I watched SNL's skit "Black Jeopardy" last night. The one with Tom Hanks as a Donald Trump supporter? Of course I watched it three days after it aired because I have never once in my life stayed up to actually watch SNL on the air. Who stays up that late anyway?
The skit got a good deal of coverage because it asserts in a hilarious way that Trump supporters and Black folks actually have a great deal in common.
I suggest you watch the skit before reading on:
Basically all of the characters are surprised when the Donald Trump supporter seems to "get" Black culture as if it is his own.
The main joke of the skit comes toward the end when the double jeopardy category is revealed as "What Lives Matter," and it's obvious that these folks, who have all responded similarly so far, will reveal completely disparate views on the phrase Black Lives Matter.
It shouldn't surprise us, though, that poor Black folks and poor white folks have so much in common, because they DO.
And that's the remarkable point SNL is making with their skit.
Whiteness was created as a means of empowering one group at the expense of the other, specifically making white folks feel superior to Black and brown folks, no matter their socio-economic status.
The idea of whiteness did not exist prior to Black slavery and whiteness was not popularized until the existence of these colonies and this country built on slave labor.
Whiteness was created as a means of cementing a system of oppression for wealthy folks' economic gain.
The idea adopted by many poor white folks that Black and brown folks are the cause of all their problems, has been taught to poor white folks for centuries by rich white folks.
Tim Wise puts it well that "whiteness was created to divide and conquer, to create the notion that even though you might not have much, at least you're not Black, at least you're not indigenous . . . . . You may not have much, but at least you have as W.E.B. Dubois said 'the psychological wage of whiteness'" (Wise).
Historically speaking poor people have much in common with other poor people.
And yet poor white folks are tricked by rich white folks that the reason they're suffering is because of poor Black and brown folks, furthering the divide between groups of people who can be united.
SNL's "Black Jeopardy" skit is hilarious.
But it's also saying something very important about humanity and how much more we have in common than we might think.
My mom has made an observation a few times to me that when she reads the books or articles I've recommended on racial justice and healing, she's reminded how much of her childhood as a poor child of poor Norwegian farmers in Wisconsin looks like that of poor Black folks' experiences in the South post-reconstruction.
Share-cropping; abuse by land owners; land stolen by banks; biased wages and treatment; her childhood was marked by these experiences and they scarred her father's mind and body in ways she can't forget.
In her pocket of the US in the 40's and 50's, she encountered no Black folks. But by that point, if she had, I'm sure the widely disseminated narrative of her superior whiteness would have affected any interactions she would have with them as they affect any interactions white folks have with Black folks now (internal biases)
It's in reading stories now that she can see the same human experience from one poor person to the next, regardless of color.
She has agreed, however, that her life was never in danger because she was poor and white, whereas being poor and Black is often a death sentence.
It was then, and it is now.
In order for white folks to begin to say "Black Lives Matter," we need to unravel the centuries-long narrative of white supremacy that is based on nothing other than economic gain for the wealthy.
We need to see the humanity in the "other."
We need to read stories and find our similarities
We need to interact, for proximity breaks barriers.
Then white folks can maybe begin to believe the systemic violence perpetrated against Black bodies.
If we cannot see our own similarities, we cannot see humanity in the other. And our co-humanity is where we must start.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Sunday, September 4, 2016
So Far To Go and Totally Worth It
I consider myself a reasonably “woke” white person. I’m still learning, yes, but I feel that I’ve come a long way in my understanding of the necessity of the Movement for Black Lives, the deep history of oppression of Black bodies that extends into every sphere of our current lives, and the importance of white people talking to other white people about systemic racism and white supremacy.
But just the other day in a racial justice dialogue group organized by the UMC Baltimore-Washington Conference, I found myself slipping into an old narrative of Black experiences during a role-playing exercise.
I was supposed to be an applicant for a job with an interviewer who had my fictional criminal record in hand that included, among other small offenses, a drug charge. When asked to explain my fictional record, I immediately went for the poor-relationship-with-my-father-and-a-rough-childhood-on-the-streets story with an image of a Black man in my mind the entire time. I didn’t require my brain to consider the fact that the majority of drug users and sellers in the US are white.
I told the story as I had been told for many years, consciously and unconsciously, that Black men sell drugs and they do so because their culture and leadership is lacking.
When confronted with my blatantly racist thinking, I was so disheartened yet not surprised.
The layers of my own racism are deep. They are so. very. deep. And I realized anew in this dialogue group that my own self-understanding is only just beginning.
And yet, I could not come to this conclusion on my own. It was only in facilitated conversation with white and Black folks that I could begin to peel back the layers of the racist narrative I have been taught. I can read a great deal on my own, yes, but self-understanding does not come easily and it often cannot come through reading in isolation.
When I place myself in the sometimes uncomfortable position of connecting with others, of building sinew between us in conversational relationship, I open my heart up to immense change.
And isn’t that really what Jesus has called me to, anyway? Changing my own heart to build the Kingdom?
Monday, July 18, 2016
My Notes and Thoughts Following "What the White Church Must Do", a Panel Discussion on Racial Justice Held at the National Cathedral
I attended the 2016 March on Washington Film Festival panel discussion on racial justice and "What The White Church Must Do" on Sunday, July 17th at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. The panel was facilitated by the Rev. Professor Kelly Brown Douglas, author of the recently published book Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God.
I walked away with some solid amen moments, ways of seeing issues or ideas through a new lens. A few of those follow here:
_______________________________________________________________
Jim Wallis, Editor-in-Chief of Sojourners Magazine and author of multiple books on race and racism in the US and in Christianity, discussed how white Christianity is an idolatry that separates white Christians from God.
If we truly believe in Imago Dei - that all humans bear the image of God - yet hold onto our identification as white and the privileges and power that go along with whiteness, then we do not actually believe in Imago Dei.
We therefore believe that only some people bear the image of God, which TOTALLY GOES AGAINST everything the church and the scriptures have taught.
The construct of whiteness argues the opposite of Imago Dei, that non-white races are less-than human (therefore cannot bear the image of God), and therefore through our holding onto whiteness (not identifying our power and privilege and how that power and privilege has worked systematically historically and currently to oppress non-white persons) we have created an idol out of our whiteness and a chasm between us and the Holy.
We cannot be close to God without identifying our whiteness and the privilege and power that comes along with it as an idol that has separated us from God.
_______________________________________________________________________
Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, diocesan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, spoke with so much empathy for her white congregants (as most mainline denominations, hers is majority white) and yet pushed them to a deeper understanding of the issues surrounding racial justice in this country.
She said that when it comes to police killings of Black folk, most well-meaning white people don't condone these killings.
We're not cheering on the police when they shoot Philando Castile in front of his girlfriend and her four year old daughter.
But overall white folks think that these incidents are isolated ones.
When white folks see the police murder a Black man, we don't see another murder in a long history of murders. We see one incident and we talk about it as such and we remember to look at all the facts and we hem and haw over whether or not this person could be at any fault in their own murder.
What we don't see is the system and history that makes these incidents normative.
What we choose not to see is the thousand-year narrative into which these murders fit.
What we choose not to see is the use and abuse of Black bodies throughout this nation's founding and history.
We have so much that we have chosen not to know.
We have unconsciously worked so hard not to see violence against Black bodies and therefore when we do see it, we're shocked at first but overall within hours we're unburdened by its very existence and history.
And Jim Wallis chimed in with a startling statistic: following publicized police killings of Black persons, 75 percent of white folks say this is an isolated incident and 82 percent of Black folks say this is a normal experience in their life.
How are we even to begin to understand Black pain if we have chosen to plug our ears to their stories?
___________________________________________________________________
I absolutely loved when Rev. Delman Coates of Mt. Ennon Baptist Church provided concrete advice for clergy in the white church.
He said that clergy must provide a counter narrative for white Christians.
Piggybacking off of the discussion about how easy it is for white folks to see police killings of Black folks as isolated incidents, Rev. Coates pushed clergy especially to contextualize these killings in the long history of violence against Black bodies.
It is easy to de-contextualize these issues and see each incident as an individual killing. Then we can justify the police's use of violence based on that one situation.
But these incidents are not isolated.
They are not to be seen alone; they must be understood in this country's long history.
The white church and the clergy in the white church must contextualize these incidents so that they are not seen in isolation.
Coates said that, "Black rage is a function of African Americans contextualizing these moments." When African Americans see another Black man shot in the streets for nothing other than being Black, what response other than rage is appropriate?
