D. L. Hughley - Surrender, White People!

To my father, Charles Hughley. Ill always try to make you proud.

Surrender, white people! Times up.

After four hundred years of oppression, discrimination, and bias, black folks are still here and we still wont shut the fuck up. And now weve got reinforcements. Just in my lifetime, the face of America has become a hell of a lot browner. In fact, were on the cusp of being a majority-minority country. Let that sink in: whites will soon be a minority. This new reality carries consequences. White people have been in charge for a long time now, but black and brown folk are not going to take a back seat anymore. Whiteness aint what it used to be. Im here to say, its time for white folks to sue for peace while the gettings still good.

Not that we won. No black or brown person can say we won with Trump in the White House or Tucker Carlson on the TV. Charlottesville, Botham Jean, and Atatiana Jefferson make it clear how far we still have to go. But the times are changing. As The Atlantic recently observed, The United States is undergoing a transition perhaps no rich and stable democracy has ever experienced: Its historically dominant group is on its way to becoming a political minorityand its minority groups are asserting their co-equal rights and interests. Damn right.

So here we are. Nobodys winning, everybodys losing. Were all angry. Weve been at it so long that it feels like well always have racial conflict and like well never figure out how to live together in peace and harmony. Whatever happened to ebony and ivory living side by side on my piano keyboard?

What we have here in America is a dysfunctional relationship. Its an unhappy marriage after a shotgun wedding. Oh, and after slavery, Jim Crow, and lynchings. So, ya know, we got issues.

But this countrys not going to therapy, because America doesnt want to deal with her issues. White people hate talking about race. Why is everything about race? they say. Why do we always have to talk about race? Everythings about race, because in America, its always been about race here. The places we could work and live, the places we could eat, the places we could go to school.

Its the same today. How are we supposed to deal with Charlottesville if we dont know the same history? How are we supposed to trust the police if we dont acknowledge the continuing violence against us, as well as centuries of forced subjugation by white authorities? Where white people see an obsession with victimhood, black people see a willful lack of taking responsibility. When will white people let us be part of America?

Peace and reconciliation will only happen, I believe, when white people surrender their unjust privileges and their delusions of supremacy. Look your history in the face, put aside all your visions of superiority, open up your institutions so they benefit everyone in this nation, and join the rest of us as equals. Thats what I mean by surrender.

But America still has a white supremacy complex, still wants to bring black and brown people to heel. Slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation all tried to get black people to be like good little children, seen but not heard. Maybe not even seen. And then you voted for Obama: Fuck it, okay; Ill vote for a black guy this one time. Now this will make them shut up. But then we didnt shut up, so we got Trump as payback. Soon enough, African countries were shitholes, brown people were in cages, and Nazis were marching in our streets.

So Im going to solve our problems with this book. This book will do more for white people than the Obama election ever did. Itll do more than rooting for a black quarterback, more than celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day. You tried all these little things, hoping that wed shut up, but it didnt quite get you there.

So fine, you dont want to hear from us anymore? This book is about how we can get black people to stop talking about oppression, discrimination, and our place in America. You give us this stuff and you get the niggers to shut the fuck up about it!

Surrender, white people! These are our terms:

A peace treaty, D.L.? Isnt that a bit... dramatic?

Dont we need one? Were clearly at war. When you can get shot in your own house like Botham Jean or Atatiana Jefferson, what else can you call it?

All deaths are tragic, but not all of them are surprising. When dudes are on the streets, running afoul of the law, the propensity for something happening is probably exacerbated. But when cops kill two people in their homes, what else can you call it but war?

You used to be able to tell yourself, Well, he sold cigarettes, or He wouldnt comply. But what do you say to these people who were just at home at night, and had white cops shoot them through a window or bust into their homes and kill them there? I mean, youre gonna run out of us to kill. Youre killing good ones now.

There are people in America who think just not having slaves anymore was all we needed. Because you freed the slaves in 1865, we good. But it was a hundred years later before you gave us the ability to eat at the same restaurant as you. So you gave us freedom, but not a fork.

You gave us the right to not be slaves anymore, but then you changed the vagrancy laws, the housing laws, and the voting laws to make it almost impossible for us to really be free. All these changes were just designed to keep us slaves. You reincarnated the incarceration.

I think America can do better for us. Let me tell you a story.

I travel a lot for work because Im touring all the time. I probably spend $300,000 to $400,000 a year on airline tickets. I have maybe nine million air miles because I fly domestically every week. And because I fly American Airlines so much, Im a ConciergeKey member. Thats the top status; I dont even know how you get to be a ConciergeKey memberits some kind of secret. Theres nowhere Im treated better. They meet me at the gate, come pick me up in a Cadillactheyre not fucking around.

I might be a god on American, but when I go other places, Im just another black guy. Or worse, people think I work for my assistant, Derek.

Now granted, Derek looks like a model, so hes always going to get attention. I mean, Im dope, but he looks like the Most Interesting Man in the World. So Im used to it. But its incredible how quickly you go from being king to just another nigger.

Recently, we were staying at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando. Derek had my credit card and he was at the counter checking us in. I remembered that I had to give him a letter, so I walked up to give it to Derek and this white man goes, HEY!

Like that: HEY!

And he startled me. You know how your mouth goes like a Cheerio when youre startled? Nigga, I have never been so surprised. I just stopped short and my mouth looked like a big O. I was startled.

He said, What are you doing? The lines back here. This guys standing there with his wife and kids. And I said, He works for me. We were in lineand I just had to get this letter. And I got mad that I was explaining myself. I said, By the way, I would never be that rude where I would jump in front of somebody, a man with his family. He said, Well, I apologize. I said, Not fast enough.

Then Derek and I were waiting, having a drink while they were bringing my bags up. The dudes wife walked by on her way to the pool with her two little girls in their floats and shit. She saw me and she mouthed, Im so sorry. You know when a wife says something like that, she knows her husbands an asshole.

But he was showing off for his family. Im gonna show this nigger. And Im like, Man, do you see me? White people have a psychic confusion when they see a black man in the fucking Ritz.