In light of recent events (read: the election, the inauguration, the past few weeks), I think it is abundantly that clear that white entitlement is a bitch. And that it will try to drag us all down into the dirt if it can. I have a couple of thoughts about how we can mitigate this kind of nonsense in future.

My black people — we need to stop letting non-black people get away with dumb shit. Yeah, I said it. We need to stop tucking nonsense in at night. We need to start believing that our white and non-black POC brethren can do better than they currently are. We need to hold them to higher standards of humanity, and not to baby them so much that the systems of inequality that they both consciously and subconsciously benefit from (and in some cases maintain) are never dismantled.

Let me state upfront that I have been guilty of this on many occasions. I was that kid in middle and high school who assured my non-black friends that they could they say the n-word as long a black person said they could, and if they made sure to say n*ggah and not n*gger. This brought them endless glee and made me feel extremely uncomfortable. But as long as they were happy with me, everything was Gucci. The problem is that in the global system of white supremacy, this is not how things work. Being an agreeable Negro did not protect me from being racially profiled at the local supermarket. It did not keep my teenage years from being marred by white supremacist beauty ideals. It did not stop people from perceiving me as threatening or violent. Because it did nothing to challenge the ideas my friends held about people of African descent.

I have also been the friend who offers up way too many cookies to my white and non-black friends and acquaintances for doing the bare minimum. “Oh, thank you so much for being my friend. Some people wouldn’t even walk on the same side of the street as me.” We all know that not every black person is a saint. But looking at my social circles, I would say a fair number of us are decent human beings and some even downright delightful. And non-black people do not deserve medals of honor for befriending, dating, or even marrying us. Better yet, they should not be patting themselves on the shoulders for not having reached KKK or Donald Trump levels of overt racism. You may not be burning crosses in someone’s front yard, but those microaggressions you dole out like hot steaming bowls of chili come autumn? They are chipping away at black people’s souls.

Also let’s stop giving non-black people WAY too much credit for doing things black people do all the time and BETTER. Yeah, I said it. Stop making basic shit go viral because a non-black person did it. I’m all for cultural sharing, but this fascination with seeing non-black people partake in our cultural artifacts is on another level. I grew up in Norway, and no one ever freaked out because I tucked into a bowl of sour cream porridge. Because Norwegians know that the stuff is dope and that anyone in their right mind would want a taste. You would think that with the amount of appropriation of black culture throughout history, that by now we would understand how beautiful blackness is. But, like everyone else, we have bought into the white supremacist notion that our culture and our bodies are inferior. Which is why when we see a video of white Danish girl speaking Nigerian pidgin, or a white British guy dancing Azonto, we collectively start to tap dance with excitement. And when we do this, we create a space for non-black folks to take ownership of our stuff. We need to decolonize our minds and internalize a true appreciation for our cultures, so we stop thanking people as they pilfer it from right under our noses.

Now, please do not take this as me encouraging black people to take it upon ourselves to conduct racial sensitivity trainings for all our non-black friends. We all know some amazing non-black allies who are conscious and down for the cause. But oftentimes, they end up chilling with us while we tell them how awesome they are for being ‘woke’. What they should be doing is going back into the trenches of their communities and using their positionality to spread the word. Actually doing the work of dismantling white supremacy, not just broadcasting how good and kind they purport to be. That is how we chip away at flawed systems.

And please, when you are in mixed company, do not pander to the whiteness in the room. Do not try to present yourself as the agreeable Negro. The one who is glad to dole out cookies, listen to struggles of privileged individuals as they grapple with their positionality, and teach them how to dougie afterwards. And please, please, please – do not cast another black person in the room as the “radical antagonist” to your protagonist of “progressive post-racialness.” One of the major tools of white supremacy is that it makes us hypersensitive to the emotions of white people, and to some extent non-black POC. And even the most liberated of souls will find themselves jumping to take down another black person if it means protecting the fragile souls of the white people in the room. This is not necessary. Again, we underestimate the emotional capacity of our non-black brethren. If we truly care for them and if we want the world to be a better place, we cannot protect them from these realities. It is not our job to be emotional mammies, especially at the expense of relationships with fellow black people.

And non-black people – when you notice these things, don’t give into the temptation to nestle into the accolades and get cozy. It’s nothing but oppression in action and if you bask in it, then you are complicit in allowing it flourish.

I will leave you with a quote by the great Jesse Williams, who had this response to a white fan’s disappointment regarding his outspokenness about police brutality in Ferguson: “Please disabuse yourself of the notion that my purpose on earth is to tuck ignorance in at night.”

Dubie Toa-Kwapong

Writing since January 2017 · 3 stories contributed