Anna Berch-Norton,
Pittsburgh, PA.
Yeah, when white guys call their friends “my nigga” and people say to their Vietnamese friend, “it’s funny cause you’re Asian”, that doesn’t mean that we’re totally over that whole racism thing. It means that people are subscribing to the hipster theory of racism that you can say really racist, disgusting shit all you want as long as you do so ironically just to show that you actually are completely tolerant. And just because you’re black doesn’t mean you can make Holocaust jokes in the presence of an agnostic half-Jew who isn’t a big fan of genocide. My mixed race ex-boyfriend made some of those because he thought he was entitled. (He thought he was entitled to a lot of things.) What is so funny about systematic ethnic cleansing, anyway? Would it be funny if it happened to you? Would it also be hilarious if you got harassed by the police every time you went to the corner store? Being a (very) white young female I don’t even get a second glance. And I don’t deserve that invisibility any more than a black guy in a hoodie. Just like I don’t deserve, or need random strangers asking me if I know where I’m going whenever I’m in a poor neighborhood in the city. I hate that people assume I’m a little white girl from the burbs who can’t take care of herself. We make so many assumptions, so many judgments, based on so little. But seriously, white hipster kids: please don’t try to ironicize your way into non-racism. And stop telling me about how many minority friends you have to make up for it. Because when it comes right down to it, you’re not much different from your great-grandparents who dressed in white and burned crosses. You’re just better at hiding it.
