Why do some people believe they cannot be racist while thinking that everyone else is?

. . . and why do they so desperately want to be victims? 

Recently, a very good friend of mine; a young Black man, accused me of being a racist and part of the White power structure in America.  When I say “friend”, I am talking about a relationship that went beyond a normal friendship.   We were much closer than friends.  He told me I was family and he loved me.  He introduced me to everyone as his father.  He called me Pops and his daughters called me Grandpa.   Though he lives a thousand miles away, we spoke several times a day on the phone and because he said I was family,  I never said no when he needed money for vacations, school trips, air fare, car repairs, unexpected expenses. emergencies, Christmas gifts, NVDs, pistols, rifles, ammunition, ballistic vests and helmet, home repairs, iPhones, laptops, iPads or allowance and bulletproof backpacks for his girls.   I was the Grandpa National Bank. 

Apparently though, in his mind, despite all I had done and supposedly being family, because I was White, I was member of the White power structure and a natural-born racist whether I knew it or not.   He told me that unlike me, he could NOT be racist because he was Black. 

As I would have given my life to protect him and his family, I had no idea that I was a racist until he told me.  Just a week earlier, he and his daughters had spent the week with us, and my wife gave him the master bedroom and slept on the couch.    

Our friendship imploded when I asked him if a White person sitting alone in their car could sing along with a rap song that contained the N-word.  He said “No.  They can sing along, but they have to stop when the N-word is said . . . a White person can NEVER say the word under any circumstances, not even if they are alone” and "White people need to learn what they are not allowed to say.”    When I told him I thought he was wrong about the singing, he accused me of advocating hate speech and told me I was never again welcome at his home or around his children because I was a racist.  I was shocked and taken aback because I have never sung along with a rap song and used the word myself; I was simply asking a hypothetical question.   He has a degree in Philosophy, and I thought we were having a philosophical discussion like so many we’d had before.   Up until this day, my ardent anti-racist words and actions had resulted in him “blessing” me with what he called HNS. (Honorary Negro Status)  It seems his philosophical objectivity was suddenly gone when I did not heartily agree with his every opinion about race relations in America.   I never knew this racial “land mine” was right underfoot the entire time, and I sure never knew that White Americans’ constitutional right to free speech and the First Amendment had been repealed.  

I apologized over and over, but he said he couldn’t be friends with a racist and there was nothing I could do to get back what was lost. I drove a thousand miles to reconcile him, but he refused to meet or talk about it.

In the past, he had repeatedly told me the most racist person on the planet is an old Black man, because they hate everyone.     Interestingly, he himself used the N-word almost every day when speaking with me in every discussion about other Black people, when he wanted to really denigrate, which was every single time he spoke about any Black person he didn’t like, including every Conservative Black politician or celebrity, such as Clarence Thomas, Tim Scott, Colion Noir, Herschel Walker Candace Owens, and even a young, local Texas woman advocating for causes with which he disagreed.  If they were not a Liberal, he called them  F*****g N****rs.  When I questioned him about this, he said he was allowed to use the word, “BecauseI I’m Black and that’s what they are”.    If F-bombs and N-bombs were removed from his vocabulary, he might have to use sign language to communicate.   I never did understand how a word could be deemed so offensive to him, and simultaneously used in almost every discussion. 

He told me hundreds of times “I hate White people”, and that he automatically pre-judges all White people as racists.    I never really cared, as he is young and I attributed his obvious hate to the irrationality of youth and hoped he would “grow out of it”.    I did ask him how he would have reacted if I had ever said “I hate Black people”, but he wouldn’t answer.   I have never ever uttered words like that, and I don’t pre-judge Black folks, and up until this happened, I had worn a BLACK LIVES MATTER shirt just about every day for over a year.  I am a card carrying member of the ACLU and NAACP. 

His misplaced belief stems from a deliberate mis-definition of racism that has purposely shifted that definition to one that says that racism exists ONLY when there is a differential in social power dynamics between races, such as that which exists in America today.  In this view, racism is seen solely as one in which a system of privilege and disadvantage operates at a systemic level.   “Since White people control America only White people can be racist.”  

