Thread by @MattWaldman

Seeing some of my colleagues talk about what it's like being black in America--@DianteLee_ comes to mind prominently this afternoon, I'd like to offer a different perspective.

Being white, growing up in the north and south, and becoming part of a black family. What you learn.

The first thing you learn is that no matter how open-minded, loving, and book-educated you are, you are not ready for what you'll experience once you become emotionally invested in the lives of people who are black.

Seeing, experiencing, and feeling it on a visceral level.

You will at first do what black people do as they're growing up and first experiencing it: Wondering if what you experienced happened as you perceived it and trying to rationalize the motivations as not racist. Revisiting multiple times to make sure you're not crazy.

Black people revisit, replay, and analyze things that happen--even after experiencing events like it for decades.

You learn there's a constant state of questioning, analyzing, explaining (while angry). It's stressful and wears you out.

You learn why a lifetime of having to be on guard for the potential of significant danger to well-being physically, financially, and emotionally is a drain on mental, physical, and financial health--and considering how doctors have been mistrained (even recently)...

about the pain tolerance, dosages, and overall untrue differences with black patients, it's not surprising there's a distrust of U.S. healthcare.

BTW-I learned with one of my roommates in 1990 in Miami that if I didn't barge past the ER front desk in an empty waiting room,

my roommate, who waited 30 minutes with a medical emergency (I rushed him there) and was hyperventilating and sweating bullets was about two minutes from a stroke if I didn't grab an annoyed doctor (once he saw my roommate--five folks were working on him immediately)

Even w/that story, at 20 yrs old, having influential teachers talk to me about their life in America, reading Malcolm X, learning history beyond my high school curriculum, I still wanted to rationalize what my roommate went through.

The truth: Being dangerously ill while black

I learned how to have "the talks" with my kids about retail stores, police, school, and the parents of their white friends. Things I never had to consider growing up. Sometimes those talks happened after the fact with incidents that came earlier than I hoped to God would.

Teacher putting my talkative kid in a desk and putting a tape perimeter around her to tell other kids not to interact with her and wanted her tested for a learning disability--when all she did was finish her assignments early (and correctly and consistently) and was bored.

Cashier being rude to my girlfriend because the clerk shorted $20 at the grocery. The manager being ruder when summoned. Neither manager nor cashier offering the slightest apology after counting drawer and it being exactly $20 over.

Countless times followed by retail clerks or front store security behaving brusquely until they realized I was with them and then behaving 180 degrees different. Cops thinking the way to behave with my executive wife whose family all earned college degrees was to speak ebonics

Wife pulled over for alleged "rolling stops", going through yellow lights, or going 5mph over the speed limit & questioned about the veracity of her ownership of the car because of the cognitive dissonance of her dark skin & German last name that's on her license and insurance.

Cops questioning that she owns the car even after they see the name match with the IDs. Cops following her home after everything checks out but they want to make sure that nice car is hers--the "don't-fuck-with-me," car that I would never have to drive for people at work to see

that she's not some charity case they hired but a star employee. Not to mention that her dad, sister, and brother were Baltimore PD. And they know police training has been cut well short of optimal in the past 15-20 years.

My wife having to deal with "Cooper-like" women (not new) using tears as a weapon when they become threatened about my wife's positive work relationships w/males at the job. And those males taking the bait because they don't expect white women to be mature one but need rescuing.

Ex-girlfriend and I once applied for same job. She had more desirable industry experience, called her first, talked salary, & scheduled interview. She arrived in a stunning Chanel suit--very interview appropriate. Hiring manager took one look at her, said job was filled, offered

entry-level gig. Then manager called me, I went through three interviews--one was clearly a "does the owner give the stamp of approval that I'm a white male," interview and was offered the job (I graphically told them what they could do with the offer).

The dread I felt when my wife decided to take a drive in her new car and forgot to tell me she was doing so after she ran an errand at night and I thought she'd be home in 20 minutes. Me driving around the county looking for her because I hoped she wasn't pulled over.

My wife panicking and wanting to leave a concert when my daughter, a Marine, got pulled over for a traffic stop at night in a county that 15 years ago had signs that essentially told black people to leave at night.

I notice how some people who are uncomfortable around blacks get tense and shaky and I have to be 1-2 steps ahead and wonder if this is the day I'm going to jail for my wife. I have learned how to take the temperature of a room in a way I never had to before.

I notice black people taking the temperature of my behavior. Am I at ease and self-aware or am I going to be that guy trying to act black? Am I that guy who will treat my wife as some fetishized trophy? Am I the well-meaning but ignorant liberal social justice warrior 24/7?

All of this is done out of protection and understandably so. Some have seen and experienced too much to even want to try with me. And I get that. Hate it's that way, but I get it and know I can't change that in one interaction--and in some cases, ever.

Mostly, I've learned that I had to unlearn subtle and unintentional behaviors that I was taught that perpetuated systemic racism. Things family and authority taught. That it took time, effort, humility, and painful self-reflection. I'm still learning. We're all still learning.

And, it's exhausting to explain as often as it needs to be explained to give someone uninitiated a clear picture. A clear picture you may not see immediately or in its totality. I'm not telling you how to be, just sharing how I've been. Hope it helps.