My name is Michael H. Benton. I am 58 years old, white, grew up in Glynn County Georgia, and I’m here to tell everyone this bullshit has to stop. The killing of Ahmaud Arbery (I will reserve call it a murder for now) boils down to people believing the law gives them the right to do that in the name of property, and not even their own property. Have we really devolved that far? More on that point later. For now, I do not blame minorities one damn bit for being angry as hell with this, as well as the other events in the national news. Everyone should be outraged and be angry as hell. Moreover, it’s way past time to use the right word to describe the root problem, racism.
Words matter and calling the inequity in the United States “white privilege” makes it too pretty and all too easy to dismiss. A better description is minority oppression broadly and black oppression specifically. White privilege frames it as me (a white man) getting something extra, beyond my right. That’s backwards, I see it as a minority (a black man for the sake of this argument) not getting what is his due, though it is his right, just like it’s mine. It is not privilege given to whites as much as dignity taken from blacks. Be it in the form of a lack of respect, not being considered for the job, a loan denied from a bank, having 911 called simply because you are not white, no benefit of doubt while on a jog, not getting murdered while dealing with the police… the list goes on, and on, and on. I don’t get treated with respect because I am white; blacks get treated with disrespect because they’re not, to the point of loosing life itself. That is the ugly truth. White privilege whitewashes the subject—it’s racism! Nothing less.
We end up with situations like what happened here in Glynn County and in Minnesota because basic human dignity is being denied and abhorrent behavior is accepted as normal. If you don’t respected someone, it is easy to justify their mistreatment, even if you are not the one mistreating them. When hate filled speech, or tweeter posts, are excused with “he did not mean it that way,” “you’re taking it out of context,” “he’s just saying what everyone thinks,” or any other platitude, it paves the way for ignorant people to take a step further, then further, then further from equity until young black men are dead in the street for no damn reason. You legitimize living in a racist society by making excuses for racist remarks. It is especially true if you happen to look the one making the remark. To be very clear, if you are white and overlook racist overtones and code words made by other whites, be they from men in high places, like President Trump or out of the mouth of a low miscreants like David Duke of KKK infamy, you are legitimizing racism. Remaining silent is just as bad. While you might not be an apologist for racism, but your silence gives it tacit approval.
If someone gets away with a little today, someone will try a little more tomorrow, moving the line further away from equality. Next thing you know, we’ve normalized it and come up with laws ripe for abuse, like stand your ground and citizen’s arrest, which wreak of vigilantism. Even white police officers wrongly believe “this is how you deal with people that don’t look like me,” without a second thought. As racism becomes institutionalized, it moves from overt actions, like the KKK and white pride groups marching around being stupid, to the public at large accepting “it’s just how it is, how its always been.” Racism becomes so “normal” the people unaffected as its target don’t see it until a tragic death or some other national news event happens. Then they scratch their heads asking, “how can this be?” fawning outrage until the next news cycle focus attention on something else. You want to know why riots happen, we as a society, have the attention span of a gnat. This time, we have to remain engaged. We have to end this.
I will never understand what it means to put up with the indignities minorities, and I primarily mean black Americans, endure daily. That does not mean white people, like me, cannot be called to action. We must be. Until we stand up to the racism spewed by fellow whites, it will continue. In the words of Andrew Young, “Nobody black had learned anything from the ‘Letter from the Birmingham Jail’ or from the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. That was a revelation of white people.” We really need to understand Mayor Young’s point because it’s past time we learn that revelation all over again.