I grew up a gay white male in Columbia, South Carolina during the 1990s. I went to conservative Catholic schools. Being gay was difficult, but it was not and is not the same as being a person of color in the United States.

The Confederate flag was flying in SC until very recently. I was never able to deny the fact that people of color had different (often negative) experiences from my own as a white person. In fact, I often wondered how I could ever look people of color in the eye and why people of color wouldn’t want me dead. I’ve never associated anything positive with being white nor do I have any pride in “my heritage.” Being from the United States and of Anglo-European stock is more of an accident of birth than something to stake out any pride in. My ancestors on both sides were basically low or middle income white people, but they obviously benefited from white supremacy and racism. And I, along with every other “white” person in this country, continue to benefit from it. I’d go as far to say that I’m ashamed to be white.

I don’t think the South is “more racist” than other areas of the country. Enslavement of black people and dispossession and genocide against Native Americans along with the treatment of other people of color are original collective sins of this country; and we have not properly dealt with any of it. We don’t teach accurate history. So many of us pretended that electing President Obama was emblematic of a “post-racial moment” even as racist vitriol was hurled at him. That is bullshit, and “colorblindness” can be just as harmful as actual racism because it ignores difference and refuses to see the whole person. We have not made necessary financial and structural interventions to ameliorate the multi-generational impacts of the enslavement of black people and the dispossession of Native Americans.

I was an African Studies and Journalism double major in college. I studied Feminist Studies, Critical Race Studies, and Queer Studies for a year in Master of Arts program. I have the intellectual framework of structural inequality. I believe in reparations. I believe that white privilege is real and that white supremacy and institutionalized racism continue to pervade our institutions. I believe that growing up in the United States has left me with some level of unconscious racist bias that I may never be able to fully remove from myself.

I have worked in non-profits for most of the past decade to try and address structural inequality. I pushed for a gun control initiative in South Carolina to also address extrajudicial killings of black people in the aftermath of the murder of Trayvon Martin. I was fired from an LGBTQ organization for trying to push it in a more inclusive, progressive direction – one that would entail a more racially and ethnically representative staff and board of directors. I believe people of color when they report discriminatory treatment and want so badly to fix it.

Lately, I have found myself wanting to kill myself because of being white. I honestly don’t know that there is any positive way to be a white male in the United States. I currently live in the majority-black city of Newark, New Jersey, and I wonder if it’s even a place where I need to be. I have a large number of friends who are people of color, and I honestly don’t feel that I deserve those friendships.

There are times when a critique is being made about “white people” that I believe is valid, and, yet, I still feel hurt by those critiques. But you just can’t say “Not all white people.” I know better than to voice those feelings and opt to stuff them down because I believe that “white feelings” do not matter in these situations. Maybe I am just a useless fragile white person? Or other times I will feel like people are treating me in negative manner because of my being white. Sometimes these sorts of things feel abusive, but I don’t want to say anything because I know I will probably be eviscerated. But the feelings exist. And I don’t know what to do with them. I’m not a robot, so I cannot help having them.
I had a few experiences when I felt that people thought I didn’t deserve a particular job because I am white. When I went to interview for a position at an organization called ColorOfChange, I overheard people speaking in the other room about how the organization shouldn’t hire anymore white people. Another time a friend told me that he thought a black person should be hired for the job that I was applying for. And maybe he was right. It was an LGBTQ HBCU outreach position.

I ultimately left my graduate program because I felt that people like me were overrepresented in the academic environment. I didn’t deserve to be there. I didn’t earn it. My contribution wasn’t going to matter.

I left online social justice spaces for similar reasons. I didn’t feel welcome or deserving of being there anymore because I embody the problem.

I often withdraw from friends because I feel that being a white male is an act of violence against them.

I’m afraid to leave my apartment in Newark sometimes because I’m afraid that people are judging me, not wanting me, wishing me away, et cetera.

I don’t feel that I deserve to do the work that I have done in HIV Research or in LGBTQ Health and Wellness because white men are overrepresented in these fields and I feel as though I have no contribution to make on the basis of who I am.

I remember an incident with an organizer for a non-profit focused specifically on LGBTQ people of color. I was giving her a ride home after we had attended an event. We were speaking about dating, and I was telling her about a guy I was dating. And she said, “Oh, he must be white.” My boyfriend wasn’t white, but I didn’t really say anything or let on that it hurt me.

I am an incredibly sensitive person, and I do take things very personally. And I also deal with depression and anxiety related to bipolar II disorder, so I wonder if that contributes to these slumps and inundations of feelings of wanting to kill myself because of being white. The feelings do tend to dissipate once I come out of severe depression, and I am able to have more healthy distance. I’m able to say “This isn’t personal” or “This person isn’t talking about me.”

I would be afraid to show this to most of the people of color in my life because I think it would only confirm how stupid, self-involved, and emotionally fragile I am to them.

I am in no way saying that “reverse racism” exists. That is an absurd concept, and I would never use it to describe any of the things I outlined above.