Republished with permission from John Pavlovitz
Yesterday, a Trump supporter dropped a lengthy, rambling, profanity-laden diatribe into my comments section, lecturing me for implying that MAGA is inherently a white supremacist movement.
In between vile personal attacks and egregious spelling errors, he accused me of “playing the Race Card”, of making assumptions about people like him, and of stoking division in America (a fracture first caused, he claimed, by President Obama).
The man closed by assuring me that I was unfairly maligning tens of millions of white Americans, saying, “We’re f*ckin’ tired of being called racists!”
(Is that right, sunshine?)
Well, to my pearl-clutching, righteously indignant friend and the rest of the exhausted, exasperated, misunderstood white folk across America:
I’m a white American.
I am both a person of faith and someone who considers themselves extremely patriotic, and do you know what I’m tired of?
I’m tired of white people supporting a political party incessantly working to keep people of color from voting, and feigning outrage at the suggestion that they may be racist.
I’m tired of a timeline, comment section, and inbox, littered with the most vile racist epithets, and always knowing their authors’ political affiliation, before even looking.
I’m tired of seeing people passionately defending lawless vigilantes who are violently targeting my Latino and immigrant neighbors, making them synonymous with criminals, rapists, and drug dealers.
I’m tired of seeing the loudest, most violent opposition to racial equity in this country come from white people professing to love a dark-skinned, foreign Jesus and operating as if God is a white cisgender-heterosexual guy who was born in America, raised Christian, and votes Republican.
I’m tired of former church friends, neighbors, and family members hiding behind the flimsy facade of “economic insecurity” and “safety”, to cover the reality that they are terrified of the shifting demographics of this nation and are willing to do anything to stave them off.
I’m tired of seeing one political party legislatively assaulting vulnerable communities’ right to vote, their access to healthcare, to affordable housing, and to comparable education.
I’m tired of white people doing Olympic-level intellectual gymnastics to try to gaslight the rest of us into believing a meme of an African-American President and his wife depicted as apes is anything other than a dehumanizing and dangerous stereotype.
White people in America, if you’re really tired of being called racists, here’s what you might wanna try: stop doing racist shit.
Begin by clearly, unequivocally, and loudly divorcing yourself from the single most racist entity on the planet right now, which is this President and his Administration. That would be a great start.
If you’re truly offended at the assertion that you might be a white supremacist, ask yourself whether sharing a voting bloc with The Proud Boys, the KKK, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, and Kristi Noem is making your accusers’ case stronger.
You are known by the company you keep, by the people you vote for, those you contribute to and elevate to public office, and to the highest courts of this nation. And if your self-righteous outrage at being labeled a racist is real, you’re going to need to explain how you can be someone who honestly treasures diversity while standing alongside its greatest and fiercest adversaries.
If you really find the idea of racism objectionable and are committed to dismantling it:
Work to ensure voting rights for all Americans, and take note of those resisting them.
Stop mindlessly attacking Critical Race Theory and DEI and begin actually finding out what those things are and why they matter.
Read a book about the realities of systemic racism, white privilege, and the human toll of discrimination written by people of color.
Participate in and publicize a march, rally, vigil, or awareness event that you know will cause turbulence with your circle of influence, and ask yourself why that’s a problem for them.
Volunteer with a nonprofit, ministry, or community organization in your city, working on the front lines where marginalized communities facing the direct effects of the legislation you support live.
Openly confront family members, friends, coworkers, classmates, and social media friends when they perpetuate racist tropes and stereotypes, and see how they respond.
Get out of your literal or figurative gated community of whiteness and actually hear the story of someone whose pigmentation differs from your own.
In other words: move, learn, speak, work, give, and vote in a way that rattles people of privilege, that takes power from those who traffic in inequity, and threatens those most comfortable in systemic supremacy.
Be willing to cross the aisle, leave a church, or lose a friend to demonstrate just how strongly you are opposed to this hateful ignorance.
And use your social media platform to explicitly condemn the racism and white supremacy of Donald Trump, JD Vance, the Trump Administration, the Republican Party, White Evangelicalism, and the MAGA movement.
If you’re not willing to do any of those things, you’re just going to have to deal with the fallout and the pushback and the implications from the rest of us.
You may be tired of being called racist, my white friends.
The rest of us are tired of you enabling, supporting, voting for, and actively partnering with racists and expecting us accept it and be silent about it.
I don’t accept it, and I won’t remain silent about it.
If that offends you, that’s a you problem.
John Pavlovitz
John Pavlovitz is a writer, pastor, and activist from Wake Forest, North Carolina. A 25-year veteran in the trenches of local church ministry, John is committed to equality, diversity, and justice—both inside and outside faith communities. When not actively working for a more compassionate planet, John enjoys spending time with his family, exercising, cooking, and having time in nature. He is the author of A Bigger Table, Hope and Other Superpowers, Low, and Stuff That Needs to Be Said.