He chooses to argue that racism cannot exist without institutional power to enforce and perpetuate that prejudice.  As he explained it, individuals who belong to marginalized or oppressed groups (Black folks) do not have institutional power and, therefore are not capable of being racist.  This is a deliberately distorted and myopic definition of racism designed and fabricated to allow those who support it to think, speak and act in racist ways, comfortable in the belief that they are innocent of this character flaw.  This is no different than the White 18th, 19th and 20th century scientists, doctors and Anthropologists who published papers in which they listed all the reasons Whites were superior to Blacks.  In short, a deliberate distortion of the facts and reality couched in clever verbiage in order to support the racist theory they champion.   

We’ve all seen the videos of young, strong Black men viciously attacking old Asian women walking down the sidewalk for no apparent reason.   These young men are infinitely more powerful than the elderly Asian women they attack, yet my friend would argue that these attacks are not racist because the perpetrators were Black, when clearly the targets were chosen solely because of their race.      

This thinking is nothing less than a confirmation bias that affects people from all backgrounds and describes the tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms preexisting beliefs or expectations.  In the context of racism, some individuals are not only more inclined, but actually eager to perceive and attribute negative events to racism due to their beliefs.  Consequently, some people attribute every negative encounter solely to racism.  Most times, negative encounters are due to misunderstandings in communication, or that one is simply dealing with a jerk.  It might be racism, but it also might not be. 

Racism can be, and is, manifested by individuals of every race or ethnicity.  Racism is about discriminatory actions or attitudes, irrespective of the power dynamics involved. 

An imbalance of power does not create racism; it simply makes racism easier and more expedient for the perpetrator.   

It is important to acknowledge that Black people are not monolithic.  Most Black folks do not blame every single bad encounter or life setback as stemming from racism and they don’t see a White racist behind every bush.  Individuals who actively look for and expect racism will inevitably convince themselves that they found it, thus allowing themselves to be a victim.  

Those who believe that White people are racists simply because of the color of their skin, or that Black people are incapable of racism because of the color of their skin might very well be the worst kind of racists.  Nobody wants to be called a racist, but it makes it so much easier when you have convinced yourself it is impossible for you to be that which you so ardently decry.    Not unlike the Nazis in WWII who convinced themselves that Aryans were a “Master” race.   

I was absolutely astonished that such a well-educated and intelligent young man could be so irrational, evil and frankly, stupid.   Disappointed and saddened don’t come close to describing how I felt.   More so, because in the past two years, I had loaned him over $70,000 in cash and property.   He said if came to Texas, I could collect what I had loaned him, but after driving a thousand miles, he refused; I had made the trip for nothing.    He said I deserved what I got for being a racist; that he was keeping everything.      Just because someone wants something to be racist doesn’t mean it is, and while it is not uncommon for angry young people to perceive an imagined injustice and overreact, it is never right to use perceived racism to justify immoral and criminal acts, no matter how outraged one might choose to be.   

It never occurred to me that a person who was the son of a minister, claimed to be practicing Christian, graduated from West Point and was an officer in the US Army could be so blatantly dishonest and devoid of all integrity and honor.  I always told him that only thing that “they” can’t take from away from you is your integrity and honor, and he willingly threw both away for a little over $70,000.00.     

I now realize that he never loved me and I never had another family.  Only the illusion of both.    While I was saddened when he shut me out of his life, I was stupefied to realize the man who called me Pops was actually a thief and grifter who’d been running a sophisticated con job on me for years.   If he didn’t want me to be part of his family any longer because I was a racist, why would he want to keep everything loaned to him by that very same racist?   And all this from a man who filed a UCC-1 lien to protect me, thus encumbering every single thing he and his wife owned, because he was making plans to leave her, and wanted to make sure that she got nothing in the divorce;  something I’ve since found is unlawful in the state in which he lives.    It seems that both me and the mother of his children were destined to be victims of this criminal.

In his case, this is also incredibly hypocritical as he has two daughters from his marriage to a woman whose father was White and mother Korean. How damaged will his children grow up to be knowing their own father believes they were descended from a “racist” grandfather simply because he was a White man; someone they loved and who loved them?

I feel so sorry for him and his daughters, that he has willingly allowed his life to be ruled by such hatred and vitriol, and so disappointed to find out he’s a thief and a con artist. In so many ways, he is like one of those insane, rabid Trump supporters who want to hurt anyone who doesn’t believe as they do,, because they are so filled with hate and intolerance.

If he is lucky, as he gets older, the hot blood of youth, his confirmation bias, and his irrational racism will make way for the wisdom that sometimes comes with age, but I will be dead by then, along with our friendship.