Tag: racism

Remedying Racial Inequity

There is a lot to think about in this video lecture by David C. Wilson, Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy from Robert Reich’s Wealth and Poverty class at U.C. Berkeley. It’s about the science behind racial resentment and justice. It surprised me by alluding to psychological similarities between people who want to keep our structurally racist systems and people to want to get rid of them – both appeal to a sense of fairness but with very different results.

Book Bans and Fascism

With all the news about banning books — Maus and Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project, etc. — it’s hard to keep an even keel. This is a useful outcome… for fascists and white supremacists. But it’s also a sign of their weakness. Read Dr. Lisa Corrigan’s explanation.

“The killings are horrible but I don’t agree with the riots…”

I see quite a few people I know – and friends of people I know – expressing horror at the recent murders of Black people. It is and has been outrageous for years… decades… centuries. Unfortunately, some follow that outrage with some version of “… but I don’t agree with their methods/the property destruction/the rioting/etc.”

As recently as two or three years ago I would totally have agreed with them. However, after taking part in several anti-racism, anti-white-supremacy programs through my church plus the loving and firm guidance of several people of color, I respectfully – and strongly – disagree on several points:

1) I do not tell people of color or other marginalized groups how to feel about people or institutions who are oppressing them. I realize, now, that by siding with their oppressors I become one of their oppressors. In fact, by being white and not actively opposing that oppression, I participate in their oppression.

2) As a white person in this culture and nation, I do not know – and can never know – what it is like to be Black in America. The closest I can come is to listen to them, hear what they say, and believe them… and I still won’t know. Also, I know full well that there are many voices in the Black community and that few, if any, opinions will be shared by every one of them. Finding one Black person’s opinion that I agree with and telling other Black people that they should conform to that is racist.

3) Anything I say that implies that I will no longer support their otherwise-righteous cause if the resistance leads to destruction of property will be taken as me valuing property over lives.

4) When I fail to realize that any conflict may have more than two sides it is easy for me to think I know enough to make an informed opinion. However, I know that every narrative angle will oversimplify to some degree to support the view of that narrative. It behooves me to listen to the marginalized people instead of the powerful people.

This has not been easy work. It has been painful at times and almost always uncomfortable for me. I am trying to learn to exist in this discomfort. I feel that it allows me to sympathize – in a very watered-down way – with the existential discomfort that is an acute, daily reality for the Black, Indigenous, other people of color, and LGBTQ people in this world and the intersections of these identities.

I acknowledge that the wording of this post centers me and my feelings. Since I am not a person of color, this is problematic. My intended audience is other white people and I need them to know that they should take up this work and that they will also have feelings of some sort. The work needs to happen despite the discomfort of these feelings and I will support them on their journey.

I’m 61 years old. Why have I never heard this before?

That’s a rhetorical question. According to Did You Know Lady Liberty Was a Monument to Slavery Abolition, Not Immigration? (The Root) it was intended to celebrate the end of slavery in the U.S. after the Civil War but the message was watered down and redirected toward immigration.