Monday, July 7, 2008

A Letter from an Angry White Male

I just received this email. I'm X'ing out details to preserve his anonymity. I have requested his permission to use his name. If he grants it, I'll reinsert these details as well as his name.

"I went to the ??? Police Dept. to apply for a position. When I asked for an application, I was told by the human resources clerk that the police dept. was not accepting applications from white males and that I should come back in 2 years.

I explained to the clerk that I was a small percentage Native American. The clerk said, "If you can provide any proof of that bloodline then you're in." I thought to myself this is not fair and did not apply on that basis.

The awareness I was being discriminated against worsened when I watched a black acquaintance of mine get an job at the ??? Police Dept. with no education and who could care less if he got the job. Later in life I saw him again and he didn't even like being a cop. Yet I had a passion for law enforcement, a degree in police science, and had a slim to none chance at the job.

I eventually left the state and moved to ???? where I applied to be a police office in ???. To my surprise I was hired fairly quickly. It seemed that ??? didn't care about skin color.

I was wrong. I watched people get promoted because they threatened to pull the race card. I grew sick of hearing, "You just stopped me cuz im black" as he or she sits in a vehicle with blacked out windows not even being able to see what color or gender they are.

I found myself cutting minorities more breaks on crimes or traffic stops just so I wouldn't have to hear the race card played or have to let them slide to prove I wasn't a racist.

It is sad but true that you get calls from a fellow officer who just got into a shooting and he says, "Yeah, I'm OK. Thank God the suspect was a white male--the media wont care." Or I hear officers say things like, "If I ever am forced to shoot my gun, I hope its not a minority."

Once, I, with multiple other officers, had to shoot a young Hispanic male. The media loved it! It became a frenzy for months. According to the media, we shot not because he tried to stab an officer with a butcher knife but because he was a Hispanic teenager. The sad thing is people believe everything the media says. I personally was very hurt because I never wanted to pull my trigger but had no choice. Again, I always treated everyone with respect and never judged anyone because of color or gender. Yet the media called me a racist! Eventually I became so stressed out that my blood pressure got so high that my doctor became fearful that I could have a stroke.

I have soooh many true stories relating to my and other white males being discriminated against that I am going to write a book.

I will not, though, be racist myself. And I will teach my daughter to treat everyone with respect regardless! I will not complain or tell her about my experience. That would create another generation of haters.

I hope that, somehow, my daughter will grow up to live in a country/world where it doesn't matter what color you are and there is racial harmony. But I also want her not to feel guilty about being white and to stand up for herself if and when she is discriminated against.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I feel for this man. He went through a terrible experience doing what he loves, trying to protect people who didn't appreciate it. If he ever does write that book, I'd be very interested in reading it.

I hope that he keeps his word and does not pass on his anger to his daughter, because it will only prolong this mess.

Don't others ever remember the golden rule, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"? If you don't want other people judging you because of your race and gender, don't judge other people that way!

Oh well. That's the way it should be, in a reasonable world. It looks like that's not the way it worked for this man.

Anonymous said...

I read the following story this morning:

http://cityhallblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/07/dallas-county-meeting-turns-ra.html

The report says that a Dallas commissioner thought the term "black hole" was a racist term.

Another article:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-race-codewordsjun30,0,7093296.story

This story is about "code words;" employers, politicians, and others apparently are using more subtle racial slurs. When this Chicago Tribune story was picked up by my local paper, they decided it was front page news.

The more this stupid crap happens, the more angry people of all races there will be, and if we keep dividing ourselves by something as minor as race and gender, we will not be united when it's time to face a real problem.

Claudette Robb Ross said...

What an unbelievably sensitive world we now live in. Unbelievable!

I am a 58-year-old black, college-educated female. In other words, went through the Civil Rights Movement, have seen and been exposed to my share of discrimnation against blacks, am aware that black females get better breaks in Corporate America than black males (we're less threatening, supposedly less angry), but still can't always absorb or understand the anger black males feel/have felt in America. But I now understand the dilemma for white males.

So blacks have always wished for a "better shake" in America. But now there seems to be a troublesome reversal. My 14 year old son is bi-racial, but is able to play the race card to his advantage. It is now convenient, sometimes an advantage, to be a person of color. His best friend is an average white male and could not find a way to stand out so that he could get into the NYC high school of his choice. His mother had to do a lot of calling and calling, mixed with some begging, just to get her son noticed even a little bit. Whites may still be a majority (not sure of stats here), but that now makes them "a dime a dozen" and hardly a standout.

What a confusing world. Everyone is walking on egg shells.

Blacks don't want to be noticed by the police for fear of historical police brutality. White policemen don't want to clash with blacks for fear of media-induced police brutality.

Meanwhile 400,000 Americans -- white, black or otherwise -- became unemployed in 2008.

And the war in Iraq is killing off American males -- white, black or otherwise.

Seems we're only brethren outside of the United States.

Claudette

 

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