Do you know that feeling when you fail to meet your minimum expectations of yourself? If you don’t, then you’re better than most of us. Better than me, certainly.
Imagine 10 people in a public place where others may hear their banter. Most and perhaps all in the group would say they’re on the righteous side of our culture’s biggest gash, the sin of racism. All – and this is important – are white.
A man in the group springs off another person’s benign remark and into a soliloquy about intelligence. He suggests, without saying so directly, that certain people of color are dumber than white folks.
In that place, in that moment, his voice seems as loud as a donkey in full bray.
Shock may excuse a listener’s fleeting lapse into silence. But what of the longer silence that follows? A thudding remonstrance that bleats cowardice ever more loudly the longer the braying continues without challenge.
I should have spoken. I should have stopped the braying, curtly and without apology. I failed.
Racist remarks left unchallenged are racist remarks condoned. Period.
