12.6

"Let me start by saying 'I am not a racist.'" Somewhere in the hall, a gasp. "Of course, I can't start by saying 'I am not a racist," because somewhere along the line the ability to label prejudice was taken from the individual and given to the collective. That's fine. I don't cry about that; no one has ever been able to control the labels other people ascribe to them. Billions of people live and die without being able to break from the mold others pour them into." The building is stuffy with people, the dense choke of breath recycled wafts its way up to me and slithers around my nose. The young woman who asked the question is livid, and I can see her emotion shake off her in waves, the crowd around her pulsing slightly with it, resonating her outrage.
"What I can say is that I can't comprehend racists." The mere mention of the word from a mouth--my mouth--of privilege strikes a note of discord in the gasps that filter to my pedestal high above the mob. Indiscretion! How dare he say such a thing! That word is ours; he can't know it like we do. "For my entire life, I have valued the viewpoints of others. I have worked to read and internalize the values and challenges of disenfranchised people. I seek the voices of race, of class, of disability, of youth, age, sexuality, and gender. I try to understand their viewpoints. I do my best, but I can only read so much. Every story is unique and can only add its melody to the hymn of humanity building in my heart. I have to try. But I'm limited to one slice of personal familiarity. I'm such a small thread in the tapestry of life that I only touch a very slim section." I can hear the creaking of their old ideologies now, trembling under the ponderous weight of my accusation: can A White Man be right? Can he get through a thought, a sentence, a word, without some twistable sentiment that can be turned and driven straight back, as a knife, into his gut? "How am I to understand the struggles and consequences of trans, gay, old, young, disabled, poor, or black? I am a white, cis straight man. And you know the awful truth? I don't even understand what it means to be that--how could I? Because some of us are racist. And I don't get it." Damn him, the packed humanity whispers. Damn him, not for what he's said, but for who he is. Racism is only practicable by the powerful against the weak. He'll understand what racism looks like when we're done with him. I knew I hadn't said anything wrong, but