You know how you can say one thing but you’re talking about another thing? That’s the subtext.
Let me say this to my wyte friends: There is the concept of “wyte innocence” that you might not be aware of. I know I’ve talked about it before in this space and elsewhere. The idea is that wyte people start from the position of “I didn’t do nothing wrong” which leads to “I’m not responsible” which leads to “I have an unbiased take on this” to “I get to be the voice in charge here.”
The thing is, it’s a set of false beliefs and assertions. It is an ingrained feeling and mental attitude that we wyte people can’t be accused of bias or wrong unless there is exceedingly overwhelming “proof,” and even then we will go down fighting and insisting that we were not wrong.
It’s a comforting thought, wyte innocence, and it’s very hard to stop drinking from the spigot that supplies it—it flows from everything around us and soaks us thoroughly.
And one way it manifests itself is in the belief that we wyte people can just say whatever we want, wound whomever we want, and then, if we are held accountable, insist that an apology is all we need to make to put things right. “I shouldn’t have said that thing which destroyed the Imago Dei in you, but I’m sorry.” And that’s followed by “please forgive me,” and even then “you have to forgive and forget because that’s what forgiveness is.”
Then we have no idea and are bewildered by the resulting loss of intimacy and relationship between us and the people we’ve been saying we “love” and “care for.”
We are, after all, innocent. Whatever it is we said wasn’t us. Or we didn’t mean it. Or can’t you take a joke. Or whatever. The thing that we did, the words we said, might have been wrong, but you just need to get over it because I said I was sorry. You’re so thin-skinned. You’re going to have to toughen up in the real world.
I’ve heard it all, folks.
And I’ve said it all myself.
I’ve seen this happen in real-time because of that. I’ve lost friends because of something I’ve said or done that I did not understand the depths of, and my apologies, although sincere, weren’t from the place of understanding and so my repentance was not from the place of my whole self. I might have learned to say things differently so they are less overtly offensive or distrustful or invalidating, but the thing is—the intent is still there and the insult still lands, but maybe not consciously.
The part of me that wants to cause the wound is still there. But experience has taught me how to slice the heart so expertly that you can’t tell how it happened.
Folks, that’s wyte innocence. As long as we say it the right way, we can’t be guilty.
And ultimately, the result of wyte innocence is the belief that we can just keep doing things the way we’re doing, wounding people left and right, but feel perfectly justified in not repenting. It’s is always their fault that they can’t redeem the friendship or the love or the intimacy. Not ours.
For you see, wyte innocence traps us so thoroughly that we will value our comfort and self-image above the lives and hearts and meaning of those around us we call “friends.”
I wish it weren’t so, but wishes don’t make this go away. The only thing—THE ONLY THING—that will kill this belief in our wyte innocence is consistent, hard work to look at ourselves the way others do.
And that is a gift that God seldom gives us.