Another White Guy on the Internet

I often struggle internally about whether or not I should be speaking out on certain topics that do not affect me personally. For example, in 2020, when the Black Lives Matter movement began, I was not the only white American who was in support of the protests and wished to articulate the issues facing black Americans. That said, being white, I am (hopefully obviously) not the best-qualified person to do so. If I wrote an article, if I gave a speech or whatever, am I adding my voice to that of my comrades’, or am I crowding out voices that deserve to be heard more than mine? It may sound silly, but I feel a little embarrassed every time I post something on Instagram related to a world conflict or issues affecting people in other countries. Do I really understand what’s going on? Is my voice really useful? Or am I just doing something that makes me feel better? 

I think this type of paralysis is shared by many of us on the left, on the progressive side of things. We know that minority voices have been stifled and shut out before, and are still being ignored or dismissed. We know that the straight white male academic has dominated the conversation for so long that we have missed out on so many useful, interesting, moral, and ethical statements made by people of color, women, and our comrades in the LGBTQ community. We know that there are still voices that are not being represented enough, and we refuse to leave even one person behind. So should we stay quiet to hopefully give enough space to let those voices be heard, or should we try to speak out, and hope our allies and comrades can be heard as well?

Today, I’m going to attempt to argue that yes, I, and all of us, should speak out on every injustice in the world, whether we feel qualified to or not. I’m going to make two quick arguments and then one longer argument.

The first point that I would like to make is from the viewpoint of the opposition. Are those that are opposed to my worldview pleased or displeased when I speak out? If anti-abortion activists know that I do not share my pro-abortion views, are they happy about that? The answer is that yes, of course they are. Whether I feel fully qualified to speak out about abortion as a cis man is the paralyzing question that only helps the opposition. Silence only benefits oppressors.

Moreover – and I’m not totally convinced that this experience is limited to straight white males,but – we occasionally get a winking statement from someone similar to us who would like to share opinions that they know are unpopular and wouldn’t dare say it in front of diverse company. We’ve all be there right? Someone tells an off-color joke that they wouldn’t share in front of someone of a different race or ethnic group. Makes a comment about women that they wouldn’t share in front of their wife or girlfriend. They are attempting to support this idea that everyone like them shares their opinions, but are just too ashamed to admit it publicly, like a little secret they all share. “This person is straight so he also thinks that gay people are X” or “This person is a man so they obviously think women are Y.” Hopefully it doesn’t need to be said that these types of opinions need to be challenged on their own and in a vacuum, but moreover, as members of the in-group, we need to challenge the belief that those ideas are prevalent throughout all of us. We need to show that bigoted statements are not the norm. 

(That said, this does have diminishing returns. When I was younger and my political status was still evolving, I used to get more of these comments directed toward me by straight white men when we were alone. Once you get into enough fights with people, they stop saying this shit to you. Hopefully they stop thinking it as well, but I’m satisfied with just having it be said less in the world.)

My second initial response is that we should want to win more than want to win correctly. I think hearing about abortion exclusively from those who can get pregnant is ideal. We should be focused on and amplify the voices of the oppressed in global conflicts, rather than the straight white male pundits on the mainstream news. A large, black-led and black-majority BLM movement is far preferable than one co-opted by whites.

That said, in many cases, the issues being discussed have real-world consequences. Peoples’ lives are actually on the line when we have our silly little debates or write our stupid articles, and when those are the stakes, we need to throw everything we have into helping. A pro-abortion protest composed entirely of people who can get pregnant is a good thing, but a pro-abortion protest with twice the numbers is more effective. That effectiveness, that small increase in the chance of success, has real value for real people.

Hopefully you’re all with me so far, but now I’d like to take a stab at arguing that there are in fact, many advantages to having someone like me – straight, white, cis, male – adding my voice to the conversation. I am obviously biased, but try to keep an open mind.

To begin with, there are a lot of people like me, people who are not only willing to listen to those with different backgrounds or experiences, but are actively seeking out those voices. That said, there are a lot of people, a lot of white people, a lot of men, and a lot of straight people, who don’t do that or do the complete opposite. They prefer the opinions and voices of people who are similar to them. They want to hear from someone who is “one of us”. 

To be fair, we all do this to some extent. I would much rather listen to a progressive woman talk about abortion than a conservative one. But I want to focus on the people who are swayed more by people in the “one of us” category than those who actively seek out new and different opinions. To say it in another way, hearing the voices of someone who is directly affected by a certain issue is the best thing, but someone who isn’t paying attention to those voices won’t hear anything. There is a certain amount of “outreach” that people like me who are parts of large, majority categories need to do to get those opinions out there.

This may also be a bit dicey to say, but I think there is some value in having a member of the majority explain to another member of the majority what’s going on in the minority. In other words, “Hey white person, it’s me, other white person. Let me tell you why it’s hard to be black in America.” We all have a small, whispering skepticism within us that says things like “Oh, you’re a black person and you want more rights for black people. Isn’t that convenient,” or “You think being a woman is hard but you only say that because you’re a woman.” It’s not necessarily a bad thing to consider the vantage point from which someone is making an argument, but it becomes too easy to dismiss someone based on what we imagine their biases to be. There are many people in the economic, racial, and gender majorities who probably have dismissed the thoughts and voices of large swaths of the global population based on this alone. For those people, or at least some of those people, hearing another voice from the in-group say, “No, actually, those people have a point. They are oppressed. They do deserve better treatment. The way the world is is wrong,” will actually help convince them. Again, if our strategy is to win, if our strategy is to save and improve lives, then we should be willing to send out whatever mouthpiece is necessary to help persuade people to join us, regardless of how distasteful it might be.

This is not a full-throated endorsement of people like Robin DiAngelo, a white author talking to a white audience about racism experienced by black people. The best tool for the job of discussing racism is the people who have been directly affected by it, but I think we cannot underestimate or discount the positive benefits that people like DiAngelo have created. She is one of the many tools, but not the best or most important one, in the toolbox. It’s impossible to measure, but I feel very confident that there is at least some percentage of the white population that are more swayed by DiAngelo than Kendi. There are those who are more willing to listen to Tim Wise than they are Ta-Neishi Coates. And, this is also not to say that majority voices need to be dominant and certainly not overpowering. However, they do need to contribute.

Thanks for reading. Next time, I’d like to discuss this idea further, and how it has been applied historically for liberation movements, civil rights movements, and rebellions, especially in relation to what is currently happening in Gaza.