Essays on a variety of subjects, links of interest, and recommendations.
“Guilty for Being White”
Like everyone, I see images and clips of the nation-wide protests against racial injustice via the news and social media. The scenes and images are sometimes disturbing, sometimes inspiring. The discussions are often heated.
I’ve heard people say things like – “I’m tired of people making me feel guilty for being White!”
I’m a middle-class, middle-aged, White man living in the suburbs of Seattle.
Are people trying to make me feel guilty? Am I being treated as if I were guilty?
What would that really look like?
According to a 2018 DOJ report, police were over twice as likely to use force or threaten to use force when engaging with people of color. This data isn’t about the police pursuing known criminals or even suspects of a crime, this happens when police initiate contact with people for any reason.
African Americans make up only 13.4% of the population, yet, according to FBI data, in 2018 nearly 27.4% of total arrests in the United States were Black Americans (and this number jumps up to 35% for minors). Black Americans are more than twice as likely to be arrested than White Americans.
| Race/Ethnicity | General Population | Arrests |
| White | 64% | 54% |
| Black | 13.4% | 27% |
| Hispanic/Latino | 18.3% | 18.8% |
| Indigenous | 1.5% | 2.3% |
There are over 1 million arrests for drug possession each year. Not drug dealers, not drug manufacturers or kingpins, people carrying drugs for their personal use. In 2018, 40% of drug arrests were for marijuana, an offense so innocuous that it’s no longer a crime in 33 states.
Despite the fact that Whites and Blacks use and sell drugs at approximately the same rate (Whites a little more, actually), Black Americans – still only 13.4% of the population – make up 35% of arrests, 55% of prosecutions, and 74% of imprisonment for drug possession.
Let’s say we’re at a Bruno Mars concert. It’s a small venue so there are only 2,000 people in the place. The crowd is a near-perfect representation of the American population – of the 2,000 attendees, there are 1,280 White folks and 268 Black folks.
An estimated 10% of the US population uses illicit drugs (across race and ethnicity), so 130 of the White people at our concert are smoking pot, as are 27 of the Black people. The show takes place in one of the states where pot isn’t legal so the police come into the venue looking for drugs.
The police do what they do and arrest 20 people for possession – 13 White pot smokers and 7 Black pot smokers.
Of these, the DA chooses to prosecute 4 Whites and 4 Blacks.
In the end, half of them are sent to prison – 1 White man and 3 Black men.
Over six times as many White people were actually smoking pot at the concert, but three times as many Black people ended up in jail for the “crime.” In a justice system with no racial bias, we’d expect 14 of the White pot smokers to meet the same fate as the 3 Blacks. Instead, only 1 White stoner went to prison.
I made up the Bruno Mars concert, but this scenario is a direct representation of the actual arrest, prosecution, and incarceration data for drug possession in the United States. There is no escaping the racial bias revealed by the statistics of American law enforcement.
In 2018 the imprisonment rate for Black men (for all crimes) was 5.8 times that of White men, this after the incarceration of African Americans in the U.S. dropped 28% from 2008 to 2018. Whites make up 64% of the U.S. population, yet they account for only 39% of the incarcerated population, while Blacks Americans make up only 13.4% of the general population and 40% of those incarcerated.
| Race/Ethnicity | General Population | Arrests | Incarceration |
| White | 64% | 54% | 39% |
| Black | 13.4% | 27% | 40% |
| Hispanic/Latino | 18.3% | 18.8% | 19% |
| Indigenous | 1.5% | 2.3% | 1% |
You might think that if someone is in jail, it’s because they’re guilty, but 74% of people held in U.S. jails are not convicted of any crime.
Incarceration means a loss of freedom, of the right to vote, of the presence of family and friends. Even after a sentence is served it can mean a loss of voting rights, job opportunities, freedom of movement, and reputation for the rest of one’s life.
How does this happen? Do we really think Black Americans are guiltier than White Americans?
It turns out that if we’re White, then yes, we probably do.
