What must it be like to walk down the supermarket aisle and not be assaulted by constant reminders of a long forgotten but never acknowledged past like Plantation molasses, Cream of Wheat and everything relegated to, or just the existence of the “ethnic foods” aisle (aka “global foods” in some places)?What must it be like to not worry when a police car is behind you for any reason and, should you be pulled over, to have to place your hands on the steering wheel when the officer approaches so that they can be visibly seen and increase your chances of going home that night alive?

What must it be like to not think that any of these scenarios are relevant and to think this article is simply making a big deal out of nothing?

What must it be like to be blissfully white?

For the past several years, ever since the murder of George Floyd by (former) Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill, our country has been facing a racial reckoning. This means that one part of our country woke up to the realization that racism still existed and had not dissipated with the election of a Black president. More to the point was their realizing that they had unintentionally contributed to the problem or been complicit by not making themselves aware or holding their communities accountable.  They set out to learn and to make earnest efforts to address the problem. These are Allies.

Yet another part of the country took offense at this notion and instead doubled down and dug in with fictional concepts such as “reverse racism,” “I don’t see color” and “All/Blue Lives Matter.” To clear up this misconception of “reverse racism,” let me clarify. Racism requires a power component that allows one group to systemically impact the lives of another, absent that component, it is just garden variety prejudice. Reverse racism, therefore, cannot exist, and is merely an attempt by those afflicted with white fragility to equate their temporary inconvenience with the generational trauma experienced by BIPOC communities.

And if you don’t see color, then you fail to recognize the historical inequities in our society that are brought on because of color. To not see color is to not see racism and turn a blind eye to injustice.

ALL lives don’t matter as long as Black lives are treated indiscriminately as if they do NOT matter. As long as people are not treated equally, it cannot be validly said that “ALL” lives matter.  More importantly, “Blue Lives Matter” started in response to Black Lives Matter; one is a profession, the other is a racial/cultural identity. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement grew in response to the repeated killing of innocent unarmed Black people by law enforcement officers. Blue Lives began in response to the message of BLM to hold police accountable. So angry and offended were Blue Lives folks at what they considered an unprovoked attack on law enforcement (presenting the statistics of police related killings, the inherent racism in the processes, saying it should stop, etc.) they began Blue Lives to support officers…yet there is no movement, initiative or action taking place stating that Blue Lives DON’T matter that would necessitate a response. By and large, good law enforcement officers are well regarded and valued, as they should be.

So what does it say when the response to a plea to stop killing unarmed Black people is “we uniformly support law enforcement?” What does it mean when supporting police is squarely positioned as the opposite of valuing Black people’s lives? And if it’s still unclear, ask yourself why the “All Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter” folks never respond to each other, only to Black Lives Matter…Yet, there remains another part of society, another part of this equation, that is more populous and present than most people think. They are the carefree and open-minded, laidback and easy-going group who are unaware of the world that flows beneath their feet. They condemn injustice in principle, but don’t truly see it. They believe themselves “woke,” but are continually asleep at the wheel. They are akin to what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to as the “white moderate,” those who are more devoted to order than to justice, who prefer the absence of tension to the presence of justice in regards to peace. Beyond the white moderate are those oblivious to the lack of justice…the blissfully white.

To be blissfully white is to not see the causal relationship between the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the development of the global economy.

To be blissfully white is to not see the connection between stolen land, stolen people and 264 years of unpaid forced labor and the Fortune 500 companies and multitude of wealthy white people who exist today.

To be blissfully white is to not understand that there are no white people in the Bible.

A blissfully white life is one free from self-examination and exploration of the world around. It is to have the luxury of not worrying about generational trauma brought on by 400+ years of oppression.

To be blissfully white is to not have to worry about your place in the world, because it is reflected in every aspect of the world around you.

To be blissfully white is to not worry about your hairstyle, your speech pattern, or your name because you know they will be uniformly, universally, accepted.

Our national dialogue has devoted a lot of time addressing three of the pillars of systemic racism: white fragility, white pride, and white privilege and all of the pitfalls that come with each of those. Now we must turn our attention to a fourth pillar: blissful whiteness.

Blissful whiteness carries with it the soft bigotry of obliviousness that facilitates the ignorance of systemic racism’s impact. Blissful whiteness remains such a threat because it allows false narratives to thrive. It is the quiet, unassuming racism that sneaks up and overtakes you because it is so casual. It is the racism of low resistance which allows biased systems to perpetuate and entrenched prejudice to be overlooked, becoming further ingrained into our society and national psyche.

It is the world that has been pulled over our eyes to blind us from the truth–that racism is everywhere.

Blissful whiteness is what happens when books are allowed to be banned for political gain because they teach about truth that makes people uncomfortable.

Blissful whiteness is teaching Slavery as the history of Black people, and not as the history of white people.

How, then, do we address this? How do we undo blissful whiteness? How do we undo 400+ years of systemic racism and oppression? How do we open the eyes of those unaware or casually ignorant? Can it even be done, or is this just wishful thinking?

The good news is that it can be done, and it starts with three simple things that we can all do fairly easily.

First and foremost, as a nation we need to stop hiding from it and actually accept history, fully acknowledging who was here before and what landed on these shores in 1619; thus setting in motion a system of power manipulation, marginalization and prejudice that would steal the land and relegate entire groups of people to second class citizenship (once they were allowed to be citizens).  So much of the pain and anguish of the Black community comes from the intrinsic gaslighting inherent in the statement of “all men are created equal” in a country that has never embraced this. It creates a false narrative such that any failure to succeed is seen as the fault of Black people rather than the system that was never set up for their success.

Secondly, we need to honestly explore the concept of reparations and how that might be addressed versus the typical kneejerk reaction of automatic rejection.  Too often, the response is “well, my family didn’t own slaves” or “we had it difficult too,” or “why should living Black people get a free handout for something that happened a long time ago.”  The reality of reparations is not as simple as a “handout for Slavery,” but rather examining the wealth that would have been accumulated and passed down from generation to generation if Black people had been able to earn for the work they performed, attend schools or own property. Generational wealth is something that has allowed white families to have measures of success far beyond their Black and brown counterparts.

Lastly, and most importantly, we can undo blissful whiteness by not shying away from the truth and by rejecting the false narratives that are continually arising for political campaigns and advancement. There is no need to ban books anywhere, critical race theory has never and can never be taught in schools below the graduate level, and learning about cultures other than your own only enriches our lives and our connection to each other.

Blissful whiteness is what happens when we ignore these things. We must let go of the old systemically inequitable ways that no longer work and start embracing new systems that are more open-ended and honest. We must cast off the fabricated fairytales and fractured history we’ve been taught and instead learn the underlying truth that was buried. The moment we do this, the scales will drop from our eyes and we will begin the journey towards truly helping heal this nation and creating a world where ALL lives DO matter.