Talking to White People about Racism
Let’s
talk about racism. In the wake of this election, a sentiment I have
heard expressed multiple times – by fellow white people – is that we are
too quick to call people racists. Racists, we hold, are not nice
people and when we use the word too freely, we tar nice people with it.
And since racists are not nice people, the argument goes, we must be
using the word wrongly. It needs to be saved for the David Dukes of the
world – the horrible, evil, uncaring people who seek to harm all
individuals who look different.
This is wrong. There are many, many kind, caring racists. You can reach out to people of other races, backgrounds, and beliefs, do wonderful, thoughtful, helpful things for them, and still be racist. You can have lots of friends, real friends, good friends, of multiple backgrounds, and still be racist. We have created a cartoon out of racism, a bizarrely-shaped caricature that engages in over-the-top malicious acts in order to be able to point to it and say “that’s not me, therefore I must not be racist.”
Let us start by labeling acts and not people. An act is racist if it disadvantages or demeans someone because of that person’s membership in a racial group. We may act this way intentionally or unintentionally. We may act this way maliciously or non-maliciously. When someone points out that our act is racist, we recoil because the assumption is that what that means is that the person is telling me that I hate members of that group and go out of my way to harm them. No, that is not what that means. It may be perfectly true that (a) your act was racist and (b) you are a thoughtful, caring, perfectly lovely person. The problem is that the truth of (b) is all we focus on, whereas (a) is the real problem. If only we were all nice, we think, racist acts would not occur. So, let’s all be nice. That is not the solution because it misses the problem.
Where there is an unequal distribution of power, especially when there are largely homogenous groups with differences in power, the acts which advantage one group and/or disadvantage another will largely be invisible to those who have the power. We often don’t even realize that our acts are, in fact, racist. The only way we will realize it and alter our approach – to be told.
There are people for whom the cartoon character fits. There are intentional, malicious racists. These are bad people. There are white nationalists, racial purists, people who claim that they are superior beings because of their genes – indeed, some perhaps very close to very powerful people. We ought to judge these folks harshly.
But not being that person, the intentional malicious racist, is not to be innocent of racism. There are the social psychological elements like the fundamental attribution error that leads us to judge people differently based on whether they are like us or different from us. If I see a white person steal a candy bar, I naturally think, “What a bad individual.” If I see someone non-white steal the same candy bar, I naturally think “They are bad people.” And so, when I open my store, I will treat those people differently because of my experience coupled with my cognitive bias. We are wired in certain ways to be racist. This does not excuse it. To the contrary, it means that we need to always be vigilant.
But much racism is not individual to individual. The way our social structures and institutions are arranged will intrinsically favor certain groups over others. This is what we call, institutional racism. What makes it so pernicious is that it means racism can occur without there being any particular person who can be pointed to as racist. “I didn’t do it.” And you didn’t…but you did benefit from it without trying.
When we act to perpetuate these systems, even if our motivation is not to harm those who end up being harmed, then our act is racist. If one votes for a candidate whose tax proposals will disproportionately advantage whites and disproportionately disadvantage non-whites, my support is racist – EVEN IF I HAVE NO EXPLICIT DESIRE TO CAUSE THE DISADVANTAGE. I may not be intending to cause them harm, I may regret the harm, but if I am helping to bring about the harm, then I am responsible for it.
There is such thing as passive racism. I didn’t cause the racist system, I don’t want there to be a racist system, but I allow it continue. That is a racist, albeit passive, act. I may say that I am just doing what is in my financial best interest. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, just help me. But if the structure is unjust, then acting without concern to injustice is unjust.
This is why it is said that voting in a certain way was racist. It did not mean that the vote had to be motivated by hate – although there was certainly plenty of that demonstrated. It cannot be denied that Donald Trump’s rhetoric and policy proposals not only continue, but exacerbate the entrenched structural injustices inherent in our system. To support those views and act to implement them is a racist act.
At the same time, the smugness of Clinton supporters on pure anti-racist grounds is also unwarranted. We learned lots from the Wikileaks documents. Yes, it was an assault on democracy and needs to not only be condemned, but protected against henceforth. Yet, we learned some important facts. Why didn’t Hilary Clinton release the speeches to Goldman-Sachs? Because she admitted to them that when she speaks to the public, she is often lying. She has one message to soothe the masses, to convince them that she is on their side, but then a private set of beliefs which she would use to determine policy, policies that would leave the unjust power structure unchanged with wealth and power flowing upward. The structural racism would be maintained.
Is there an equivalence here? Of course not. But we need to be fully aware that we did have a choice between two racist options, a pair of candidates who had no intention of dismantling or radically reshaping the cultural institutions that do disproportionately prefer some other others on the basis of characteristics like race, sex, and class. Breaking a glass ceiling for one does not keep shards from raining down on many.
If we are to confront racism, we need to see it not only in its individual form, but in its collective form and we need to understand that addressing it will require us to see things we have worked very hard to avoid seeing. We need to understand that we can be kind and still be racist. We should be kind – something we need to once again prize in our culture – but understand that this is independent from questions of racism. We have two separate issues here that we conflate in order to avoid having to deal with the uncomfortable questions of race and privilege. But if the last few weeks have shown us anything it is that being uncomfortable is not the worst of possibilities.
