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After facilitating a hearty discussion for a newly formed anti-racism group, Jaleesa, the group facilitator, notices an elderly white man hanging back and waiting for her.
When they are face to face, the man tells her that he used to be a racist. He mentions how he made racist jokes and used racial slurs because “that was the time.”
He says he has changed, and he wanted to share, but his guilt was obvious.
Those confessions by white people to Black people are common.
In place of an open confession, white people may try to present their claims of an eye defect known as colorblindness.
Even if they aren’t colorblind, some white people are still eager for nods, smiles, and blessings as they casually or forcefully recite their diligently documented records of social justice work.
This is too much to handle.
Austin Channing Brown, a Christian ministry leader dedicated to social justice, writes in her book “I’m Still Here” about these confessions.
She rightly says these confessions can traumatize the Black ears and minds subjected to the regurgitated rehashing of racism that belches from white mouths and minds.
Austin Channing Brown says she is not a priest for the white soul, so she turns it around on the confessors and asks them what they will do next.
Like James Baldwin, Austin Channing Brown puts the responsibility on the person who feels the need to share.
Baldwin said, “I’m not interested in anyone’s guilt…”
I agree. As a Black person, I don’t need any white flashbacks. Rather than trying to take me back, I need white allies to have my back.
Whether someone feels guilty doesn’t matter because someone who feels no guilt can still be just as guilty.
In the case against white America, some white people are guilty by their deeds and others are guilty by their missed deeds.
