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We drew attention as an unlikely couple: my brown skin, his skin somewhat paler, me the quiet graduate student, he the outdoorsman with thickly calloused hands and a calm demeanour until the drink got in him real good. We were never going to be able to hide in plain sight. On weekends, we would go out to a bar or the bowling alley, anything to get out of the house, hear a little music, dance together. He was a drinker, beer and bourbon mostly. I loved to make him question his place in the world the way he made me question mine. When I tried to lure him to my liberal way of thinking, he smiled at me like I still had so much to learn. He was conservative and I was decidedly not. I stared at him over the pages of my book like I knew the mysteries lurking beneath his surface. I would sit on the dock at his cabin reading while he held his fishing pole, staring at the water like he knew the mysteries lurking beneath the surface. He drove a truck and he had a cabin on a lake and he loved to fish. He kept a beard even though I often urged him to shave so I could see the smooth of his face. He loved the natural world and understood it better than people. He taught me how to exhale as I pressed the trigger.
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He taught me the various parts of a crossbow and how to hold it properly, braced against the shoulder. He took me deer hunting in the cold, early morning. He took me into the woods and showed me hidden waterfalls. There is the most recent man I loved – the rugged sort, a logger and a hunter. When these white men write to me, they are trying to say, “I am more than my skin.” They are trying to say, “I bleed, too.” I want to write back and say, “I never said otherwise.” They are not interested in my sad stories. White men have written to me to tell me their sad stories, as if their suffering, great or small, were the bridge across which we could find common ground. White men have written to me to tell me I am wrong.
No one would willingly relinquish such power. They know what their lives would be like if they lost that privilege. They feel threatened and, perhaps, they should. They see it as an attack on their character or an attack on their way of life. They hear it as an accusation rather than a statement of fact. I have written about how far too many white men are unwilling to acknowledge that ease, that privilege. I have written about the ease with which they move through the world. I have written about white men and how prominently they figure in our culture. Events and Offers Sign up to receive information regarding NS events, subscription offers & product updates. Ideas and Letters A newsletter showcasing the finest writing from the ideas section and the NS archive, covering political ideas, philosophy, criticism and intellectual history - sent every Wednesday. Weekly Highlights A weekly round-up of some of the best articles featured in the most recent issue of the New Statesman, sent each Saturday.
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The Culture Edit Our weekly culture newsletter – from books and art to pop culture and memes – sent every Friday. Green Times The New Statesman’s weekly environment email on the politics, business and culture of the climate and nature crises - in your inbox every Thursday. The New Statesman Daily The best of the New Statesman, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. World Review The New Statesman’s global affairs newsletter, every Monday and Friday. Morning Call Quick and essential guide to domestic and global politics from the New Statesman's politics team. The Crash A weekly newsletter helping you fit together the pieces of the global economic slowdown. Sign up for The New Statesman’s newsletters Tick the boxes of the newsletters you would like to receive. I have seen how they survey a room they enter, knowing they have an inalienable right to fill that space as they see fit, no matter the circumstance. I have studied the confidence with which they walk, the shape of their squared shoulders, the almost unbearable firmness of their handshake. I have watched them mow their lawns and play softball on Thursday nights and drink beer and go to work each morning in their sensible suits and sensible shoes. For most of my life, I have lived in areas where I am the exception rather than the rule. I am a child of the suburbs and forgotten rural places. It would have been easy, I suppose, to imagine that all white men were like that: brute, taking what they wanted as if it were owed to them. There was the first boy I ever loved – golden-haired, blue-eyed – and then he and several other boys who were just like him did something terrible to me. They misunderstand equality as the destruction of one group instead of the salvation of another. They think that a passionate desire for equality rises from a place of hatred rather than from an abiding sense of fairness. They read my writing about race and gender and make assumptions.