assignment #6 - cole knight - i am racist

At one of the aforementioned debate tournaments from this past summer, there was an optional seminar on the topic of “white fragility.” I don’t know if anyone actually reads these things, but, if so, I’m sure half of my audience stopped reading after that first sentence and most of the other half just rolled their eyes, let out a sigh, and begrudgingly decided to keep reading. If you’re in the camp of the latter, first of all, thanks for sticking with me! And second of all, I don’t blame you. I consider myself (though, of course, I’ve had my fair share and then some of slip-ups) relatively well-versed on topics like this one, and I was at minimum expecting the seminar to be somewhat incendiary and unnecessarily divisive. I blame myself for this prejudice. The actual result was an informative and in-depth conversation, ironically, about the reluctance of white people (even the supposed “woke” ones like myself) to accept their own roles in a system of discrimination that constantly disenfranchises those who are not like them. I think the most important thing that I learned was that participation in a racist system doesn’t make you morally corrupt - we all do it, but that refusing to alter the system is what is wrong. I am the beneficiary of generations of privilege. I can’t change that. But I, we, can change what happens today. And that change won’t occur unless we admit that we should create it.