A 2013 Gallup poll showed that only 25% of White Americans believed that the U.S Justice system was racially biased. Given the gross disparity in arrests, prosecutions, and convictions between Whites and Blacks in America, if we don’t think the Justice System is biased, then we must think Black Americans are guilty.
Why do we think that?
A thorough answer to that question is too complex for me to attempt, but one reason that Americans believe in Black criminality is because we have been told to do so.
Although minority representation in media has improved in recent years, it is no secret that media portrayals of African Americans, and Black men in particular, have created and reinforced negative stereotypes for decades.
One hundred years ago, the film “Birth of a Nation” depicted Black men as crazed, violent rapists ruthlessly pursuing innocent White women and the Ku Klux Klan as saviors and defenders of justice. It was a nation-wide blockbuster. Depending on your age and family history, your great-grandparents, grand-parents, or even parents may have been among the millions that flocked to see this film.
Since then, when present at all, the vast majority of roles in film and television have portrayed African Americans using only a few extreme stereotypes and Black men in particular as violent criminals.
It should be no surprise that news coverage also skews toward these stereotypes. Images of Black Americans as jobless drug abusers flooded the news in the 1980’s and fueled the War On Drugs and the disproportionate prosecution of people of color that continues today.
A number of studies from 1998 through 2002 confirmed the severe racial bias in news reporting. A Los Angeles study found that in television news stories about crime, 37% of suspects were black, even though Blacks made up only 21% of those arrested. Racial disparities in reporting nationwide were greatest when the victim’s race was taken into account. Whites represented only 13% of homicide victims in actual crime reports, but 43% of homicide victims in local news. And perhaps most revealing, although only 10% of victims in crime reports were Whites victimized by Blacks, these crimes made up 42% of televised cases. [The referenced studies are cited on page 23 of this report.]
We already know that Black Americans were being disproportionately targeted, arrested, and prosecuted. On top of that, news reporting inflated those already skewed numbers by 200-400%. This is the news that our police officers watched every day as they grew up. This is the news that we all grew up with. The movies we all watched. The stories we were all told.
This is part of what people mean when they talk about systemic racism. It isn’t about individual people engaging in overt racial discrimination (although that also happens far too often). Systemic racism occurs when everyone has been repeatedly exposed to racially biased mythology, imagery, and information to such a degree that we accept these racially skewed perspectives as reality.
[Some worry that discussing racial discrimination casts Black Americans as “victims” of systemic racism, just another racial stereotype. The impacts of systemic racism are real and deeply damaging, but individuals who suffer under oppression are not helpless victims. We are all human beings who respond to the cultural influences of human society with a vast array of behaviors. Calling out systemic racism and oppression does not characterize Black Americans in any particular way, as a group or individually. It shines a light on the very real racial injustice present in our society.]
Should I feel guilty for being White?
I don’t believe that anyone can “make me feel” any emotion – particularly guilt. Guilt is a natural adaptive response to doing someone harm or doing something we regret. It is not a response to being accused of something we didn’t do. If we feel guilty, it is probably because we believe that we’ve behaved poorly.
If society as a whole continually treated me as if I were guilty of something, if decades worth of images in the movies, TV, and news continually portrayed people that looked like me primarily as criminals, if the police stopped me on the street and frisked me because of what I looked like, if folks from my neighborhood were arrested and thrown in jail six times as often as other people – if that were what my forefathers and I actually experienced, day in and day out, year after year, for centuries – then maybe I would internalize something akin to guilt. I might begin to believe that, simply by being born into my family, by looking the way I looked, I somehow deserved the suspicion, abuse, and punishment that I continually received. But that’s not guilt. That is something much darker and more insidious than guilt. That is something no one should ever feel.
If you, or I, or someone we know, feels guilty when confronted with these difficult facts, we aren’t feeling that way because we are White, but because of our own inaction in the face of blatant injustice.
Let’s turn that feeling into motivation. Let’s do something. Maybe we can start by learning what it means to be anti-racist.
A note on data – I am neither a statistician nor an expert on any of the subjects that I discuss herein. I have provided links to sources (government statistics when I could find them) for the data I cite. I encourage everyone to continue to research these topics.
