Oracle Online

We are taught that people of color are dangerous and that we must protect ourselves from them. I have been taught that when I walk down Englewood Avenue at 11 p.m. and see a black, Asian, Arab, or Latino man walking towards me, I’d better cross the street for my safety. When I tell my fellow white women friends about this, they say that they would cross the street if any man were walking toward them. This may be true, but white women must admit that we feel more endangered when we encounter a man of color on the street. This explains why the Hamline Midway area feels less safe to white Hamline students who grew up in racially segregated (almost completely white) neighborhoods.

I am not saying that I do not fear men of color; I must admit that sometimes my heart beats a little faster when I pass by a black man on the street. It pains and angers me to write these words because I know the consequences of my fear. I am outraged and disgusted at our culture for programming me to react in this way. I know that I am racist, but I also know that it is not my fault. I must reprogram myself to direct my fear at the true danger in our societyčwhich is my own racism.

When I am afraid, I remind myself of the reality that Paul Kivel made clear. He said, “White people are not usually in danger from people of color. People of color are in danger of individual acts of discrimination, hate crimes, and police brutality at the hands of white people, as well as of institutional practices that kill people due to lack of health care, lack of police protection, and unequal legal persecution. White people are rarely killed, harassed, or discriminated against by people of color.” When I think about the terrorist acts that have occurred in my lifetime, Paul Kivel’s words are reaffirmed.

White men bombed the Oklahoma federal building. White men tied James Byrd Jr. to a pickup truck and dragged him to his death in Jasper, Texas, in 1998 because Byrd was black. A white man murdered Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyo., (1998) because Shepard was gay. The Sept. 11 attacks are the only terrorist acts that I can remember being executed by non-white men. Our politicians and the media have capitalized on this fact. We are told everyday in the news and in campaign rhetoric that non-white foreigners are a terrorist threat to us and we must protect ourselves.

The consequence of our fear is that we are willing to scapegoat, bomb, imprison, and murder people of color in order to protect ourselves from our unfounded fear. People of color at Hamline, in the Midway, and in the world suffer the consequences of our fear. If we white Americans want to feel safe, we must reprogram ourselves to fear the consequences of our own racism. Let’s listen to the words of writer and abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1886): “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

Krystal Klein
CLA Senior