This is wrong. There are many, many kind, caring racists. You can reach out to people of other races, backgrounds, and beliefs, do wonderful, thoughtful, helpful things for them, and still be racist. You can have lots of friends, real friends, good friends, of multiple backgrounds, and still be racist. We have created a cartoon out of racism, a bizarrely-shaped caricature that engages in over-the-top malicious acts in order to be able to point to it and say “that’s not me, therefore I must not be racist.”
Let us start by labeling acts and not people. An act is racist if it disadvantages or demeans someone because of that person’s membership in a racial group. We may act this way intentionally or unintentionally. We may act this way maliciously or non-maliciously. When someone points out that our act is racist, we recoil because the assumption is that what that means is that the person is telling me that I hate members of that group and go out of my way to harm them. No, that is not what that means. It may be perfectly true that (a) your act was racist and (b) you are a thoughtful, caring, perfectly lovely person. The problem is that the truth of (b) is all we focus on, whereas (a) is the real problem. If only we were all nice, we think, racist acts would not occur. So, let’s all be nice. That is not the solution because it misses the problem.
Where there is an unequal distribution of power, especially when there are largely homogenous groups with differences in power, the acts which advantage one group and/or disadvantage another will largely be invisible to those who have the power. We often don’t even realize that our acts are, in fact, racist. The only way we will realize it and alter our approach – to be told.
There are people for whom the cartoon character fits. There are intentional, malicious racists. These are bad people. There are white nationalists, racial purists, people who claim that they are superior beings because of their genes – indeed, some perhaps very close to very powerful people. We ought to judge these folks harshly.
But not being that person, the intentional malicious racist, is not to be innocent of racism. There are the social psychological elements like the fundamental attribution error that leads us to judge people differently based on whether they are like us or different from us. If I see a white person steal a candy bar, I naturally think, “What a bad individual.” If I see someone non-white steal the same candy bar, I naturally think “They are bad people.” And so, when I open my store, I will treat those people differently because of my experience coupled with my cognitive bias. We are wired in certain ways to be racist. This does not excuse it. To the contrary, it means that we need to always be vigilant.
But much racism is not individual to individual. The way our social structures and institutions are arranged will intrinsically favor certain groups over others. This is what we call, institutional racism. What makes it so pernicious is that it means racism can occur without there being any particular person who can be pointed to as racist. “I didn’t do it.” And you didn’t…but you did benefit from it without trying.
When we act to perpetuate these systems, even if our motivation is not to harm those who end up being harmed, then our act is racist. If one votes for a candidate whose tax proposals will disproportionately advantage whites and disproportionately disadvantage non-whites, my support is racist – EVEN IF I HAVE NO EXPLICIT DESIRE TO CAUSE THE DISADVANTAGE. I may not be intending to cause them harm, I may regret the harm, but if I am helping to bring about the harm, then I am responsible for it.
There is such thing as passive racism. I didn’t cause the racist system, I don’t want there to be a racist system, but I allow it continue. That is a racist, albeit passive, act. I may say that I am just doing what is in my financial best interest. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, just help me. But if the structure is unjust, then acting without concern to injustice is unjust.
This is why it is said that voting in a certain way was racist. It did not mean that the vote had to be motivated by hate – although there was certainly plenty of that demonstrated. It cannot be denied that Donald Trump’s rhetoric and policy proposals not only continue, but exacerbate the entrenched structural injustices inherent in our system. To support those views and act to implement them is a racist act.
At the same time, the smugness of Clinton supporters on pure anti-racist grounds is also unwarranted. We learned lots from the Wikileaks documents. Yes, it was an assault on democracy and needs to not only be condemned, but protected against henceforth. Yet, we learned some important facts. Why didn’t Hilary Clinton release the speeches to Goldman-Sachs? Because she admitted to them that when she speaks to the public, she is often lying. She has one message to soothe the masses, to convince them that she is on their side, but then a private set of beliefs which she would use to determine policy, policies that would leave the unjust power structure unchanged with wealth and power flowing upward. The structural racism would be maintained.
Is there an equivalence here? Of course not. But we need to be fully aware that we did have a choice between two racist options, a pair of candidates who had no intention of dismantling or radically reshaping the cultural institutions that do disproportionately prefer some other others on the basis of characteristics like race, sex, and class. Breaking a glass ceiling for one does not keep shards from raining down on many.
If we are to confront racism, we need to see it not only in its individual form, but in its collective form and we need to understand that addressing it will require us to see things we have worked very hard to avoid seeing. We need to understand that we can be kind and still be racist. We should be kind – something we need to once again prize in our culture – but understand that this is independent from questions of racism. We have two separate issues here that we conflate in order to avoid having to deal with the uncomfortable questions of race and privilege. But if the last few weeks have shown us anything it is that being uncomfortable is not the worst of possibilities.
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