It is a well-accepted and proven behavioral theory that when people have honest and authentic relationships with one another, they are more inclined to develop genuine friendships. We welcome cultural observances because of the opportunities they provide to exchange information and expand the potential for cross-cultural competence among people of vastly different backgrounds and experiences. Any positive outcomes usually demand serious introspection and straightforward evaluation of how past and present actions shape our perceptions of each other.
I recognize the February designation as Black History Month and truthfully, appreciate that, publicly, white people claim to be on board with us having a month of our own to talk about all of our accomplishments. Even though it is the shortest month of the year, we seem to have been given just enough time to talk about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and a few very well-known others.
I want to show my gratitude to white people by sharing a bit of time during this month to learn about them. I have questions about them and their history that burn, unanswered, somewhere in the atmosphere and I am willing to allow anyone of them who wants to answer to do so:
Why do they always want to tell us about their one Black friend who is so nice?
Why are they always so happy to have their daughters marry and have children with rich Black men, but don’t allow their young daughters to play with innocent young Black boys?
Why are they so afraid (as demonstrated by Ron DeSantis) to have little white children learn the truths of Black History?
Why do they want to rewrite and glorify their history while they are shocked that we will not willingly agree to the revisions and distortions they attempt to apply to our history?
Why do they resist and object to putting up memorials to our successes, but unwaveringly worship their racists?
Why do they love our people like Senator Tim Scott, Dr. Ben Carson, and the new guy from Florida that they dragged out to lure the votes of a few members of the Congressional Black Caucus during that fiasco of the vote for Kevin McCarthy to serve as Speaker of the House?
Why do they worship guns in their community, yet work to restrict ownership or remove them from our communities?
Why do they accuse Black people of hating our democracy and tell us, “If you don’t like it here,” we should “go back to where you came from?”
Why do so many of them support Russian interests, but seem to relish labeling those of us who do things they don’t like — such as working for justice for our people — socialists/communists?
Why do they hate to say, “Black Lives Matter?”
Why do they work so hard to limit our voting rights?
Why do they elect insurrectionists, racists, and liars like Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, George Santos, and a host of other miscreants to Congress to make crazy laws for us, while they refuse to obey the laws which currently exist? (Blacks and Democrats are dedicated to electing our best!)
Why do so few ever find their way to our community until it’s time for elections?
I am prayerful that our white friends will begin to answer these questions, if not to us, then for themselves. These inquiries question their biases and duplicity. These questions do not serve to brand ALL whites as bad or suggest that there aren’t good white people. I do know a few. We need to see that goodness more often.
Dr. E. Faye Williams is President of The Dick Gregory Society and President Emerita of the National Congress of Black Women