Guest Writer: Mark Matlock
White guys are under attack, or at least it feels that way. I’ve been reflecting on what this means and what I’ve learned and continue to learn about myself.
1. I can’t help that I am a white guy. It’s who I am, but I recognize that this does not excuse me from hurting other people knowingly or unknowingly. In fact, I may have added responsibility for undoing the wrong being done.
2. The “unknowingly hurting people” aspect is what I struggle with most. I don’t like to be considered ignorant and I don’t like being blamed for doing something I don’t think I did. Yet, I’m coming to realize more and more that I am part of a problem even though I’m not consciously participating. This is white privilege, I don’t like that word, because it sure doesn’t feel like privilege, but the world I live in was built by white men for the benefit of white men. Does a fish understand water? Only when they leave it. I am the fish.
3. If I engage the conversation, I will eventually say the wrong thing. That’s okay. I need to learn from that. Better to engage and stumble than remain in my ignorance.
4. I unknowingly hurt people of color because of systemic racism. Systemic Racism really exists, my use of the dictionary definition of “racism” to prove it doesn’t is, in fact, an example of systemic racism.
5. This thing called white fragility is real. I don’t like it because I’m not fragile, or maybe its because a woman wrote the book (“she has an agenda,” “she doesn’t know me,” “I’m not fragile you’re trying to make me that way”… wait is this my racism coming out?)
6. … but I read the book and wow… for the most part it captures my experience and what I observe in my other white guy friends. I’m tired of talking about race, being aware of myself as a white person all the time. It’s exhausting… oh wait everything I just wrote about being white is almost exactly what my friends of color have been saying for years. Hmmm.
7. What I consider to be healthy, vibrant conversations about race are often seen by people of color as a display of my white supremacy. Has my whiteness shaped the way I interact and discuss this topic?… it appears that might be the case.
8. I like to have an opinion about everything, I argue and move on, but these issues are deeply felt to affected people and they can’t move on. I need to treat this discussion with the respect and weight it deserves.
9. I hide behind reason, logic and rational thought as superior tools, forgetting this is a conversation about relationships, and that requires some other tools in the toolkit I don’t use as often like humility, submission, empathy, and love.
10. I like to be funny, my humor on this issue doesn’t reveal my cleverness, it often hurts people and gets me in trouble.
11. I’m not as curious about people as I give myself credit for. I need to ask more questions to learn why “I don’t get it.”
12. I want my friends of color to rescue me, to give me props, to validate me as one who gets it. They are true friends when they don’t but rather confront me.
13. White guys will most likely never be woke. There’s a moment you might think you are, then you realize you aren’t. It’s not about being “woke”, it’s about people experiencing equality, understanding is what is important.
14. Time… straight white cisgender men want to solve problems and move on (don’t believe me ask your spouse) … reconciliation is a relationship word. It’s not all in the head, this isn’t an easy fix.
15. Re-read your first point.
Mark Matlock has been working with the parents, ministers and non profits for nearly three decades and he’s spoken live to more than 1 million teenagers. He is the principal at WisdomWorks, a consulting firm that helps Christian leaders leverage the transforming power of wisdom to accomplish their mission. Mark is the former executive director of Youth Specialties and the creator of PlanetWisdom Student Conferences. In all his free time, he has written more than twenty books for teens and their parents including Faith For Exiles with David Kinnaman, President Barna Research.