The nigger is you.
“What white people have to do is try to find out, in their own hearts, why it was necessary to have a “nigger” in the first place, because I’m not a nigger, I’m a man. But if you think I’m a nigger, it means you need him…then you’ve got to find out why. And the future of the country depends on that, whether or not it’s able to ask that question.”
-James Baldwin
When I wake up in the morning and get out of bed a number of things go through my head — my routine, my tasks for the day, and a myriad of commonplace things. I do not think of those things as a black man. I understand that I am a black man, but it does not color my perception of the world. Just as I am a father, a brother, a son, a soldier, and a mentor, being black is just a part of the patchwork quilt of identities that I have picked up or has been imparted upon me over the years that has shaped me. First and foremost, before all things, I am a man. I shower as a man, I eat as a man, I work as a man, I love and hate and cry and laugh as a man. I am — and will always be — a man.
It isn’t until I am confronted by a society that makes whiteness a key part of its identity that my race becomes a factor. It is not until our society— because while some may not like it, I am a part of this society — looks at me and says “you are not a man, you are a black man, you are different” do I notice. My life is, without that confrontation, strikingly similar to the lives of white men — I work to live, I worry about the future of my child, I find pleasure in wine and women, I have a deep hatred of the IRS, and a host of other mundane problems. It is that confrontation, that constant reminder, that Damocles sword that weighs me down whenever I am reminded of it.
It is not enough for some members of our society to benefit from years of advantage at the expense of others. I do not begrudge them personally for having that advantage because they are in no way responsible for it. It is when their advantage is not enough to satisfy them, when the emptiness in their hearts and lives can only be filled by making other people feel as empty and worthless as they are that I have a problem. My despair is not for myself. By and large, I have succeeded in a game rigged for me to fail — most problems that average Americans face are within my ability to manage, mitigate, or outright avoid and I consider myself fortunate. My despair is for the man who feels that tearing me down is the best way to improve his lot in life.
What gain has a man ever had in calling another man a nigger? I can understand the feelings behind it — powerlessness is a visceral emotion and can cause the best of us to act in the ugliest ways. I cannot imagine how amplified that feeling must be when you are told from an early age that the dual lies of white exceptionalism and white meritocracy are default positions in our society only to find yourself losing constantly to those who should be your inferiors. How does one square that circle? How does one react when a lifetime of lies rams hard against the objective reality in front of you?
Lesser men lash out. Lesser men fail to take a step back and do the introspection. “Why am I calling this man a nigger? What about him is niggardly aside from my view of him based on his skin?” It is a hard question, because to ask that question means that you have to turn the mirror on yourself and most people cannot stand staring at their reflection or the sound of their own thoughts. Lesser men need me to be less than a man, to be a nigger. That is how they square the circle — they say “this person is less than and therefore I am not at the bottom. I am above him”, a lie that allows them to exist comfortably until the next time they are confronted with their own inadequacy.
White America will one day need to have a reckoning with itself. It will have to be honest with itself. My fear is that, like a drug addict, the longer that it goes without help the worse the damage will be when the fiction finally comes face-to-face with objective reality.
