The “Terrible Tears” as White Women’s Counter Defensive Act: Excerpt from The Alt-Racism Treatise

Well-Meaning White Person: You’ve hurt my feelings. Why do you hate all white people?

World-Weary Minority: I do not hate white people and I don’t even hate all White People. I try not to hate any people. Hate is a soul-corroding acid and I want no part of it. That said, your response, attempting to change the subject away from the topic to your feelings shows why some people might not be able to resist the urge to hate you.

***

Here’s the deal. More often than not, every time I think it’s time to press “publish” on one of my race pieces, some new outrage occurs, like the Amy Cooper incident. I’d thought of the fictional dialogue above to represent similar conversations I’ve had in fact. It’s Chapter Eighteen of a treatise I’m writing on what I call “Alt-Racism” where I try to train otherwise decent people who happen to be “white” how to recognize and repudiate their racist impulses in order not to become “White.” I use lower case “white” for them; I use the capitalized “White” to represent biased people including those, like Missy Amy, exploiting systemic racism, sometimes without even acknowledging their advantage. Those offended by weaponized capitalization, crying “foul,” just need to consider it micro-reparations for microaggressions. If you’re hardcore White, I may not be able to help you, although I do start from the premise that racism is endemic, yet curable. And if you’re reading this, there’s hope for you.

This treatise chapter was triggered by German Lopez’ article in Vox, subtitled “Here’s Why White Men are Acting Like the Victims in Charlottesville.” In this piece about the white supremacist protest in the home of Thomas Jefferson’s intellectual legacy, the University of Virginia — where former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon David Duke praises the current U.S. president for giving voice to the ideals of Neo-Nazis, Klan members, and White supremacists nationwide — Lopez cites research by Robin DiAngelo, currently on the faculty of the University of Washington.

In research published in the International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, DiAngelo studies disproportionate White reaction to even the mildest criticism involving racial issues. DiAngelo reports a real-life scenario from an anti-racism session she ran, when a White woman was held responsible for things she said that caused discomfort for the people of color who were her coworkers. The woman got so upset, fellow white coworkers thought she was having an actual heart attack. She wasn’t, but naturally, the conversation moved away from her hurtful behavior to her apparent hurting.

DiAngelo has found that such overreaction is not as uncommon as you might imagine. I’ve seen it when Whites freak out, treating the minority to a J’accuse! moment, clutching pearls, getting palpitations, wildly tossing out accusations of being treated unfairly, unkindly, unsympathetically, un-whateverly.

Take, for example, the MTV documentary White People. Correspondent José Antonio Vargas interviews a lot of young white people. In one case, a White college student is clearly convinced people of color are more likely to get scholarships. When confronted with irrefutable proof that such is not the case, he sputters, “Okay, now I feel like the victim here . . . I feel like you guys are attacking me now.” So, he is wrong and just simply pointing it out prompts him to come unglued, instantly viewing facts as an attack, immediately derailing any substantive discussion. Turns out, that white student is actually White.

I’m reminded of a tiny incident in my own past that gives a less dramatic, but equally effective window into part of what DiAngelo calls “white fragility.” I call this vista “The Terrible Tears.” In fact, my incident might be more effective because, through a microscopic lens, it shows how banal, how everyday, racism can be.

The Terrible Tears usually occur when you, a bigot (usually White female), let’s say, is caught dead to rights. Guilty as charged. No way out. That’s when you turn on the taps. Both. Full flood. Here’s my example:

In my Tennessee high school band there was a system of “challenges.” In band, you sit in sections; I was in the flute section with four other players. The challenge concept was a competitive process where you could challenge the person who sat one seat up. By doing this you could move up in rank by means of hard work and objective achievement. If you move all the way up to first chair, you could be in place for any solos that might appear in the music.

You had to meet with the band director and the other player to issue the challenge. The challenge must be accepted. The three of you then set a date, in consultation with your parents (who usually provided after-school rides). If, for any reason, the person being challenged doesn’t show up at the agreed-upon date, that person forfeits her seat and has to challenge to get it back. Other challenges in the band had gone off without a hitch, so I was ready to try.

I was fourth chair, which was great for a sophomore since the three players above me were juniors and seniors. I didn’t plan to challenge the first two because they were really good, although the second chair was exceedingly nervous (I mean noticeably shaking) any time he had a solo. However, I did think I was better than Wanda, the blonde junior sitting third chair; I practiced more and could do all my scales, plus I had memorized all the marching season music. Anyway, I issued the challenge, the date was set, I showed up, she didn’t.

At the next band practice, Wanda wept profusely, saying it wasn’t her fault; her mother couldn’t pick her up, so she couldn’t stay. That should have been irrelevant and I could tell by the look on the White male band director’s face that he knew it. My mom, with a full-time teaching job, plus raising four children alone while my dad was serving his country as a member of the famed U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne “Screaming Eagles” in Vietnam, drove clear across town to pick me up (the new high school for our part of town, near the military base, was not yet open for occupancy).

