Black Lives, White Lives

When I mentioned George Floyd in my newsletter last month, it moved a very kind University of Florida criminal law professor to share a list of anti-racism resources for white people.

I don’t know how she knew I was white. There’s no picture of me in the newsletter.

But I’m pretty damn white. I’m a son of Texas who grew up in California singing “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a nigger by the toe.” In the fifth grade I didn’t know why a park along the American River was called Negro Bar: we never saw any Negroes there. I still didn’t know when I wrote that sentence. Just about a minute ago I learned it was called that because of its historical importance. During the California Gold Rush, African American miners became the first to prospect the gravel bar there.

That was part of the Florida professor’s point. Michelle Jacobs wrote, “One of the major problems with the ongoing quagmire of race in the U.S. is white persons generally refuse to take any responsibility for educating themselves on the history of our country. Many persons of color are now feeling terribly burdened with having to repeatedly explain what people could learn for themselves…if they wanted to.”

I think I had that coming — me, and the current president of our country, whom I feel almost affectionate toward, now that I discover we share common ground.

Like him, I haven’t been close to very many black people. I didn’t even meet any black person before the ninth grade. We were both trumpet players, and I became his best friend. But I was his best friend because he had no other friend at an intermediate school with no other black students and no other white students who would even talk to him.

My best friend in law school was black, but I get no anti-racism credit for that. It was in part because she had the most infectious and open laugh I’d ever heard. People of any color, except those just too drenched in racist (de)values, felt good around her.

Maybe unlike the President, I wish I’d found — taken conscious steps to find — more occasion to be around people who weren’t white like me.

So here’s that list of anti-racism resources. “It is a very helpful list of resources,” Jacobs says, “that can help white people educate themselves on many of the issues that fester under the issue of police killings. It is very thorough, gives books to read as well as suggestions for action items.”

There’s stuff in there to help you raise anti-racist children so more kids don’t grow up singing racist rhymes. There are books and articles to read; films, TV series, and videos to watch; podcasts to listen to.

Towards the end of the list is another list, of “75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice.”

I just clicked on it. It’s already grown to “97 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice.”

You might want to click on it, too.

We’ve got a lot to do.