Coates implores white clergy especially to help provide the counter narrative by contextualizing these moments.
_______________________________________________________________
Rev. Amy Stapleton of the UMC General Commission on Religion and Race brought the entire discussion back to the fundamentals of our faith in a way that I hadn't considered before.
As a United Methodist and raised evangelical, I resonated with her idea that the personalization of our faith is problematic.
I grew up in a church that preached a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, that focused on my individual sins and God's grace for me as an invidual.
I prayed the prayer to liberate my own soul and God saved me. Alone.
Rev. Stapleton pointed out, though, that our liberation cannot be individual. That God calls us to see the gospel and our liberation as communal.
And if our brother and sister are not free, then we also cannot be free.
It is this personalization of Christianity that causes us as white folks to feel offended individually when a person of color or a white ally says something like we're all complicit in the racism of this country.
As white folks, we feel offended because we've been taught by the church and our national ideologies that all aspects of my life are about me.
It's about my sin, my relationship with God, my work ethic, my accomplishments.
And this individualization of the gospel holes us up in our selves and never lets us see that my liberation is intertwined with yours.
That if my Black sister in Christ is not free there's no way that I am free.
Liberation must be communal.
Rev Stapleton also pointed out that we UMC folks love our potlucks, but racial justice cannot just be about the gathering. This conversation has to start with communal white repentance.
____________________________________________________________________
The panel discussion ended with some remarks from Rev. Brown Douglas.
She brought our attention back to Rev. Dr. King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in which he writes that lukewarm white folks are more harmful to the movement for racial justice than outright bigots.
And her last words were that "No community should shout more loudly that Black lives matter than the church."
I hope and work that the white church starts shouting it soon.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Of Bias and Why It Matters That You Know Yours
In our church group on Racial Reconciliation today we discussed implicit biases. A few of us had taken the Harvard Implicit Bias Test this last week and we discussed our results. One white woman said that according to the test she had shown no preference for African American or European American persons. Another white woman shared that she was embarrassed to say she had shown moderate preference for European Americans according to the test.
I and another woman in the group quickly jumped in to say that we had the same test results: we showed moderate prejudice toward European Americans in the test. Then another member of the group, a young Black man said that his results showed that he has implicit prejudice toward African Americans.
Implicit bias exists in us all.
It's ingrained in us through our environment and our experiences. We can't blame one person or one experience for making us implicitly biased, for our biases are built over a lifetime.
It's the decisions we make ignorant of or knowing of that bias that are right or wrong.
Let me repeat myself: We are all biased. We all have implicit prejudices and studies have shown that changing those prejudices is extremely difficult.
But knowing that you're biased is the first step in the right direction to changing your decisions based on those biases.
Since we all have them, why are biases such a big deal? If we're all biased, who cares?
The trouble is not in the bias but in the power behind the bias, or as Jim Wallis says, "racism is prejudice plus power."
Racism is prejudice plus power.
Racism is bias plus power.
Add power to your bias and it can lead to systemized death.
The trouble comes when the unchecked bias leads to the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland and millions of other Black folks.
I encourage you, white person, to take the Implicit bias test.
The link is right there. It doesn't take long.
Knowing ourselves and questioning ourselves and learning who we are and what we believe, even without thinking, is the first step toward trying to understand others.
I and another woman in the group quickly jumped in to say that we had the same test results: we showed moderate prejudice toward European Americans in the test. Then another member of the group, a young Black man said that his results showed that he has implicit prejudice toward African Americans.
Implicit bias exists in us all.
It's ingrained in us through our environment and our experiences. We can't blame one person or one experience for making us implicitly biased, for our biases are built over a lifetime.
It's the decisions we make ignorant of or knowing of that bias that are right or wrong.
Let me repeat myself: We are all biased. We all have implicit prejudices and studies have shown that changing those prejudices is extremely difficult.
But knowing that you're biased is the first step in the right direction to changing your decisions based on those biases.
Since we all have them, why are biases such a big deal? If we're all biased, who cares?
The trouble is not in the bias but in the power behind the bias, or as Jim Wallis says, "racism is prejudice plus power."
Racism is prejudice plus power.
Racism is bias plus power.
Add power to your bias and it can lead to systemized death.
The trouble comes when the unchecked bias leads to the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland and millions of other Black folks.
I encourage you, white person, to take the Implicit bias test.
The link is right there. It doesn't take long.
Knowing ourselves and questioning ourselves and learning who we are and what we believe, even without thinking, is the first step toward trying to understand others.
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Whiteness is...
never getting stared at when I open a package of cookies in the middle of a grocery store.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Our Racial Justice Group at Church
In the fall we started a book group at church discussing The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. We would meet in the church parlor once a month following the 11:00 service and discuss one or two of her enormous and complex chapters on how the current system of mass incarceration in the US is a means of proliferating white supremacy by creating a lower class of Black folk - a new form of segregation and oppression - a new Jim Crow.
In our first meeting, our Reverend asked us to chat with the folks next to us about our initial reaction to the content in the book, specifically to rate on a scale of 0-5 how much of this information was new to us and how much of it was old news, with zero being brand new information and five being common knowledge to us.
I turned to the three elderly Black women on my left and listened as they all gave fives - mass incarceration was not new. Targeting Black folks for petty crimes and labeling them as felons in order to keep them down was not new. The war on drugs as a means to create a lower class system of people of color was not new. Five.
Then I was to speak. To identify what I knew and what I didn't know. To reveal my knowledge or my ignorance.
I said one. And that might have been generous.
I said something along these lines: I've known that we have a huge prison population but that was it. I didn't know that our prison population does not whatsoever reflect our national demographic statistics - that black and brown folks make up a huge amount of our prison population. I didn't know that the war on drugs was a means of rounding up Black men and imprisoning them, even though statistically white folks are more likely to use and sell drugs as Black folks. I didn't know any statistics on the racism of stop-and-frisks.
I had a sense, but I didn't know. Which is why I said one.
These women were not surprised. Of course I didn't know. I didn't have to know. I didn't have to live this reality. For I am white and one of the perks of my whiteness is the privilege of ignorance.
This book group has been kind and patient with a learner.
I need to know. I need to listen. I need to learn.
For if I don't know that something exists, then it does not exist in my world.
If I don't choose to learn that their are extreme racial disparities in this country, then to me there are no racial disparities in this country.
They will not exist.
Probably in the second and third week of our meeting together, someone mentioned the dearth of white folks.
"Why aren't there more white people in this group?"
As one of the only white folks there, I responded "because we don't have to be here. To learn about race and racism is a choice we get to make, not a requirement. And since learning can be uncomfortable, we often choose not to do it."
I try not to talk at all in our discussion groups. I try to limit my comments to once or twice, and those only after listening for a good long while to the rest of the group.
As a white person, I approach this group as a learner and a listener. For it is through listening and learning that I can change myself. And in changing myself I can hopefully change my world, including my white folks.
In our first meeting, our Reverend asked us to chat with the folks next to us about our initial reaction to the content in the book, specifically to rate on a scale of 0-5 how much of this information was new to us and how much of it was old news, with zero being brand new information and five being common knowledge to us.
I turned to the three elderly Black women on my left and listened as they all gave fives - mass incarceration was not new. Targeting Black folks for petty crimes and labeling them as felons in order to keep them down was not new. The war on drugs as a means to create a lower class system of people of color was not new. Five.
Then I was to speak. To identify what I knew and what I didn't know. To reveal my knowledge or my ignorance.
I said one. And that might have been generous.
I said something along these lines: I've known that we have a huge prison population but that was it. I didn't know that our prison population does not whatsoever reflect our national demographic statistics - that black and brown folks make up a huge amount of our prison population. I didn't know that the war on drugs was a means of rounding up Black men and imprisoning them, even though statistically white folks are more likely to use and sell drugs as Black folks. I didn't know any statistics on the racism of stop-and-frisks.
I had a sense, but I didn't know. Which is why I said one.
These women were not surprised. Of course I didn't know. I didn't have to know. I didn't have to live this reality. For I am white and one of the perks of my whiteness is the privilege of ignorance.
This book group has been kind and patient with a learner.
I need to know. I need to listen. I need to learn.
For if I don't know that something exists, then it does not exist in my world.
If I don't choose to learn that their are extreme racial disparities in this country, then to me there are no racial disparities in this country.
They will not exist.
