To my mind your cartoon is missing a couple of people. For starters, there’s me, up there personally pulling people up regardless of their physical characteristics. And there’s you, down below, trying to pull people down based on skin color and ancestry - attributes people can’t change. But the cartoon’s metaphor breaks, because you’re not really personally pulling people down, you are instead agitating for the use of government force to do it for you. And also because it’s an inherently divisive and confrontational mode of discourse; when you fire that at me, you are attacking me, and when I say the things I just said, I’m counterattacking.
I refuse to accept your categorization of all black people as victims and all white people as oppressors. I stand with the persons of good character, regardless of skin color or victim status, and against all oppressors - such as those who want forcible race-based income redistribution.
There’s two problems with that challenge; one, you have no reason to believe anything I say, and two, I cannot reply entirely freely since several other peoples’ privacy is involved. I’ll answer to the limit I honorably can, and then I’ll have proved nothing.
As we all should, I use a portion of my income to further my social goals. In my case this includes funding Afghan orphanages, the social justice programs of the Unitarian Universalist Church and the Society of Friends, Habitat for Humanity, and the Heifer Project. I also pay for the provision of the SPLC’s “Teaching Tolerance” instructional materials to local schools.
As we all should, I also use a portion of my time to help organizations that are working towards my social goals. Since I’m physically capable of it, I repair and maintain the premises of local Unitarian churches and schools, doing plumbing, wiring, masonry, etc. I am occasionally involved in local politics in a very minor way (I was a Republican voting official during the first Obama election, for example, and I like to think my letters helped persuade a Republican state congressman to vote for marriage equality).
I have a teenage child, adopted at birth from the closest large city. I have spent her whole life doing everything I can for her, because I love her. And I don’t love her because she is “Black”; I love her because of the person she is, and that is the house that her soul lives in. I am not infertile and she is not my only child, and I didn’t ask the adoption agency for a child of any particular color or abilities, I asked them for a child that needed loving parents. I’d adopt ten more if my wife would let me, and race would not be an issue - only need.
I think air and water pollution are the biggest social issues of our lifetime - “global warming” is just a tedious hipster way to say “air pollution” (like calling your car your “wheels” when it’s far more than just that). So I use the least polluting cars I can afford, the least polluting tractor I can afford, as much locally produced food as I can afford, and I recycle or compost the majority of my household waste. This tends to benefit poor people of color more than anyone else, and while this pleases me it’s not why I do it.
I feel strongly that Wangari Maathai’s style of environmental activism is the best way to improve the lot of everyone - regardless of race or gender. I have purchased a home that controls of a portion of the water supply of the nearest town, and am actively maintaining and improving the health of that stream, despite the obstructionism of the corrupt state agencies who are supposed to be doing this (the state allows privileged white persons to dump in the stream, and arrests brown persons - but a neighbor and I have been physically intervening to stop all dumping, which is apparently orchestrated by a politically connected Wilmington police officer). I have planted over a hundred native trees along the stream, mostly on my own property where I can prevent said officer from cutting them down.
I’m heavily involved in technology recycling, entirely on my own. I have provided about a hundred complete computer systems (I don’t keep count) built from recycled parts to people and institutions that could not afford to purchase them, including systems for shut-in elders, a terminally ill child, a single mother of handicapped children, and guys who just don’t have good-paying jobs. I’ve never made race a factor in any of that, only need, and I refuse to let any agency become involved (although I do work with individual local clergy and teachers).
And lastly, I try to enlighten people, and to bear witness. I try to speak out when I hear ideas - especially unexamined ideas - that hold people back. I’ve stood up during a church sermon and argued with a preacher who was supporting the idea that all white people are inherently and unforgivably racists and all black people are permanent victims incapable of racism. That sort of divisive nonsense harms nearly everyone involved - except corrupt leaders like Louis Farrakhan and David Duke, who thrive on setting common people against each other.
I lack persuasive writing skills, I have a sometimes irascible nature, my prose is overly prolix, I have many commonplace human failings. But I agree with the Buddha, who said each one of us should personally take all responsibility for all suffering in the world, and with the Koheleth, who said “whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” If I see someone promoting unnecessary divisiveness - for example someone who plays on the theme of white guilt or black resentment - I will call it out, even if I’m ridiculed or called a racist for it. Because it’s what a human should do, we should stand up for our beliefs, and I believe we’re all one entity.
