Some thoughts on who can and who can't be racist.

I'd like to talk about racism and colorism a little.

When I was young- Jr. High & early high school, I, a mixed race, light-skinned, nerdy-ass queerlet on the edge of self discovery, was also totally racist as fuck.

I believed the self-serving narrative that my mother wasn't as smart as my dad, due in part to her background. I believed that my cousins and siblings on welfare were there because their parents were lazy and irresponsible and their poverty was their fault- if they would just Do Work, they'd be all right (Oh my god, I knew jack shit about people's lives at this point). I mocked my younger black cousin for not knowing how to read. I thought that my much more black looking brothers got into fights because they were just violent, and that they could do something to stop being such targets, without having any clue what that could be (taking off their skin, maybe).

And my best friends? A big, lovely black girl who was also a geek, and constantly shunned by our white peers for not fitting their standards of beauty, and another, asian geek girl who had very similar issues. And I? I hung with them, but I looked down on them. Secretly, I was incredibly relieved that I was skinny and light, unlike my big, dark friend, because I was "pretty" and she was- I thought at the time objectively- not. It was much easier for me to gain acceptance into wider groups, and when we started high school, I completely ditched them for about a week to hang with a much "cooler" (all white) crowd.

Sure, I did bring them into that group after that, and they were accepted, but still- our friendship was much, much cooler after that. And I'd be lying if I said that I didn't do it, in part, to assuage some guilt over something I couldn't name, but knew was wrong.

What I am saying is that I, a person of color, had best friends of color, and family of color, and I still behaved like a fucking racist, alienating people I claimed to care about because I could, because I look white.

If they had called me on it at the time, THIS WOULD NOT BE RACISM. And this is the thing that drives me nuts about people saying that blacks and other PoC are racist when they point out their oppression. Talking about and identifying racial injustices and biases is not racist. Leaving them to fester is. Talking about them is the only way to dismantle them, because do you understand how fucked up it is that there's a so-called objective standard of beauty in this country that is focused around paleness, except for a few fetishists of dark skin- like, for example, my own father? How fucked up is it that everything black women do, wear, and say in this country is subject to a level of scrutiny and judgement that white women can glimpse, but don't experience? But if you want to say, "I can't be racist, my [Person you know or are related to] is a person of color, you are completely fucking wrong, and you need to examine your internal attitudes and your actions. You need to understand that just because you didn't mean to be racist doesn't mean you weren't. Maybe your offhand comment about someone looking like a drug dealer got them nailed by the authorities and frisked when they didn't do anything. Maybe you screwed somebody seriously over because you convinced other people not to take them seriously based on their color. Maybe you dismissed the people who shouted and spit at them because you didn't see it, and you don't want to make snap judgements that someone else you know is racist.

Maybe you didn't mean it. But you fucking did it, just like I did, and you need to own it, and fix it.