Probably in the second and third week of our meeting together, someone mentioned the dearth of white folks.
"Why aren't there more white people in this group?"
As one of the only white folks there, I responded "because we don't have to be here. To learn about race and racism is a choice we get to make, not a requirement. And since learning can be uncomfortable, we often choose not to do it."
I try not to talk at all in our discussion groups. I try to limit my comments to once or twice, and those only after listening for a good long while to the rest of the group.
As a white person, I approach this group as a learner and a listener. For it is through listening and learning that I can change myself. And in changing myself I can hopefully change my world, including my white folks.
Friday, January 29, 2016
Of Mistakes: On Learning How Anti-Racist I Really Am
It's been a while since I wrote anything.
Since last posting many more Black lives have been lost, many more streets have been shut down in protest, many more guilty cops have been acquitted, many more racist acts committed.
Including one of my own.
Well, I guess I should clarify. It wasn't a racist act but it wasn't an anti-racist act either. And therefore I allowed racism to live and thrive.
As you know by now, the DMV has been shut down by a big blizzard. And I've enjoyed every day trying to find something fun (and exhausting) for my 1.5 yr. old to do. Most days that's been outside in the snow. But as the piles have been melting, it's kinda disgusting right now to play outside, so we've been finding all the free indoor play spaces possible. Yesterday that was a Chick-fil-a north of our home.
I don't like to support Chick-fil-a, but anyone with kids will know that they must play hard or they will not function properly.
So I took my two nephews and son up to the Chick-fil-a where they played in the play area for about an hour before we got some sandwiches, played some more, and then headed home.
Since it was lunch time and since, let's be honest, (homophobia aside) Chick-fil-a is delicious, I got us lunch.
The line was a decent length since I had waited until actual lunch time to order, so I had my three boys sit in a booth and entertain each other while I ordered.
There were three white men in front of me in line, all dressed the same. I assumed they worked together doing something that required camo.
They ordered. I ordered. Then we all stood off to the side while we waited for our food to be ready.
When I ordered, the cashier asked for my name. Same went for the other customers waiting for their food.
When the food for the three white camo guys came, it was delivered by an older Black gentleman, probably in his early fifties. He called out the name of the owner of the food - "boss."
What happened next in my mind took about 4 milliseconds: I assumed one of these three white men was the boss of the other two and that's why he gave the name "boss". How kind and unassuming of me. Would I have been so kind to a person of color doing anything?
The slight pain on the older Black gentleman's face, combined with the snickering of the other two white men, proved that this was a racist act and an assertion of power.
One of the three white men took the food and they began walking toward the door. As they walked, one of them repeated the word quietly to themselves, reliving the hilarious high of racism to his racist buddies.
This was when I almost followed them out the door.
This was when I almost spoke up and called them out for their racism.
This was when I almost used my white privilege for good.
It was a public place, full of people, well-lit, and day-time. I had no excuses except for my fear.
And I was afraid.
And I said nothing.
And I took my food and fed my kids and went home.
And I regret this.
I write this story not for your sympathy, for who really cares about my self-disappointment when this older Black gentleman was humiliated again by racists.
I write this story because I must remind myself every day to be an anti-racist, not just a non-racist. A non-racist would see what happened and shake her head and sigh and share the story with other people as a sign of the deep problems in society these days. How we're still so backward, etc.
But a white anti-racist would speak to her white people. A white anti-racist would call them in, would ask them why they thought it was ok to humiliate and shame another person in such a public way, a person who has likely suffered enormous pain at the hands and words and minds and decisions and pockets of white folks.
Why did you do that? Why did you give the name "boss"?
But I didn't.
I wasn't an anti-racist that day.
PS: I am white. I am writing for white folks. Please do not take this story as an important one. It's not an important story in the movement for Black Lives. Please read Black stories more than white stories. They're actually important. But if you're a white non-racist thinking of moving into anti-racism, and this story stuck somewhere inside of you, cool.
Since last posting many more Black lives have been lost, many more streets have been shut down in protest, many more guilty cops have been acquitted, many more racist acts committed.
Including one of my own.
Well, I guess I should clarify. It wasn't a racist act but it wasn't an anti-racist act either. And therefore I allowed racism to live and thrive.
As you know by now, the DMV has been shut down by a big blizzard. And I've enjoyed every day trying to find something fun (and exhausting) for my 1.5 yr. old to do. Most days that's been outside in the snow. But as the piles have been melting, it's kinda disgusting right now to play outside, so we've been finding all the free indoor play spaces possible. Yesterday that was a Chick-fil-a north of our home.
I don't like to support Chick-fil-a, but anyone with kids will know that they must play hard or they will not function properly.
So I took my two nephews and son up to the Chick-fil-a where they played in the play area for about an hour before we got some sandwiches, played some more, and then headed home.
Since it was lunch time and since, let's be honest, (homophobia aside) Chick-fil-a is delicious, I got us lunch.
The line was a decent length since I had waited until actual lunch time to order, so I had my three boys sit in a booth and entertain each other while I ordered.
There were three white men in front of me in line, all dressed the same. I assumed they worked together doing something that required camo.
They ordered. I ordered. Then we all stood off to the side while we waited for our food to be ready.
When I ordered, the cashier asked for my name. Same went for the other customers waiting for their food.
When the food for the three white camo guys came, it was delivered by an older Black gentleman, probably in his early fifties. He called out the name of the owner of the food - "boss."
What happened next in my mind took about 4 milliseconds: I assumed one of these three white men was the boss of the other two and that's why he gave the name "boss". How kind and unassuming of me. Would I have been so kind to a person of color doing anything?
The slight pain on the older Black gentleman's face, combined with the snickering of the other two white men, proved that this was a racist act and an assertion of power.
One of the three white men took the food and they began walking toward the door. As they walked, one of them repeated the word quietly to themselves, reliving the hilarious high of racism to his racist buddies.
This was when I almost followed them out the door.
This was when I almost spoke up and called them out for their racism.
This was when I almost used my white privilege for good.
It was a public place, full of people, well-lit, and day-time. I had no excuses except for my fear.
And I was afraid.
And I said nothing.
And I took my food and fed my kids and went home.
And I regret this.
I write this story not for your sympathy, for who really cares about my self-disappointment when this older Black gentleman was humiliated again by racists.
I write this story because I must remind myself every day to be an anti-racist, not just a non-racist. A non-racist would see what happened and shake her head and sigh and share the story with other people as a sign of the deep problems in society these days. How we're still so backward, etc.
But a white anti-racist would speak to her white people. A white anti-racist would call them in, would ask them why they thought it was ok to humiliate and shame another person in such a public way, a person who has likely suffered enormous pain at the hands and words and minds and decisions and pockets of white folks.
Why did you do that? Why did you give the name "boss"?
But I didn't.
I wasn't an anti-racist that day.
PS: I am white. I am writing for white folks. Please do not take this story as an important one. It's not an important story in the movement for Black Lives. Please read Black stories more than white stories. They're actually important. But if you're a white non-racist thinking of moving into anti-racism, and this story stuck somewhere inside of you, cool.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Racial Dialogue? Maybe That Could Do Something?
The democratic debates
The republican debates
Sermons on Sundays
The State of the Union Address
Articles
Blogs (kinda ironic, right?)
Books
Pundits
Interviews
Radio Talk Shows
We're listening to people speaking at us, all the time.
We expect our leaders to be articulate talkers and we encourage their constant talking.
When we hear from our President or our representatives, it's always in the form of a speech or an interview.
What I want to see is a good dialogue.
Not a debate, wherein two people with opposing views go head to head and try to win.
I want a discussion. A good dialogue in which two or more people get together with the clear intention of learning from another and talking and listening and asking questions of each other around a specific topic.
I think if we could get our white leaders and black leaders to sit down and dialogue about race, as white people we might learn something.
Because right now we have people addressing us regarding race. They have clear ideas about race in America and they are going to share those clear ideas with us.
And the ones who are dialoguing and listening to others about race are not our leaders. They are on the Kojo show or in your church, but they are not our representatives.
No, we expect our representatives to have done their thinking, to have clear ideas and clear heads and to state what they think at us.
How much more might we respect our leaders if we saw them actually wrestling with tough issues like humans do? Instead of just preaching at us?
Maybe if we got to see our leaders THINKING about race in dialogue, we would be willing to listen more and learn through their dialogue.
I know that I don't usually recommend anything to the reader except to always ask questions, but I want to recommend something.
