Thank you for sharing some of your personal history, Dave. That is very meaningful, and I appreciate your willingness to be open about it. And you bring up what I think is a really important consideration when talking about race and racism (other “isms” warrant very similar dialogue, but there’s clarity to be had on sticking to race), especially when white guys are trying to plug our way through the mess and contribute to a brighter day.

If it’s okay, maybe we can stay away from the general political philosophy stuff and focus on race? The electoral college, and democracy, and varying positions on government are very important, but I think there is a particularly unique opportunity that occurs when white people start dialoguing with white people on issues of racism. My comment in the last post about the electoral college was not intended as a philosophical position on the subject, only as clarification that the election was of less consequence and revelation about America than we get in the habit of making out of it, in my opinion.

So, if you’re up for it, here are the thoughts that I have on what you shared and what I think makes talking about race and racism difficult. But hopefully it offers something of a foundation to do so with more clarity, at least clarity on my studies and perspective. It’s two-fold, with most of what you share representing half of one of the folds.

For one, it is difficult to talk about racism because it largely exists on two primary levels: the macro (systemic/institutional) and micro (individual/interpersonal). The majority of what you have shared fits into that second category. Secondly, when we talk about racism, we are talking about a flexible and relative and abstract reality, at least as a moral happening (the lived experience can be a far less abstract reality), yet we often treat it as though it is a duality: Either something is racist or it is not racist. But this is rarely the case. Making things even more difficult, we have discourse on racism and then we have the lived experience of racism. And either of these can be obscure. You represent that very clearly in your account about your wife. One scenario is clear and the other scenario is less clear. But what is true about both is that neither are immune from the influence of racism. Even when you are not sure about the clerk following your wife around the store, it is still a consideration — a sincere doubt. This is a confirmation that racism has real and undeniable influence. But we both get that; I just wanted to say it to help clarify where I’m coming from and where I hope to go.

So, you have covered, in what you shared, a great deal of what it means to wrestle and debate with the realities of racism on the individual level. Even the example with AOC and Pelosi, though occurring between government officials, is still a happening between individuals (or small contingents of individuals); it’s still not addressing racism as a macro, systemic, and institutional reality. By this, I mean that racism is more quantifiable when we observe and analyze larger modalities, trends, policies, et al.; we are regarding culture, and political machinations, and economic systems. America made this quantifying remarkably easier when it just plain legislated a definition of race and the rights that do or do not come along with a given racial identity. There is a habit of pointing out “identity politics” or a focus on identity as a contemporary or recent trend, but that’s missing the point by a long shot. Yes, we are beginning to see a diversifying and multiplying of various identities, but there can be no mistaking that identity has been at the core of political legislation and socio-economic realities in this country since the earliest days of its development.

Not broaching everything that goes into this, for now, the primary point here is that we cannot limit our dialogue about racism to the micro level. I’m not trying to say you aren’t aware of any of this, but it’s also not part of how we have approached this dialogue on race so far. If we limit our perception of racism to personal anecdotes, we will be left with one hell of a quagmire. And this transitions into what actually concerns me about what you shared.

First, you don’t really clarify what the difference for you is between “privilege” and “advantage.” And, unfortunately, the denotations of the words are so similar that I can’t discern for myself your distinction. So, if you wouldn’t mind clarifying what the difference between those two are for you and why it’s important, that would help me out. But we clearly don’t have to spend any time on debating whether or not white people have had a leg up in the long American race. We both see that.

