A Wake-Up Call to Our Soul
by Judith Marks
In the wake of the recent Zimmerman verdict - a verdict so deeply enveloped in racial history, racial relations, and racial realities - many in our country have renewed their call for a national conversation about race. A conversation that is open and honest. A conversation that is a wake-up to our national soul.
As a white teacher of African American History to African American, Latino, and Asian students, I echo this call. What though, does an open and honest conversation look like? Many white teachers (and people in general), think of themselves as unbiased and non-racist. These are often people with good intentions - people who consider themselves fair and moral beings. No one, though, is completely free of bias. At the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, there is an exhibit with two doors leading to the next room. One door is labeled "prejudiced" and the other door is labeled "non prejudiced". The "non prejudiced" door is locked. No one may walk through the "non prejudiced" door because we are all afflicted with bias.
Many white teachers are unaware of or afraid of their bias. People who are unaware of their bias may easily become defensive when accused of making a racialized comment or action. This defensiveness is born out of ignorance and fear. Ignorance of one's own bias and fear of reconciling one's moral image of herself with the reality she has the capability to be a perpetrator. This defensiveness stifles, rather than contributes, to an open conversation about race.
Other teachers, myself included, are afraid to admit we hold bias. Our nation's supposed value of being non-racist has silenced those brave enough to be in touch with their bias from speaking out. We suppress the recognition of our bias (because even if we try to hide it, it is never invisible) rather than take ownership of it and work to dispel it. When whites refuse to admit our bias in conversations about race, we deflate the racial realities of our nation. People of color are left to describe ways in which they've been demeaned, victimized, and marginalized without any white person (perpetrator or bystander) taking ownership and recognizing yes, these incidents, whether conscious or not, did occur. By not recognizing our own biases, we are limiting the conversation on race by making it a one-sided conversation.
As the black man started to walk toward us I tensed up. I felt my stomach tense, my heart tense. Why was this man walking toward our car and what was he going to do to us? The worst possible images flashed through my head. He walked over to the driver's window. My husband rolled down the window, thank God. "Do you know how to get to Lankenau?" He asked. We told him where to go. We rolled up our window and I let out the biggest sigh of relief. He walked back to his car, got in. The light turned green and the whole episode was over in less than two minutes.
As soon as we began driving I began pounding myself with questions. Why did I react the way that I did? Was it because he was black? How would I have reacted if this man had been driving a Honda and wearing a suit?
This memory tears me up and fills me with shame and guilt. While I may not be able to control my visceral gut reactions, I can control, how I respond to these reactions and work to lessen that response time. In his book, Understanding Youth: Adolescent Development for Educators, Michael Nakkula writes, "There are important differences...between attending to our prejudices, trying to rid ourselves of them, and acting as if we do not possess them. ... We cannot overcome our prejudices fully, but we can recognize them with practice and learn both to modify and respond to them constructively.
We do not live in a post-racial society. To prove this and to open a truly honest conversation about race, we must begin to recognize and admit our biases and racial tendencies, no matter how ashamed of them we are. Lavar Burton, a well-known African American actor and author recently spoke publicly about how he reacts when stopped by a police officer. His racial reality could be validated, explored, and hopefully bettered if whites in the conversation spoke openly about their biases that force Burton to respond in the way that he does. If we bare our bias and add them to the national discourse, we can have a more open and honest conversation about race.
More important than declaring oneself a non-racist is being aware of one's bias. We must first recognize our bias and then vigilantly and actively work to dispel it. This process of self-reflection will allow us to shed our defensiveness and enter the conversation on more equal ground.
Our nation is long overdue for such a conversation. A conversation that reveals the hidden reality of our nation and that leads whites to fully recognize their privilege and history as "oppressor", affirm different cultural and racial identities as opposed to a "color-blind" society, and become privy to the implicit (and explicit) racism that pervades our society today. This begins by recognizing our own biases. It is scary, but we must do it. We need to be jarred, and moved and woken up to a new consciousness. We need a wake-up call to our soul.
Judith Marks teaches African American History at Olney Charter High School. Judith joined the Philadelphia Writing Project in 2013 as a teacher consultant.