“What can I do?” his eyes intoned, “Can’t you see she’s crying? He couldn’t resist her tears and so changed the rules; she kept her seat. “But that’s not FAIR!,” my eyes blared in mixed indignation and confusion. Yet, somehow, I knew my black-girl tears wouldn’t have mattered. I just turned and walked away. But this wasn’t the worse part.

I knew I’d been screwed; the band director knew it; Wanda knew it. As I went to take my seat (Wanda had to wash her face), the top two players asked what had happened. I didn’t know what to say because, being a relative novice in such things, I didn’t really know myself, so I told them that the band director canceled the challenge. They were stunned, but I didn’t want to talk about it. I went to my chair, that damned fourth chair, and sat there for the rest of the year. I didn’t challenge again and didn’t willingly talk to Wanda again.

Having cried her way into gaming the system, she wanted us to be friends, because if we weren’t, it might seem as if she were not a nice person (back in the day, being seen as “nice” took on epic importance among girls in my high school). I was supposed to make her feel good about herself and she began to resent it when I didn’t play along.

Desperately, she kept making jokes and complimenting my playing and seeking my advice about articulation and interpretation. I said as little as possible, bearing in mind my home-training as a decent person. She grew more and more miserable.

The band director found it hard to meet my eyes. That was okay for him, though, because my eyes, which had previously been glued to his baton, eagerly alert at all times, just glanced up now and then, keeping him in my peripheral vision enough to keep up. I practiced more and more, playing the hard licks before rehearsal so it would be clear I was the better player, but I never felt quite the same about band after that.

But let’s get back to you, dear reader. By turning to tears, you turn the tables, tapping us for a special home version of Minority Catch-22. Door Number 1? We’re cruel and insensitive because we made you cry. Door Number 2? We’re cruel and insensitive because we don’t react to your crying by backing away from the truth that made you cry. The prize? [cue suspenseful music: “dun, dun, DUN”] — we’re branded TROUBLEMAKERS!!

After all, bottom line, you wouldn’t have cried had it not been for us. Whatever rises to the top of the accusation list, we’re painted both as less than human and as the aggressor rather than the fully-human victims of your bigotry. And this use of tears is nothing new. As Robertson Davies so rightly observed in his novel Leaven of Malice way back in 1954: “Tears! The more these damned girls are in the wrong, the more they cry.”

The recent episode with White Amy Cooper is the Terrible Tears 12.5.2 version. She was in the wrong, totally and completely. Guilty as charged. No way out. Her dog wasn’t on the leash in a clearly posted “dogs on leashes” area in Central Park. All Chris Cooper (no relation), a black man, had to do was ask her to obey the law, offer her dog a treat, and take out his cellphone to record her overreaction and she becomes increasingly belligerent. He had to ask her to step away from him, stop coming so close to him. Bear in mind New York’s in the middle of a deadly pandemic as she steps up to him pointing her finger, channeling her a slavemistress ancestors.

When he stood his ground, this White woman made it clear he’d pay for being uppity. She’d call her personal concierge service for uppity negroes, the NYPD. Given that there’s a lot going on these days, they didn’t respond to her satisfaction, so she turned up the volume, stressing that an “African American man” was threatening her, and her dog. Poor little Henry, the cocker spaniel, was being choked half to death as she grabbed his collar rather than just put the leash on.

If people could be on the daytime Emmy’s right now, she’d be right up there. Never mind that she was the aggressor, approaching him, pointing her finger at him, threatening him. The fake panic, the breaks in her voice, it was all so masterful, or should I say mistressy. She clearly knew what she was doing because she made it clear in her so-called apology that she was not a racist. Take it from me, if you have to tell somebody you’re not a racist, you are.

This is one of the rare instances when the tears didn’t work completely. This 41-year-old corporate VP got fired. Henry was reclaimed by the rescue center that next day.

However, although it is a crime to submit a false police report, a crime punishable by imprisonment and/or a fine, and although her report could have gotten Chris, Harvard grad and birdwatcher with no weapons apart from binoculars and blackness, killed, she’s hasn’t been charged. Henry got justice in 24 hours; Chris did not. Mistress Amy’s still walking free, free to get another Emmett Till murdered by weaponizing her tears.

So all you Amys and Karens and Beckys and Wandas who want redemption, just remember this: You’re not the only one with tears. There are real ones that languish in our spirits, infusing our futures with viral doses of misapprehension and pain. Even my little everyday infection stayed with me like a low-grade fever. Years later, during my conservatory education, it spiked. I played principal in the orchestra; I avoided the band.

As Emily Dickinson wrote:

Not with a club the heart is broken,

Nor with a stone;

A whip, so small you could not see it,

I’ve known.

It’s a human thing. Emily D gets it.