I think we should push for a national dialogue on race.
It could be something as elaborate as a series of discussion questions disseminated to all Americans to get them asking difficult questions about what they believe about race.
Or it could be something as simple as a weekly dialogue on race with our president and respected leaders centered on a weekly question.
No goals for this dialogue except openness and tolerance. Just honest dialogue in which white people (and people in general) are required to think about what race means and how people are actually treated in these United States.
And I say white people in particular, because in this current society we as white people have the distinct privilege of choosing when we think about race. We don't have to think about race every day like persons of color do.
We have the privilege of ignorance.
I'm in a book group at my church. We're reading and discussing The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and one of the questions our leader brought up today was why there weren't more white people in our group. I don't think we actually answered the question, but I kept thinking about it nonetheless. I think as white people we don't talk about race because we don't have to talk about race. I think we often don't want to talk about race because for some reason we feel guilty, like we're being called racists whenever the topic is brought up. But I think the key reason why we don't talk about race is that first reason: we don't have to.
But we MUST. We must think about race and talk about race and begin to dismantle its deep hold in this society or else we are letting oppression continue and we are denying the possibility of justice for all.
We must dialogue. And we must push our leaders to dialogue, not just talk at us.
For it is only through thinking out loud and listening to others that we learn what it is that we actually think and believe and push ourselves to change for the better.
E.M. Forster said "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?"
We must talk to each other so we can change ourselves for the better.
And wouldn't that be cool if our leaders did the same?
Sunday, September 20, 2015
White Privilege Helps Me Out...Again
I gain so much from my white privilege.
I met recently with an adviser at the college in which I'm currently enrolled. After a BA and an MA in my subject area, I finally recognized that I must complete some basic education courses in order to certify to teach in all states. So I'm going back to school, happily if I'll be honest, because I do really love school, no matter the ease of subject material. I guess that comes with always asking questions.
So I have a meeting scheduled for 5pm, but I get there early with my one-year-old son in hopes that I can squeeze in an earlier appointment.
I can't.
They are definitely backed up.
At five, the adviser Erica calls me back. A kind young white woman, probably about my age, and very skilled in helping me feel comfortable, Erica, from her credentials, has been advising for a while. In fact during our meeting another adviser steps in to ask her a question, signaling to me that Erica must be in charge or at least leading a collection of other advisers.
The reason I came into the office today, Erica, is to get a hold-override on a course I need, I tell her when we sit down. The hold is in place because my pre-requisites for the course have not been verified - I need to have taken their introduction to education course before I can register.
Now I took a foundations of education course in my undergrad years. But that was eight years ago and the content requirements have shifted dramatically in the aftermath of Race to the Top and the introduction of the Common Core Standards and PARCC assessments.
In my mind I know my previous course does not meet the pre-requisite standard as laid out by the course catalog.
So I begin to mentally piece together my argument, mentioning first that I can try to get the 2007 course catalog from my alma mater so we can compare the two and pulling my two transcripts out for reference, but she stops me.
She says "I should refer you to the education department on this one, since that's what I'm supposed to do, but you seem like a pretty responsible person, so I'm going to do the override."
I'm somewhat speechless. All my pretty good arguments about how the State had accepted my undergrad course as valid and how my graduate courses more recently dug into that content I was missing fall onto the floor.
In the moment, I thank her profusely for removing the hassle of 1) getting a meeting with an education chair and/or 2) having to take and pay for another course this semester; I round up my things and my kiddo, and stroll on out of there.
It wasn't until I was in the car that I began to dismantle her statement.
I "seem like a pretty responsible person."
Let me list some pieces of evidence arguing against her assumption for a second:
1) She hadn't looked over my transcripts at all and took my claim of a BA and MA on my word alone.
2) I was not dressed professionally
3) I brought my son. My fifteen month-old BUSY son, with me. My son who is constantly chatting and eating and getting into everything. I brought him. To this meeting.
Evidence supporting her assumption that I am responsible:
1) I am white
I recognize that some might say NO! She might have done the same thing for a black woman. And maybe she would have, but the statistics say that bias against black bodies is real. That she would not have done the same thing for a black woman.
Maybe if the black woman was dressed nicely and didn't bring her kid along. But a black woman in jeans with a toddler in the stroller that she was feeding throughout the meeting? No, Erica would have referred her to the education department. Because that black woman would not "seem like a pretty responsible person."
Now this course pre-requisite override is a small example of the major benefits I receive from being white.
As I've mentioned before, the BIGGEST, all-time privilege I receive from being white is this: I don't have to think about the injustices suffered by black people. I don't have to think about the injustices suffered by persons of color at all. I don't have to think about the injustice perpetrated against them every single day.
But I must choose to think about injustice.
Every day I must choose to SEE and RECOGNIZE my privilege and choose to SEE and RECOGNIZE privilege systemically built into the foundations of this country. And I must listen to stories from black life. And I must talk with white folks about their privilege. And I must choose to do this every day.
For it is so easy to forget.
I met recently with an adviser at the college in which I'm currently enrolled. After a BA and an MA in my subject area, I finally recognized that I must complete some basic education courses in order to certify to teach in all states. So I'm going back to school, happily if I'll be honest, because I do really love school, no matter the ease of subject material. I guess that comes with always asking questions.
So I have a meeting scheduled for 5pm, but I get there early with my one-year-old son in hopes that I can squeeze in an earlier appointment.
I can't.
They are definitely backed up.
At five, the adviser Erica calls me back. A kind young white woman, probably about my age, and very skilled in helping me feel comfortable, Erica, from her credentials, has been advising for a while. In fact during our meeting another adviser steps in to ask her a question, signaling to me that Erica must be in charge or at least leading a collection of other advisers.
The reason I came into the office today, Erica, is to get a hold-override on a course I need, I tell her when we sit down. The hold is in place because my pre-requisites for the course have not been verified - I need to have taken their introduction to education course before I can register.
Now I took a foundations of education course in my undergrad years. But that was eight years ago and the content requirements have shifted dramatically in the aftermath of Race to the Top and the introduction of the Common Core Standards and PARCC assessments.
In my mind I know my previous course does not meet the pre-requisite standard as laid out by the course catalog.
So I begin to mentally piece together my argument, mentioning first that I can try to get the 2007 course catalog from my alma mater so we can compare the two and pulling my two transcripts out for reference, but she stops me.
She says "I should refer you to the education department on this one, since that's what I'm supposed to do, but you seem like a pretty responsible person, so I'm going to do the override."
I'm somewhat speechless. All my pretty good arguments about how the State had accepted my undergrad course as valid and how my graduate courses more recently dug into that content I was missing fall onto the floor.
In the moment, I thank her profusely for removing the hassle of 1) getting a meeting with an education chair and/or 2) having to take and pay for another course this semester; I round up my things and my kiddo, and stroll on out of there.
It wasn't until I was in the car that I began to dismantle her statement.
I "seem like a pretty responsible person."
Let me list some pieces of evidence arguing against her assumption for a second:
1) She hadn't looked over my transcripts at all and took my claim of a BA and MA on my word alone.
2) I was not dressed professionally
3) I brought my son. My fifteen month-old BUSY son, with me. My son who is constantly chatting and eating and getting into everything. I brought him. To this meeting.
Evidence supporting her assumption that I am responsible:
1) I am white
I recognize that some might say NO! She might have done the same thing for a black woman. And maybe she would have, but the statistics say that bias against black bodies is real. That she would not have done the same thing for a black woman.
Maybe if the black woman was dressed nicely and didn't bring her kid along. But a black woman in jeans with a toddler in the stroller that she was feeding throughout the meeting? No, Erica would have referred her to the education department. Because that black woman would not "seem like a pretty responsible person."
Now this course pre-requisite override is a small example of the major benefits I receive from being white.
As I've mentioned before, the BIGGEST, all-time privilege I receive from being white is this: I don't have to think about the injustices suffered by black people. I don't have to think about the injustices suffered by persons of color at all. I don't have to think about the injustice perpetrated against them every single day.
But I must choose to think about injustice.
Every day I must choose to SEE and RECOGNIZE my privilege and choose to SEE and RECOGNIZE privilege systemically built into the foundations of this country. And I must listen to stories from black life. And I must talk with white folks about their privilege. And I must choose to do this every day.
For it is so easy to forget.
This Starts With Me
Donald Trump's followers include many overt white-supremacist racists. Donald Trump, I would argue is also an obvious racist.
