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Whiteness, as the supreme social construct of the world, is a criminal enterprise.
It is a fraud, a Ponzi scheme, a cult, and a con job.
And when I seize and stare at, the littered list of itemized indictments against whiteness, there’s one crime with outrageous and incalculable rates of recidivism — white innocence.
When Mike Pence denied implicit biases are a problem, he screamed white innocence.
When Donald Trump said he was the least racist person that Don Lemon knows, it was white innocence talking.
When Trump supporters believe every word from President Pinocchio, it is white innocence.
As the Trump Administration vilifies family reunification but offers a pass to Melania Trump’s parents, it is white innocence.
And when America can’t see its policies and drug use in the border crisis, as it scapegoats brown bodies, it is white innocence.
In his book, “The Fire Next Time,” James Baldwin says it this way:
“But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.”
And so, I must recognize how white innocence is a recurring crime of whiteness.
It is the mindset that allows the crime of whiteness to continue.
The defense tactics and talking points of white innocence, used as alibis, are “not me, I wasn’t there, I’m not guilty, and I’m not racist.”
So, I chastise the claims of chastity by white innocence.
But, white innocence has an inventory of star witnesses it runs to the witness stand.
These witnesses have names like: Interracial relationships, time, distance, personal hardship, individuality, progress, and the superficial support of social justice causes.
Then, with its witnesses, white innocence is innately adept at projecting the blame for its crimes on communities of color.
