselves in their offices? Why weren’t they writing malicious code to protect the entire country’s data from being highjacked? Who were these people who took an oath to protect us and the Constitution but walked away at the first real threat? Who are these people willing to casually give up our attempt at democracy?
 
So here I sit now, watching as white men (again) indiscriminately attack, kill, and rape and I wonder… do they get it now? The call was always coming from inside their own house.
 
From the beginning of US history, white women have been told the lie that white men were their protectors, without ever being allowed to question the Faustian bargain underlying that protection: white men could do whatever they wanted, but women had to silently accept the scraps of independence thrown their way. The more white women behaved in ways that upheld men’s power, the more benefits they received. But the moment they stepped outside that structure, let alone challenged it, all protection was withdrawn.
 
It’s a straight line from the Salem Witch Trials to the death of Renée Good. White women who didn’t conform to white supremacy and patriarchy have always been punished. From the white suffragettes to Viola Luizzo, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Cassidy Hutchinson, stepping outside the established lines of “a woman’s place” was punished, not by Black or Brown men or women, but by white men. And justified by other white women clinging to male adjacency for their power.
 
While white women sustain the mythology of dangerous Blackness and Brownness, they are beaten, raped, and murdered by white men. They are treated as incompetent and undeserving of personal or professional attainment by white men. Time and again they pursue the promise of protection by the very people who have provided them the least of it. At what point do you recognize where your actual oppression comes from? At what moment do you realize your definition of safety is built on shifting sands? At what point do you realize the decisions you make, the political stances you adopt, the way you structure your lives, are all based on a foundational lie? White men are protecting white supremacy because it benefits them, and they’re using you to do it.
 
Before continuing… a side note for all the brains cycling through the “there are plenty of good white men” scenario. Yes, there are some. Do you know the names Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner? Like Alex Pretti, they were murdered while doing what was moral and right. They all broke the most sacred tenets of white supremacy: they used their power on behalf of the oppressed, to shine a light on the real oppressors, thereby forfeiting the benefits of life, liberty, or safety conferred on them at birth.
 
In my childhood neighborhood there were two white couples who were treated with the utmost disrespect. Why? Because the men doted on their wives not with material goods but with respect. Every family decision was made mutually. Child-raising and homemaking tasks were shared burdens and joys. These wonderful men were viewed by other couples as aberrations. Yet in those other families were women and children who were regularly beaten, whose daughters were sexually assaulted in the home, where children with disabilities were hidden away; where women were convinced the burden of shame was theirs; where women joined in the oppression as a strategy to cover up their own.
 
So what is the solution? I wrote in a South Seattle Emerald column about the necessity to go beyond revolution to evolution. What, then, is the evolution in this scenario?
 
Simply put: white people need to see where their oppression is actually coming from and refuse to participate in it. You need to stop believing every white man is going to protect you. You need to learn the difference between safety and oppression. You need to stop running to the shadow of white supremacy. It will not protect you.
 
Shed the lies that Black and Brown people are out to get you. If it wasn’t for the damage your fear does to us, our lives would be too full of family and community to worry about you. FBI statistics show the majority of crime in the country is committed by white men.
 
Question the lies. If the jobs in your hometown were sent overseas, who actually made the decisions to send them? Who owned the corporations or sat on their Boards? If you think Black and Brown people are taking “your” jobs, who is making those hiring decisions and on what basis? Also, what exactly makes you believe those jobs are yours?
 
Stop believing in American exceptionalism. Every country is filled with people trying to live their best lives, however they define them. Though they may express their cultures in ways different from you, they are equally passionate about their families (especially their children), their health, and the agency they have in their own lives.
 
Examine your internal definition of the American dream. It isn’t things; it is the ability to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. This includes the freedom to make a fool of yourself and be wrong as long as you don’t damage anyone else. But who convinced you the American dream was things? What was in it for them?
 
Instead of following every white man who promises you a safety they can’t provide, instead of voting as if you’re crowning prom king or queen, take a good look at who will stand up for us all. Who would chain themselves to their desk to ensure democracy not just for you, but for everyone?
 
Or, you can keep wringing your hankies and give your power to the next charlatan with witty repartee who comes along with promises of stability, at the cost of other people’s lives, and brings us back to this very spot in another couple of generations.

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