For a while I thought this public overt racism might be a good thing for the Black Lives Matter movement. Trump's speeches and voter questions are revealing a large segment of the population that is deeply and obviously and proudly racist.
Wouldn't that make us all realize that racism is alive and well?
I mean, you can't deny that general bigotry exists when one of his supporters claims all the problems in the US today are due to Muslims and that we need to "get rid of them."
Wouldn't those sort of comments make the even the strongest racism-ended-with-Obama arguments fall to pieces?
In part, yes, no one can deny that a large part of the population holds racist beliefs - Trump and his followers have made that obvious.
Where this public knowledge actually hurts our progress is in how progressive white folk take and use this information about overt racism.
As I've said before, the movement to end systemic racism is NOT a black responsibility. It is a white responsibility. We must recognize individually our white privilege, dismantle it, and use our white privilege as leverage to bring about social justice. It starts within our individual selves.
But Trump and Limbaugh and Cruz and the rest of them have made it so much easier to relocate the problem outside of ourselves.
THEY are the racists.
THEY are the bigots.
THEY are the problem.
And the discussion of racism becomes an us-vs-them debate. WE progressives have it right. THEY conservatives are the racists and the bigots. THEY are wrong.
There is no possibility of ending systemic racism if we make this conversation about THOSE racists.
The conversation, white people, must be about I, racist.
I, white privileged.
I, complicit ignorer of injustice.
This starts with me.
But as Jesus teaches, that pride is wrong.
God, have mercy on me, a privileged white racist.
The Beloved Community starts with me.
For a while I thought this public overt racism might be a good thing for the Black Lives Matter movement. Trump's speeches and voter questions are revealing a large segment of the population that is deeply and obviously and proudly racist.
Wouldn't that make us all realize that racism is alive and well?
I mean, you can't deny that general bigotry exists when one of his supporters claims all the problems in the US today are due to Muslims and that we need to "get rid of them."
Wouldn't those sort of comments make the even the strongest racism-ended-with-Obama arguments fall to pieces?
In part, yes, no one can deny that a large part of the population holds racist beliefs - Trump and his followers have made that obvious.
Where this public knowledge actually hurts our progress is in how progressive white folk take and use this information about overt racism.
As I've said before, the movement to end systemic racism is NOT a black responsibility. It is a white responsibility. We must recognize individually our white privilege, dismantle it, and use our white privilege as leverage to bring about social justice. It starts within our individual selves.
But Trump and Limbaugh and Cruz and the rest of them have made it so much easier to relocate the problem outside of ourselves.
THEY are the racists.
THEY are the bigots.
THEY are the problem.
And the discussion of racism becomes an us-vs-them debate. WE progressives have it right. THEY conservatives are the racists and the bigots. THEY are wrong.
There is no possibility of ending systemic racism if we make this conversation about THOSE racists.
The conversation, white people, must be about I, racist.
I, white privileged.
I, complicit ignorer of injustice.
This starts with me.
In
the Gospel of Luke we're told that Jesus shared a parable about a Pharisee and
a tax-collector praying at the same time in the temple. Jesus says that the
Pharisee stood praying before the Lord and thanked God that he was not like
this evil-doer, this tax-collector. Jesus notes that the tax-collector also
prayed, but did so with deep humility. Jesus says that "He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his
breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’"
Then Jesus
praises the tax-collector for his humility instead of the praising the Pharisee
for his self-exalting righteousness.
I would say we
could replace those two job titles in the parable with progressive and
conservative, or democrat and republican, or whatever degrading term you have
for "the other side" and the story would still hold.
I thank God I am
not like those racist conservatives.
But as Jesus teaches, that pride is wrong.
Christ calls us
to a life of self-reflection.
A life of
humility.
God, have mercy on me, a privileged white racist.
The Beloved Community starts with me.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Taking Away Your Privilege
"That can't be productive"
I've heard this statement or something like it in response to the actions of the members of the #blacklivesmatter movement and other similar organizations in Ferguson, MO these last few days.
Blocking I-70? Rioting? Protests, no matter how peaceful? Interrupting political campaigns? Doesn't this just make people angry?
The answer is yes. Yes, people will get angry. People will be inconvenienced. Your life will be interrupted.
Drivers stuck behind a wall of human arms stretching across a major highway. Patrons of various businesses shut down by protesters. Progressives attending rallies for fill-in-blank-with-favorite-candidate.
YOU.
You will be inconvenienced. You might even get angry.
But you will be forced to THINK. You will be required to STOP and think.
You will lose a few seconds or minutes of your life to these space-occupying persons of color and their white supporters.
And in those few seconds or minutes will hopefully be a mental reckoning. For this issue, this problem, this discussion of race in America is IMPORTANT.
It's important enough to interrupt your life.
Privilege is this: being able to turn off the suffering of others and completely forget about it without a single consequence for yourself.
So this black movement is taking away your privilege.
You're no longer allowed to turn off their suffering.
You will be faced with it time and time again.
And you will have to think about it.
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Of White Discomfort
Baby boy, husband and I were boarding the train to head downtown to do something. I cannot recall what now, but I'm sure it was something fun; we rarely do un-fun things as a family these days.
Baby boy was in the stroller as he is a no-good walker still, so we took the elevator down to the platform.
We're chatting, the two of us, about something mindless and baby boy is joining in the chatter.
The elevator door opens and a black man and woman exit the elevator continuing in their conversation. As she passes me, she says, without looking me in the face and with the sincerest of tones, "ma'am, I am sorry for being so loud."
I immediately respond, "Oh no, don't worry, you're fine," in my sincerest of tones.
We load on the elevator and head up to the platform. Once we're on, though, I turned to husband and say, "Oh my goodness, that sucks. She thinks she made me uncomfortable. So she apologized. Because I'm white and because black persons always have to always make white people feel ok."
I start thinking of what I should've said, other than "you're fine."
A couple days later baby boy and I are downtown playing in the splash fountain. He's sopping wet but I don't want that in my car, so we head to Starbucks for an inevitable beverage and the usage of their lovely changing table.
As I round the corner to the back of the store where there are two bathrooms, I encounter a large black man and I say, "They're both full?" He responds affirmatively and says something nice to my son who smiles and waves at him - we're making conversation.
One bathroom opens up, and, as he is first in line I expect him to use it. He instead holds the door and insists that I go first. I say, "Thank you, but we can wait." There's another one that will open soon.
He insists kindly, still holding the door for us.
I accept and enter the bathroom. He lets the door close and says to me in a sincere and friendly tone, "Now don't forget to lock the door."
He's giving me permission to lock the door.
He's recognizing that as a white woman, archetypically I am uncomfortable around him, and he's recognizing my discomfort and attempting to ameliorate that discomfort.
He was gone when I left the bathroom with my changed and dry baby boy.
What could I have said, anyway, had he been there? Thank you, of course, but what else?
It's not my job nor my right to tell African Americans that they don't need to make me comfortable. I don't need to teach black folk a lesson on how to interact with white folks. Because they know how to interact with white folks for the sake of the safety of their bodies.
If I said anything to this man or to the woman on the elevator about how they didn't need to make me feel comfortable, that would be selfish - that would be me trying to make me feel better about the fact that I am a part of this white expectation of comfort. Or at least a white expectation that you as a person of color will not cause me discomfort.
Black folk who make white folk uncomfortable suffer consequences in this country. Their rights and their safety and their bodies are taken from them so quickly when they make a white person uncomfortable.
And yet, in the last year since Ferguson, as the #BlackLivesMatter movement has been popping up on white screens and in white news sources, white people have started to feel uncomfortable.
We've started to squirm a little bit and wince a little bit. Because for the first time in many of our lives we have had to consider race. We have had to think about what it means to be white in relation to what it means to be a person of color.
And for many of us, we've never HAD to think of this before. We've never been required to think of what life as a white person even means. Because as a white person, we're the normal, and all y'all are deviations.
AND THIS IS UNJUST.
We must feel discomfort. We must ask ourselves the tough difficult awkward questions. We must be willing to feel white and feel wrong, for it is only when we begin to question our own whiteness and what that whiteness means,
what that whiteness has gotten us,
what that whiteness can get us, can we begin to dismantle greater systemic racism.
It is only when I can recognize as a white person that I got that job, I got that relationship, I got that raise, I'm in this house, I got that loan, I got that car, I got that degree in large part because I am white; only when I recognize this discomforting fact can I begin to recognize the system of disadvantage, the system of racism, faced by persons of color on every front, in every part of their lives.
