Dear White People Who Tell My Husband to Take Personal Responsibility
From one white person to another, I have a few things to say
It’s as predictable as gravity. Whenever I write a story suggesting that my Black husband has, at any point during his 45 years on the planet, been a victim of racism, a commenter will counter with the “personal responsibility” argument.
If your husband just hadn’t done X, then Y never would have happened. He has to take more personal responsibility.
These kinds of comments make me want to bash my head against a brick wall. They rile me up more than they rile up my husband, who’s used to this sort of thing. He’s had 40+ years of experience, after all.
My husband and I are all for personal responsibility. It is a popular topic of conversation with our children. We talk to them about the importance of picking up their things and taking care of their things and leaving things better than they found them and treating other humans with respect.
We also model personal responsibility. When I met my husband 17 years ago, he had just been laid off from a job working night shifts at a microchip factory. He had a five-year-old son and had moved across the country to help raise him. He was going to EMT school.
