White Privilege and The Silent Majority

by Ron Powell

 

 The notion or concept of the "silent majority" was devised in order to provide the average white person a way to identify with the vast majority of white people who weren't actively and openly engaged in the protests and civil disobedience that occurred during the Civil Rights Movement...The idea being, that if you were white and not actively involved in the protests, then you were assumed to be against the protesters and marchers and for "law and order".

 

Hence, remaining silent meant that people could assume you were for maintaining the status quo and against any kind of change that might result in greater exercise of freedom on the part of black people.

 

As a result, people who are passively and quietly sympathetic to the notion of "liberty and justice for all" must have the courage to come out and declare themselves and in so doing risk being shunned or ostracized by family, friends, and neighbors and possibly even  penalized by employers...

 

Unwitting, unconscious, sub-conscious racists must acknowledge that racism is a predominant and determining factor in our society and that they have benefitted from this fact of American life.... 

 

Silent non-racists  must be willing to openly engage people who express themselves in ways that are clear indications of their racist mind set and attitudes and must become anti-racism activists...

The current rash of anti-black application of the law is steeped in a long-standing tradition and history in this country. What's 'new' is the seemingly clever ways racists have hidden their agenda and motives.

White folks are being duped big time by those who have pushed the narrative and dynamic re race and racism in a direction that requires the self-declared 'non-racist' to actively "opt out" of racism rather than simply remaining silent while sitting on the sidelines and wondering what all the 'fuss' is about...

The failure of "good" folks to speak up and speak out will be the undoing of the "progress" that has been made in the last 50/60 years.....

If people who sympathizes with the rhetoric of hatred and violence are not confronted  by people of good will the tragic truth is that they will prevail  and we will have lost the opportunity to turn the page and turn the corner.....

All the progress we have made can be lost in a split second...We have and obligation to protect the progress we have made while at the same time not being complacent...We have come a great distance but we have a great distance yet to go before we can rest......