Persons of color are facing systemic discomfort all the time and yet they're expected to keep us comfortable? That's some bullshit.
As white folk, we need to get uncomfortable.
Baby boy was in the stroller as he is a no-good walker still, so we took the elevator down to the platform.
We're chatting, the two of us, about something mindless and baby boy is joining in the chatter.
The elevator door opens and a black man and woman exit the elevator continuing in their conversation. As she passes me, she says, without looking me in the face and with the sincerest of tones, "ma'am, I am sorry for being so loud."
I immediately respond, "Oh no, don't worry, you're fine," in my sincerest of tones.
We load on the elevator and head up to the platform. Once we're on, though, I turned to husband and say, "Oh my goodness, that sucks. She thinks she made me uncomfortable. So she apologized. Because I'm white and because black persons always have to always make white people feel ok."
I start thinking of what I should've said, other than "you're fine."
A couple days later baby boy and I are downtown playing in the splash fountain. He's sopping wet but I don't want that in my car, so we head to Starbucks for an inevitable beverage and the usage of their lovely changing table.
As I round the corner to the back of the store where there are two bathrooms, I encounter a large black man and I say, "They're both full?" He responds affirmatively and says something nice to my son who smiles and waves at him - we're making conversation.
One bathroom opens up, and, as he is first in line I expect him to use it. He instead holds the door and insists that I go first. I say, "Thank you, but we can wait." There's another one that will open soon.
He insists kindly, still holding the door for us.
I accept and enter the bathroom. He lets the door close and says to me in a sincere and friendly tone, "Now don't forget to lock the door."
He's giving me permission to lock the door.
He's recognizing that as a white woman, archetypically I am uncomfortable around him, and he's recognizing my discomfort and attempting to ameliorate that discomfort.
He was gone when I left the bathroom with my changed and dry baby boy.
What could I have said, anyway, had he been there? Thank you, of course, but what else?
It's not my job nor my right to tell African Americans that they don't need to make me comfortable. I don't need to teach black folk a lesson on how to interact with white folks. Because they know how to interact with white folks for the sake of the safety of their bodies.
If I said anything to this man or to the woman on the elevator about how they didn't need to make me feel comfortable, that would be selfish - that would be me trying to make me feel better about the fact that I am a part of this white expectation of comfort. Or at least a white expectation that you as a person of color will not cause me discomfort.
Black folk who make white folk uncomfortable suffer consequences in this country. Their rights and their safety and their bodies are taken from them so quickly when they make a white person uncomfortable.
And yet, in the last year since Ferguson, as the #BlackLivesMatter movement has been popping up on white screens and in white news sources, white people have started to feel uncomfortable.
We've started to squirm a little bit and wince a little bit. Because for the first time in many of our lives we have had to consider race. We have had to think about what it means to be white in relation to what it means to be a person of color.
And for many of us, we've never HAD to think of this before. We've never been required to think of what life as a white person even means. Because as a white person, we're the normal, and all y'all are deviations.
AND THIS IS UNJUST.
We must feel discomfort. We must ask ourselves the tough difficult awkward questions. We must be willing to feel white and feel wrong, for it is only when we begin to question our own whiteness and what that whiteness means,
what that whiteness has gotten us,
what that whiteness can get us, can we begin to dismantle greater systemic racism.
It is only when I can recognize as a white person that I got that job, I got that relationship, I got that raise, I'm in this house, I got that loan, I got that car, I got that degree in large part because I am white; only when I recognize this discomforting fact can I begin to recognize the system of disadvantage, the system of racism, faced by persons of color on every front, in every part of their lives.
Persons of color are facing systemic discomfort all the time and yet they're expected to keep us comfortable? That's some bullshit.
As white folk, we need to get uncomfortable.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Leveraging Privilege
What is whiteness? Is being white even a thing? Why do I feel more white today than I ever have? Is it good to feel white? Should I feel bad if I'm white?
There is no biological difference between white persons and persons of other races save a slight melanin change. So just as you have blue eyes and I do not, she has more melanin and I have less melanin.
If there's not biological difference between us, then what is race?
Race is a social construct created to establish power.
It's not our skin color that has separated us but our investment in our skin color that has separated us.
As George Lipsitz writes in Bill Moore's Body, whiteness: "has a cash value: it accounts for advantages that come to individuals through profits made from housing secured in discriminatory markets, through the unequal educations allocated to children of different races, through insider networks that channel employment opportunities to the relatives and friends of those who have profited most from present and past racial discrimination, and especially through intergenerational transfers of inherited wealth that pass on the spoils of discrimination to succeeding generations."
Race might be just a social construct, but it is one that weighs heavily on all of life.
From the hospital you're born in to the doctor who treats you for your first ear infection;
from the preschool you attend (or don't) to the elementary teacher's disciplinary actions toward you;
from your high school involvement to your college application process;
from the adults involved in your life to the careers you're encouraged to pursue;
from investment opportunities afforded to you to your neighborhood and your kid's neighborhood.
Race weighs heavily on it all.
Let's back up for a second. You might be asking me, what does this mean? This "social construct" idea? What even is that?
Social constructs, according to Foucault, Bakhtin, Vygotsky and a bunch of other old white guys, are how we create reality.
The theory of constructionism is in opposition to the theory of essentialism, which basically says that things are how they are because that's how they are.
For instance, many people would argue that boys are born with an innate set of personality traits. Boys are strong. Boys are non-emotional. Boys are natural leaders.
Some would argue that these are essential traits - they are biological - they are predetermined.
A constructionist would argue, however, that these traits are not innately "male," they are instead taught. They are constructed. The idea of the boy is a social construct. Over time we have created the reality of boy-ness, requiring these characteristics and teaching, albeit not directly, that effeminate qualities are inappropriate in boys. This is especially problematic when a boy feels that he does not exhibit these "masculine" qualities naturally as some would expect.
This discussion of sex v. gender is extremely oversimplified, but I provide it only as an attempt to explain what a social construct is.
We construct our reality in an attempt to organize our world. Through billions of years we've developed as a species, building our societies on what we have deemed best practice overtime.
Why do we do this? Why must we organize our world and create our reality?
It always comes back to power. Everything is about power. Everything.
We organize our world - we create our reality - so that we can establish systems of power.
To go back to the gender example, if there are constructed male qualities that over time are deemed better than constructed female qualities, we will invest in the male qualities instead of the female. And the more we invest, the more power is held.
So race. How is race a social construct? And what does this construct have to do with power? And what does this construct have to do with me?
Over time we have invested in whiteness. This was not an individual's decision. No future KKK member came out to a group of white folks and said, let's demonize the black person so that we can hold power over them. This idea of whiteness has evolved.
As human beings we naturally work in our best interest and our best interest is to hold the power. Therefore we have overtime created a series of beliefs about humans whose bodies produce more melanin so that we can hold the power over them. On the plantation, in the field, in the career path, in the classroom, on the road, in the justice system, we hold the power because of our socially constructed whiteness.
And the most disturbing part of this idea of whiteness is that we have been told it does not exist.
We are told that the black race exists and the hispanic race and the asian race and the middle eastern race, but not the white race.
That is privilege in its finest. The privilege of never having to be labeled. Of always being the unmarked category.
The more we ignore the existence of whiteness as a social construct in which we invest in our daily decisions, the more we can ignore the disadvantages faced by those of the marked categories, the "races."
We must begin the process leveraging our whiteness for justice, and this begins with a recognition that whiteness is real (albeit constructed, but what isn't), whiteness exists, whiteness is powerful.
Only then can we dismantle the power whiteness holds in our own lives and use that power for justice.
There is no biological difference between white persons and persons of other races save a slight melanin change. So just as you have blue eyes and I do not, she has more melanin and I have less melanin.
If there's not biological difference between us, then what is race?
Race is a social construct created to establish power.
It's not our skin color that has separated us but our investment in our skin color that has separated us.
As George Lipsitz writes in Bill Moore's Body, whiteness: "has a cash value: it accounts for advantages that come to individuals through profits made from housing secured in discriminatory markets, through the unequal educations allocated to children of different races, through insider networks that channel employment opportunities to the relatives and friends of those who have profited most from present and past racial discrimination, and especially through intergenerational transfers of inherited wealth that pass on the spoils of discrimination to succeeding generations."