A Few Good Apples
In a recent social media post, a friend lamented the use of the term “a few bad apples” in reference to racist police violence. Many people allude to this when addressing police violence against Black Americans, arguing that we shouldn’t disparage the police because of the actions of a few officers. My friend objected because people failed to acknowledge the second part of the aphorism, that those few, “spoil the barrel” – that the few rogue officers corrupt the entire institution. I appreciate the sentiment but even complete, the aphorism fails to describe the real problem. (more…)
The Other Side
I feel confident in asserting that you, dear reader, have heard the following joke–
Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the other side.
I feel almost as confident in the assertion that you never really got the joke. (more…)
Fortress – A Fantasy Combat Card Game
Last week my Main Squeeze and I taught the game of Fortress to a group of 20 middle-schoolers, so I thought it was about time I posted the rules on-line.
Never really a deep geek, I still played a fair amount of Dungeons & Dragons as a teen. I was usually the one that aggravated the DM to no end by stubbornly insisting that my character could discover a deck of trumps from Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber even if it didn’t exist in the Dungeon Master’s guide. (more…)
Remember: the Incomparable Prince
Two years ago today, Prince died.
We all die. This inevitable fact gives our lives meaning and urgency, initiates despair and depression, inspires art, appreciation of beauty, and reverent contemplation. The looming threat of death can inspire greatness and can breed anger, fear, and violence. Whether we embrace our end or fight it, ignore the inevitable or stare it in the face, we can’t avoid death. It will be the conclusion for all of us. (more…)
Recommended: Promise by Christi Nogle
I usually listen to podcasts like RadioLab, More Perfect, Hidden Brain, and Invisibilia when I run. (I use “run” in the most modern sense – the pace at which I shuffle my feet used to be called “jogging” but that term seems to have slipped out of favor.) But while waiting for fresh episodes, I often look to Escape Pod, an always reliable source for professionally rendered audio sci-fi short stories, to keep my mind off my tiring legs.
Yesterday, I was entranced by an episode in Escape Pod’s Artemis Rising series (a month of sci-fi by female authors) called Promise by Christi Nogle. I won’t spoil anything about this story except to say that if you like crisp plots that tie up neatly at the end, then you might look askance at this one, but I recommend it anyway. Promise is mesmerizing and beautifully read by Tina Connolly. I enjoyed it so much that after I finished my run, I went to the site and read the story for myself.
Art (for Escape Pod) by Geneva B
Listen: To (Anything and Everything by) Janelle Monáe
I’m a middle-aged white guy living in the suburbs of Seattle, so my late arrival to this particular party should surprise no one. I surely won’t be the last through the door, so to save any of you that embarrassment, I encourage you to explore the amazing talent that is Janelle Monáe. (more…)
For Writers: Kelly Robson’s Luke vs Han
For those of you who write, tell stories, or take an interest in the process, I highly recommend an article that appeared in the January issue of Clarkesworld magazine:
Luke vs Han: An Approach to Characterization by Kelly Robson
Although it’s a couple months old, I’ve referenced this article in multiple conversations over the last few weeks so I thought I’d share it here as well. (more…)
An Excellent Read: The Quantum Magician (Part 1)
The cover story from the Jan/Feb issue of Analog Magazine, The Quantum Magician by Derek Künsken, is a delightful first installment in a hard sci-fi serial that opens in classic Seven Samurai style and plays at the edges of what we know, or what we think we know, about physics. The science is intriguing but the fiction is entirely engaging. I look forward to following the crazy cast of characters through the ongoing adventure!
Another Highly Recommended piece that you can sample by clicking here.
Enjoy!
Recommended: The Rescue of the Renegat
The Rescue of the Renegat, a novella by Kristine Kathryn Rusch from the latest issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction, is a super fun read! Flawed characters race against time in a deep space adventure with just enough mystery to keep the pages flipping.
You can check out an excerpt by clicking here, but will need to purchase the magazine to read the story in its entirety.
Both the magazine as a whole and this piece in particular are Highly Recommended.
Happy New Year Everyone!