Are you feeling guilty yet about all the injustices blacks have suffered in our fundamentally racist society? If not, you could try walking a mile in a black man’s shoes. Or, failing that, you could shine a black man’s shoes. (RELATED: No, Tim Kaine, the U.S. didn’t ‘create’ slavery)
That recommendation comes to you courtesy of Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy, who, according to Fox News, proposed the idea during a 70-minute roundtable discussion Sunday at Passion City Church in Atlanta.
White Christians need to repent for racism and fight for their black brothers and sisters, Cathy urged before grabbing a shoe brush and walking over to a rapper named Lecrae, who was also on the panel.
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Luckily for those White Christians who have never shined a pair of shoes, a video of Cathy at work was posted to YouTube, showing how it’s done.
“Most of us, white people, we’re out-of-sight-out-of-mind oblivious to it,” Cathy said about injustice against black Americans. “We cannot let this moment pass.”
Earlier this month, a group of privileged whites in Cary, N.C., atoned for their sins against blacks during a prayer walk by kneeling and washing the feet of black community leaders. But shining shoes does have more of the sense of a payback if that is your intention.
I you’d prefer to do something more magnanimous still to work off your white guilt, Chanelle Helm, a Black Lives Matter Louisville organizer, published a list in 2017 of 10 “small” requests Black Lives Matter would like to make of white people. (The use of euphemistic quotes around the word small will become self-explanatory as you read some of the entries, which follows.)
White people, if you’re inheriting property you intend to sell upon acceptance, give it to a black or brown family. You’re bound to make that money in some other white privileged way.
White people, re-budget your monthly [sic] so you can donate to black funds for land purchasing.
White people, especially white women (because this is yaw specialty — Nosey Jenny and Meddling Kathy), get a racist fired. Yaw know what the f*ck they be saying. You are complicit when you ignore them. Get your boss fired cause they racist too.
We good now?