Race might be just a social construct, but it is one that weighs heavily on all of life.
From the hospital you're born in to the doctor who treats you for your first ear infection;
from the preschool you attend (or don't) to the elementary teacher's disciplinary actions toward you;
from your high school involvement to your college application process;
from the adults involved in your life to the careers you're encouraged to pursue;
from investment opportunities afforded to you to your neighborhood and your kid's neighborhood.
Race weighs heavily on it all.
Let's back up for a second. You might be asking me, what does this mean? This "social construct" idea? What even is that?
Social constructs, according to Foucault, Bakhtin, Vygotsky and a bunch of other old white guys, are how we create reality.
The theory of constructionism is in opposition to the theory of essentialism, which basically says that things are how they are because that's how they are.
For instance, many people would argue that boys are born with an innate set of personality traits. Boys are strong. Boys are non-emotional. Boys are natural leaders.
Some would argue that these are essential traits - they are biological - they are predetermined.
A constructionist would argue, however, that these traits are not innately "male," they are instead taught. They are constructed. The idea of the boy is a social construct. Over time we have created the reality of boy-ness, requiring these characteristics and teaching, albeit not directly, that effeminate qualities are inappropriate in boys. This is especially problematic when a boy feels that he does not exhibit these "masculine" qualities naturally as some would expect.
This discussion of sex v. gender is extremely oversimplified, but I provide it only as an attempt to explain what a social construct is.
We construct our reality in an attempt to organize our world. Through billions of years we've developed as a species, building our societies on what we have deemed best practice overtime.
Why do we do this? Why must we organize our world and create our reality?
It always comes back to power. Everything is about power. Everything.
We organize our world - we create our reality - so that we can establish systems of power.
To go back to the gender example, if there are constructed male qualities that over time are deemed better than constructed female qualities, we will invest in the male qualities instead of the female. And the more we invest, the more power is held.
So race. How is race a social construct? And what does this construct have to do with power? And what does this construct have to do with me?
Over time we have invested in whiteness. This was not an individual's decision. No future KKK member came out to a group of white folks and said, let's demonize the black person so that we can hold power over them. This idea of whiteness has evolved.
As human beings we naturally work in our best interest and our best interest is to hold the power. Therefore we have overtime created a series of beliefs about humans whose bodies produce more melanin so that we can hold the power over them. On the plantation, in the field, in the career path, in the classroom, on the road, in the justice system, we hold the power because of our socially constructed whiteness.
And the most disturbing part of this idea of whiteness is that we have been told it does not exist.
We are told that the black race exists and the hispanic race and the asian race and the middle eastern race, but not the white race.
That is privilege in its finest. The privilege of never having to be labeled. Of always being the unmarked category.
The more we ignore the existence of whiteness as a social construct in which we invest in our daily decisions, the more we can ignore the disadvantages faced by those of the marked categories, the "races."
We must begin the process leveraging our whiteness for justice, and this begins with a recognition that whiteness is real (albeit constructed, but what isn't), whiteness exists, whiteness is powerful.
Only then can we dismantle the power whiteness holds in our own lives and use that power for justice.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Hold Yourself to a Higher Standard
I don't think business is innately bad but I do think that business is naturally not humanitarian. It's business. Nor do I think that government is innately good, but I do think that we can hold ourselves to a higher standard through our government.
For instance, in South Africa they have a massive squatters problem; ending apartheid meant abandoning basically holding cells for black persons who were violating apartheid laws by being with white persons. So they now have these massive buildings that are filled with homeless persons, many employed, who just cannot afford to live in the housing that is available, so they're squatters.
But when Nelson Mandela and the post-apartheid congress in South Africa were building this new form of government, one not based on racism and oppression, they were writing laws that held them to a higher standard. And so they included laws that gave squatters rights. Their laws state that a squatter cannot be removed from the property, even thought it does not belong to said squatter by definition, unless the government can provide for the person a humane living situation.
So the SA government is scrambling to build housing, human housing, for these homeless persons, because their laws say they have to. Because it's the right thing to do.
They even offered these homeless people trailers, but they knew their rights and refused to move without full running water and sanitation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
At the time, they certainly didn't live up to that statement, nor do we now, however, we build these standards, these laws, so we can hold ourselves to them. So we can BE the people that we want to be.
So yes, I think government should do more good than business. Yes, business can do good, for sure. But that's the anomaly, not the archetype.
The Nonexistent Dream
So I think there's an ideological disconnect here.
We believe we're the land of opportunity; that if you just work hard, anyone can make it. We tell our kids this in school which builds them up for a massive mind-shift when they realize that is just isn't true for everyone.
Yes, for a large segment of the population, the dream is alive and well. You work hard, you'll get far.
However, the facts prove that if you have anything stacked against you, anything at all, really, you probably won't make it as far as you want to.
The dream does not exist for many folks in the US.
If you're disabled,
have children at a young age,
have an incarcerated parent,
are in foster care,
are born into a poor family who cannot support you,
are black,
are brown,
are an immigrant,
are trans,
are a woman,
and heaven forbid you're MORE than one of these, the odds are stacked against you.
YES, some people make it past these odds. But these people are the anomalies. They are not the archetype.
And so we tell ourselves that if we just let things be, if we just let business grow the way it's meant to grow, if we just give people the choices that they deserve, then society will improve. As businesses can thrive, people will then thrive. And this can totally be true for many people who do not fit into any of the aforementioned categories.
However, no matter what you believe about the goodness of mankind, business will always first make money.
And once in a while a big business exec turns into a philanthropist and we all praise them for their goodness, but just as Oprah is an anomaly for black people, Bill Gates is an anomaly for big business owners.
If we give businesses the right to do whatever the hell they want to do, they will hurt the poor and the oppressed. Archetypically, they will do what they need to do to make money and what they need to do is hurt the poor and the oppressed.
We have this dream that laissez faire means everyone wins. But historically that's false.
Look at how many lives were lost in the fight for workers rights. And SO many people lambasted those fighting for workers rights because removing child labor laws would be bad for business. OF COURSE it would be bad for business. But if it's the RIGHT thing to do, if it's the JUST thing to do, who cares if it's bad for business.
Our laws hold us to a higher standard. Just look at how much progress we've made regarding disability laws. And YES, disability laws have HURT business. We have to build ramps, what? We have to make everything accessible? What?
And yet, we pass these laws because it is the right thing to do.
Our minimum wage laws tell the world that we do not care about the poor and we justify this indifference with the American dream ethos - that if you just work hard enough, you'll climb the ladder.
But that last ten rungs of the ladder are missing for the oppressed people of this country. And unless you learn how to fly, or unless we rebuild those rungs, we're ignoring the needs of the oppressed and justifying it with the old pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality.
We believe we're the land of opportunity; that if you just work hard, anyone can make it. We tell our kids this in school which builds them up for a massive mind-shift when they realize that is just isn't true for everyone.
Yes, for a large segment of the population, the dream is alive and well. You work hard, you'll get far.
However, the facts prove that if you have anything stacked against you, anything at all, really, you probably won't make it as far as you want to.
The dream does not exist for many folks in the US.
If you're disabled,
have children at a young age,
have an incarcerated parent,
are in foster care,
are born into a poor family who cannot support you,
are black,
are brown,
are an immigrant,
are trans,
are a woman,
and heaven forbid you're MORE than one of these, the odds are stacked against you.
YES, some people make it past these odds. But these people are the anomalies. They are not the archetype.
And so we tell ourselves that if we just let things be, if we just let business grow the way it's meant to grow, if we just give people the choices that they deserve, then society will improve. As businesses can thrive, people will then thrive. And this can totally be true for many people who do not fit into any of the aforementioned categories.
However, no matter what you believe about the goodness of mankind, business will always first make money.
And once in a while a big business exec turns into a philanthropist and we all praise them for their goodness, but just as Oprah is an anomaly for black people, Bill Gates is an anomaly for big business owners.
If we give businesses the right to do whatever the hell they want to do, they will hurt the poor and the oppressed. Archetypically, they will do what they need to do to make money and what they need to do is hurt the poor and the oppressed.
We have this dream that laissez faire means everyone wins. But historically that's false.
Look at how many lives were lost in the fight for workers rights. And SO many people lambasted those fighting for workers rights because removing child labor laws would be bad for business. OF COURSE it would be bad for business. But if it's the RIGHT thing to do, if it's the JUST thing to do, who cares if it's bad for business.
