Yes, Virginia, Of Course You Are a White Supremacist
898 words. Satire.
Note: This is my understanding of a few of the main points of critical race theory, translated to a familiar form for consumption by young minds. I wrote it imagining that someday that theory, which had already spread widely at the college level, would eventually be taught in lower grades. I withheld it for a couple of months, debating with myself whether it would be fair to say that proponents of CRT would want it taught in grades K-12. It turned out to be not only fair, but true. So my satire may actually be suitable as a CRT study guide.
While this is intended as satire, I would be very interested to know whether there are any parts with which a proponent of critical race theory would disagree, and why.
Disclaimer for the weak of mind: “Virginia Delaney” is a fictional person. Any resemblance of her name to any real person’s name is purely coincidental.
Yes, Virginia, Of Course You Are a White Supremacist
DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old, and Caucasian. Some of my little white friends say we are not racist. Teacher says ‘If you see it in critical race theory it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth; am I a white supremacist?
Virginia Delaney
VIRGINIA, your little white friends are wrong. They have been blinded by their own privilege. They do not believe except they see on Newsmax or Fox News. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds, and which originated in white Western culture. All white minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours whites are mere insects, ants, in their intellects, as compared with the boundless world of people of color about them, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge, better known as critical race theory and intersectionality.
Yes, VIRGINIA, you are a white supremacist, all the way down. Your racism exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist only in non-white cultures. Alas! How dreary your witless assumption and careless exercise of your dominance over persons of color render the world. I know you think you just wake up every morning, have breakfast, go to school, come home, do your homework, eat dinner with your family, play games or watch television, and go to bed without harming or even so much as thinking ill of anyone. You don’t see it yet, VIRGINIA, but you will someday: you live in a bubble of privilege, built on the backs of generations of slaves, then built even higher thanks to white subjugation of a supposedly free people, and now maintained by false narratives of your family’s so-called initiative and achievements.
But you know what bubbles do, VIRGINIA?
They pop.
Not believe you are a white supremacist! You might as well not believe in systemic racism. Once you accept that glaring truth, then you must ask yourself, cui bono? That means ‘who stands to benefit?’ I’ll bet you recognized that phrase as Latin, didn’t you VIRGINIA, even if you don’t know Latin. You know why that is? It’s because Western culture just loves them some Latin. Yep, whites think a dead white language is superior to, for instance, a thriving, vibrant living language continuum, African-American English. Or Spanglish. Or any other non-white sociolect of English. Yep, if you want to see white folks swoon and start handing out scholarship money, just trot out a little white kid spouting some Latin. What does it mean? Nobody knows, but it’s Latin! But let a little Black child speak the version of English he hears at home and in the neighborhood and what does he get? He gets an “F” on his report card!
Cui bono from all that racism, VIRGINIA? You bono, VIRGINIA.
Not believe you are a white supremacist! You might as well not believe in the intersecting social identities that simultaneously empower you and your kind while oppressing all non-whites! You might get your papa to help you spot a non-token person of color in a lead role on television, or a majority-minority board of a Fortune 100 company, or a Black dentist that he would trust to work on your teeth. But even if you found any of that—and good luck, VIRGINIA—that is no sign that you are not a racist. The most real things in the world in academia and the media are those that neither white children nor men can see. Your racism, you see, excuses all other explanations and excuses for the dysfunctions of non-white cultures. The dysfunction exists, but we must smother in its crib any idea that it is not caused and perpetuated by the unseen and unseeable actions of you, VIRGINIA, and others like you.
There is a veil covering the unseen world, and that veil is your vast and careless privilege, VIRGINIA. You may grow up and try, as many whites before you have done, to live as though you are color-blind when it comes to race and color. You do know that your white interpretation of Dr. King’s words is all messed up, don’t you? You may try to present yourself as more interested in merit than in group identity. You may even visit other countries and immerse yourself in other, non-white cultures. But until you learn to first acknowledge your guilt for all the ills besetting other races, and until you then willingly—nay, abjectly—devote your life, and the lives of your descendants to paying cash reparations to non-whites, you will still be a white supremacist. Actually, you, GINNY, will never outlive your white supremacist upbringing. How long will the stain be on your descendants, you ask? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else quite so real and abiding as our capacity to call you a racist. You just keep working on the guilt and reparations; we’ll say “stop” when you’ve done enough. Don’t hold your breath.
VIRGINIA not a white supremacist! Thank God! Your racism lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, your racism will continue to make glad the hearts of media pundits and academics, who will use it to stoke the fires of resentment everywhere, for all time.
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