Playing the Race Card Has No Value
We’ve been conditioned not to call out racists, even when our lives depend on it
When I was nine years old, my teacher just didn’t like Black students. No, that’s not quite right — she had disdain for us. While she displayed overt favoritism for White and Asian students, she made it clear she expected the Black children in her class to fail. When I managed to do well on tests and write a compelling story, her reaction was to ask whether I was adopted or mixed.
But from a very young age, I couldn’t call her out. No one had ever told me this, but I somehow knew: Don’t bring up their own racism. Or, in White people terms, don’t “pull the race card.”
At 10, I watched a White police officer in Orlando brutally slam a Black teenage girl on the hood of her car — for the brazen, life-threatening offense of “having a smart mouth.” The cop then turned to her partner and casually remarked: “They grow big fast, and can’t be treated like children. I wonder what they’re feeding them?” The two of them laughed.
That teenage girl knew not to pull the race card.
At 15, two of my close friends were Lakshmi, a Black girl, and Cassandra, who was White. We frequently hung out at Cassandra’s house after school. I met her parents and often had…