The thing that concerns me the most about what you’ve shared so far is that it seems you are drawing a parallel line between privileges or advantages that white folks have, and all these other categories: physical beauty, intelligence, and incompetence. I’m not sure what the distinction would be between the latter two, so for now I will regard them as one. First, I would totally agree with you, but only if there had ever been legislation passed or large political or economic systems built on handsome or beautiful. But this is not the case. It is absolutely the case with race. Please don’t get me wrong: I do not deny advantages afforded based on physical appearance. That is absolutely true; much of it represented in culture through media. But I would highly discourage anyone from drawing a parallel or equity between the advantages of handsome and beautiful with the advantages of being identified as white by the governing authorities of a given municipality. (We also have to take a moment and acknowledge that the legislation and institution of racism in this country had the cultural impact of influencing standards of beauty towards fair skin, straight hair, sloping and slender noses. So, even when we allow standards of beauty in a conversation about advantage, it still leads us back to any overarching link to racism.)

To your second attribute of advantage — intelligence and incompetence — we run into challenges as well. The first is the same argument as above. Where is there a legal definition of intelligence? At what point have we instituted large scale policy or operations that specifically define and incentivize or de-incentivize based on incompetence? And to get there, one has to begin by defining them in the first place. And once there, one has to defend that they are not subjective or circumstantial. So much of intelligence or incompetence is subject to training and education, and both of those things are massively influenced by the advantages that have been legislated or formally substantiated through socio-economic modalities. It was a feat to even do this with race, but when race has some more objective associations, like physical appearance or country of origin, then it becomes easier to define it and then offer it advantages or disadvantages accordingly. But we still had problems there. Legislators realized that the Irish, amongst others, complicated their definition of what constitutes legally white — since the Irish weren’t afforded it initially. Even then, the Irish, my ancestors, didn’t come to the country in the first place under anything like the circumstances of black Africans. But, again, I imagine we both know this. Yet, we seem to forget it when we start talking about white racial advantages having a specific type of special treatment. So, it concerns me when you start making parallels between these various types of advantages, because it seems to state or at least imply that they are of similar severity.

And I think that if we focus our attention on the macro realities of racism (again: legislation, political machinations, economic systems, culture, et al.), then we can have a clearer dialogue than those that concern the micro. But you and I are both absolutely correct to account for the micro, individual experiences of our partners, because the macro always influences the real-life experiences and bodies and minds of our loved ones. But if we don’t treat the problem for what it is, then of course we will have a hard time improving on anything for our loved ones. White men have held the cards for long enough. I believe a big part of why we are hearing so much about identity and its myriad manifestations today is because they are voices that are finally being brought to the surface. Voices that have existed for quite some time; yet, the only voices that really mattered were white and male. So when our whiteness is challenged, I think it is deleterious and threatening to the lives of our loved ones who don’t share that identity to start saying, “But, look, there are plenty of others who have advantages. Why aren’t we talking about them?” And to say that we don’t talk about physical beauty or intelligence/incompetence because it’s not politically expedient seems a far too convenient answer. The more difficult answer is that we hold responsibility because of what our white and male ancestors have done and we continue to benefit from, and we ought to be challenged to figure a way to reduce that influence and advantage. More importanly, we also have to work to heal the damage. Inter-generational impacts are not only and immutably apparent in socio-economic and political manners, but also in genetic manners, such as psychological trauma and medical illness.

I don’t believe you were intending to divert attention from the extent and special advantages of whiteness, but I would at least offer the challenge that when we start pointing away from white advantage towards other things (especially the examples you provided), we risk them being little more than diversionary tactics to dealing with the full heft of white racism. It is heavy. And it does suck. And it should be hard. We will only make it harder to actually deal with if we don’t face it head on.

Finally, to one of your other quick mentions, I couldn’t agree more about how different conversations would be if someone risked getting punched in the face. HA :-). Folks would think twice, or at least a little harder, if there fighting moves weren’t just key strokes.

But, more seriously, I think it’s also a privilege: This digital communication stuff. You and I may have never crossed paths without these keyboards. And lord knows it would be easier and lighter to just throw punches with key strokes, yet here we are, challenging ourselves to difficult but civil and respectful discourse. I think that’s something worth pointing out and taking pride in.

Now, what am I missing? What did I get totally wrong in your mind? Hit me with the good stuff!

As always, all the grace and patience and good will to you, sir.