Complicit

A note from co-founder Dave Miller

“If I were to remain silent I’d be guilty of complicity.”
— Albert Einstein

Like many privileged white males, I’ve been reading, studying, watching the images on TV, spending time downtown amongst the boarded-up buildings in my city. I’ve been asking non-white friends, and those with non-white children what they are thinking, and trying to learn.

This week I told one of them I’d been waiting for him to post something so I could share it. He is one I’ve learned much from over the last decade and love reading his insights into current events like we are living. I was shocked at his answer.

With his permission I share it with you:

Here’s what I wrote but never posted:

I’ve been quiet this time.

I’ve been quiet this time because, man, white supremacy works in this country. 

Four years ago, I was just a couple years into owning my business. It was the first time I had any meaningful control over my own livelihood. 

Despite graduating high school in the top 10% of my class, getting the President’s scholarship in college, and graduating college with three internships and a respectable GPA, I had seven jobs in the decade that followed. 

One full-time job paid so little, my wife, baby daughter, and I qualified for $800/month in SNAP benefits (formerly food stamps). 

Entrepreneurship brought freedom and hope. It bought our house, the table inside, and the food on it each night.

Four years ago, a young black man by the name of Philando Castile was shot to death in front of his fiancé and daughter in Minnesota.

Four years ago, a presidential candidate slandered a federal judge on television because of his race. 

Four years ago, I spoke out. 

I lost friends. Facebook friends anyway. I thought they were real friends. I thought that sharing meals with them in their homes meant that we were close, and I could be my real self around them, both the white half and the brown half. But when I spoke out, it cost me their friendship. 

But that wasn’t the worst of it. 

Speaking out almost cost me more than $50,000. An employee of one of my clients didn’t like what I posted on Facebook. He wasn’t the signer on my contract. He wasn’t the manager of our business relationship. He just worked there, and he didn’t like what I had to say. 

I spent several hours one night on the phone, with that employee and with the actual manager of the contract, trying to smooth everything over. 

I had to call my business partner, embarrassed that I might lose our company our largest contract that year, just for having an opinion out loud that a white person took exception to. 

In the end, the contract was safe, but I was not. 

I had been put in my place. It felt like the times when I had been pulled over while driving completely legally. It felt like the time when my brother and I were singled out by a drunk at Buffalo Wild Wings after 9/11. 

White supremacy works. A man who wasn’t my boss wielded power over my job, even though I was the boss at my job. All because I was brown and had an opinion out loud. 

I asked a black friend if I should delete the post to calm everything down. He said, “You can’t ever let them see your pain. If it were me, I’d take it down.”

So why have I been quiet? 

Because I’ve lost enough friends. 

Because that presidential candidate got elected. 

Because I almost ruined our company. 

Because the cost is high. 

I wish that I could be brown out loud and still provide for my family, but four years ago, I was forcefully reminded that I cannot. 

So I’ve been quiet this time.