Our laws hold us to a higher standard. Just look at how much progress we've made regarding disability laws. And YES, disability laws have HURT business. We have to build ramps, what? We have to make everything accessible? What?
And yet, we pass these laws because it is the right thing to do.
Our minimum wage laws tell the world that we do not care about the poor and we justify this indifference with the American dream ethos - that if you just work hard enough, you'll climb the ladder.
But that last ten rungs of the ladder are missing for the oppressed people of this country. And unless you learn how to fly, or unless we rebuild those rungs, we're ignoring the needs of the oppressed and justifying it with the old pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality.
And school choice does not help the poor.
I taught in DC, the district that has some of the countries best and worst schools and implements choice throughout. Poor kids will not travel miles via public transportation to get to a better school. They'll go to their neighborhood school. My school is in NE DC, one of the blackest parts of the country (yes, DC is insanely segregated) and no matter how hard you push families to put their names in the lottery, to apply to these better schools, they didn't have the time. They were working multiple jobs, often taking care of multiple families. School choice does not work for the archeypical poor family. If you want to fix our problems in education, pump the money into the poor public schools. Improve teacher training. Don't allow programs like TFA convince you that good teachers have no training. Get rid of 90% of the mandated testing (standardized tests are important, but should not occupy the majority of a poor kid's school year), Stop requiring teachers to follow curriculum that does not connect whatsoever to their kids.
Lastly I will say this in response to a recent comment. And this is me being an interrupter, calling out my fellow white folks to open their eyes to the suffering they're ignoring.
I taught in DC, the district that has some of the countries best and worst schools and implements choice throughout. Poor kids will not travel miles via public transportation to get to a better school. They'll go to their neighborhood school. My school is in NE DC, one of the blackest parts of the country (yes, DC is insanely segregated) and no matter how hard you push families to put their names in the lottery, to apply to these better schools, they didn't have the time. They were working multiple jobs, often taking care of multiple families. School choice does not work for the archeypical poor family. If you want to fix our problems in education, pump the money into the poor public schools. Improve teacher training. Don't allow programs like TFA convince you that good teachers have no training. Get rid of 90% of the mandated testing (standardized tests are important, but should not occupy the majority of a poor kid's school year), Stop requiring teachers to follow curriculum that does not connect whatsoever to their kids.
Lastly I will say this in response to a recent comment. And this is me being an interrupter, calling out my fellow white folks to open their eyes to the suffering they're ignoring.
This is what the commenter wrote:
"The answer is that wealth disparity in the non-white communities is not due to low wages. It’s a function of people not working at all. According to the bureau of labor statistics 51% of all black Americans are employed vs. 58% of Americans describing themselves as white. That means you have something like 2.9 million African Americans that should be working but do not. In my opinion this is scandalous and should offend the sensibilities of anyone who cares deeply about the financial wellbeing of the non-white community."
"The answer is that wealth disparity in the non-white communities is not due to low wages. It’s a function of people not working at all. According to the bureau of labor statistics 51% of all black Americans are employed vs. 58% of Americans describing themselves as white. That means you have something like 2.9 million African Americans that should be working but do not. In my opinion this is scandalous and should offend the sensibilities of anyone who cares deeply about the financial wellbeing of the non-white community."
They're not working.
They're not working because they're unemployed.
They're unemployed for a BILLION different individual reasons.
Please don't assume that they're unemployed because they' don't want to work.
Please don't do that.
Please.
Because assuming that a black person is unemployed because they don't want to work is racism.
It's deep deep racism that says that this entire group of persons is lazy and continues to affirm that same racism that justified everything from separate bathrooms to slavery.
They're not working because they're unemployed.
They're unemployed for a BILLION different individual reasons.
Please don't assume that they're unemployed because they' don't want to work.
Please don't do that.
Please.
Because assuming that a black person is unemployed because they don't want to work is racism.
It's deep deep racism that says that this entire group of persons is lazy and continues to affirm that same racism that justified everything from separate bathrooms to slavery.
Please read more books about life as a black person and never assume you fully understand and therefore have the right to judge anyone's motives ever.
Ever.
Please.
Ever.
Please.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
The Girl Who Should Have Called Racist
So I'm at Value Village thrift store one day with my son, this was sometime in the Fall, and we're browsing the paperbacks after picking up a few onesies for him. He's sleeping peacefully in his carseat which is sitting in my shopping cart when this older gentleman comes up and looks at my son and smiles. Now I LOVE IT when people smile at my baby. You could be the grumpiest person in the world, but if you smile at my baby, I love you and you become dear to my heart instantly.
So he smiles at my sleeping son and says to me that his son is now 32 years old and having kids of his own. He says how much he misses when his son was a baby but how he's grateful for his grandchildren. We talk the small talk about how "fast time passes" when they're this little and how I "should be grateful" for these days, even the hard ones because "they disappear."
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to sound sarcastic because I love this conversation topic. It's good for me to hear at least once a week so I am reminded to cherish these days. Because at times I do forget how fast he is growing and a friendly reminder from an older person to snuggle him as much as possible is a red flag to slow down and enjoy.
So we're having this conversation I have with at least one person at least once per week, when he asks me how many children I want to have.
Kinda forward.
But whatever, I'm a pretty open person.
So I say, "At least two, maybe three kids"
He responds, "Good. You don't want to have too many kids. I just had two children and I was able to raise them well."
"It can be harder, that's true, to make ends meet when you have a big family," I say, starting to turn my cart to head to the checkout line. But my son is still sleeping peacefully, so I'm in no hurry.
He continues, "I worked all the time when my children were small. I never took a day off until my kids were finished with college. I was a cook in my own restaurant and I was there all the time, working so I could provide for my children. Now my son is a doctor and my daughter is a lawyer. I paid for all of their college as well. I worked hard."
"Wow," I respond. I'm loving this. If Value Village had benches, at this point in our conversation I would happily sit so I could hear more of his life story. He mentioned briefly that as an immigrant, he had a rough life trying to make money to support his family. But he worked hard so his children could have a better life than he did.
Then his story turned when he said, "Like Jews. They have one or two kids and they support their kids to become doctors or lawyers. Better people than they were. They work hard and support their kids. You should be like them. One or two kids is best. Like the Jews."
I respond somewhat awkwardly, "Well, there are some Jewish people who have more than one or two kids. I think it might be inaccurate to group all Jews together and say their all the same in their work ethic," but he cuts me off with this shocker:
"Just don't be like black people."
Wait, whaaaaaa?
He continues in my shocked silence, "Black people have too many kids and they can't hold down a job and their irresponsible and loud and our taxpayer dollars are paying...."
He goes on like this for a while, adding anecdotes of black boys who worked in his restaurant and families that live in his apartment complext,pausing only to add "but I'm not racist" to his rant.
I stutter in response, "No, sir, You're grouping all black people together to claim that they're all the same. And the same in extremely negative ways. This is exactly what racism is."
He doesn't agree with me and I'm not making a good argument, so he walks away. My baby starts stirring in the still shopping cart, so I start moving the other direction as well.
But I really regret that choice. Leaving.
My son would have been fine to fuss for a bit while I spoke longer with this man. I should have taken the time to discuss how he developed these ideas about ALL black people. I should have taken the time to question his hatred. I should have taken the time to call him out as a racist so that he could see the error of his ways and maybe correct them. Because what if he keeps thinking these things. These hateful racist thoughts can turn into to hateful racist actions.
Just this week a video was posted online of a college fraternity in Oklahoma singing about lynching n*ggers who want to join their frat. The cell phone video went viral, prompting the closing of this fraternity chapter and a great upheaval in the University's discipline policy.
My question, though, is why didn't the person behind the camera call those boys out for their racist hate speech? Yes, they posted the video online, that's true, but wouldn't an added word of rebuke have maybe made these boys question themselves?
Why don't we step up when our uncle uses the N word at Thanksgiving? Why don't we talk to the person who grumbles about how all these Mexicans are taking our jobs and should learn English? If we're not willing to TALK about racism, to call people out for being racist, then places like Ferguson will continue to blow up like they are.
Call people out. Who cares if they get frustrated with you. If they take one minute to think about their words and consider any racist tendencies they might have, then GOOD. But if we don't say anything, they won't. They'll continue thinking their thoughts and words are ok, aren't racist, are based on experience and therefore true for an entire group of people. These thoughts are dangerous. We must respond with the seriousness they require.
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