In conversations about racism in American culture or politics, the focus is often on
racism as a personal defect or an attitude. Does that make it harder to take on systemic
racism?
It’s terrible. The way that people understand racism in this country is about interpersonal dynamics,
like racism is people being mean to each other. That sucks, but if that’s all it was, let’s just sing
Kumbaya together.
But racism is a set of interlocking dynamics: One in three black men can expect to spend some time
incarcerated; women are the fastest-growing population in prisons and jails—and 30 percent are
black; black folks are on the low-earning end of the economy. Lots of people who are great people are
implementing and protecting systems, practices, structures that fundamentally exclude,
disenfranchise, marginalize black people.
Do you think America has been becoming any less racist over the past 10 or 20 or 30
years?
There’s a real battle. The emergence of Donald Trump, and the phenomenon around him, is really a
backlash against how successful this movement has been. There’s millions of people backing a fascist
ideologue.
Is there a role for Black Lives Matter to play in stopping Donald Trump?
Ultimately, Donald Trump is not talking to us. He’s trying to organize disaffected white folks who feel
like immigrants are taking their jobs. He’s trying to organize the business class.
Cofounder Black Lives Matter Alicia Garza (Bloomberg Business Week)
First and foremost, we can agree that race is a social construction, a man made apparition, illusion, based on ethnocentric tendencies. These ethnocentric ideologies have become normalized patterns of institutionalized acceptance in justifying inequality (Bell, 2010, p. 4). Raines (cited in Lee, 2005, p. 39) explains: “This belief of ‘white is the norm’ is so ingrained it remains obscured from view, as natural as the air we breathe but do not see. Critical Race Theory (CRT) also acknowledges this existing inequality as opportunities for learning and action. This inability to see something that truly affects our lives contributes to the invisibility of white privilege as a corollary to racism.” So the new paradigm of understanding will require changes in perception and in more nuanced interpretation within social contexts, especially how they may be viewed by others.
Musician Bernice Reagon (Utne Reader, 1996):
We come from different histories, and it’s positive that we finally see and admit the differences. African-Americans know that nobody can survive in a minority position with only one point of view—we have always had to understand the majority view as well. In the effort to understand the story of America, we’re still not getting enough help from many people who share the story, because they come from a culture that says that their view is the only one.
Well, I say to them: Welcome to prekindergarten! You will not die if you discover that there are more lines out there than just your own. In fact, you'll discover that you will have an advantage if you know more of them!
It is this polyvocality, multisperpectival, multi-voiced awareness that most people of conscience understands as the norm. I provide examples below:
Missing from President's Day: The People they Enslaved (Zinn History Project)
The Lovings Story (Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court Decision of 1967)
In 1949 it was against the law to be married in the state of Pennsylvania, so my parents married in Maryland becuse friends of theirs said it was legal there. They ignored the societal norms of the operating paradigm that did not work for them and they redefined one that did. My African-American mother knew that if her biracial children were to succeed, they would have to be schooled in the world of my father. Education became a goal seen as liberating us from the restrictions that race and dominant society held.
In Farmington and on the Navajo Nation, two organizations were created to address the issues of race and human rights- the Community Relations Commission (CRC) and the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission (NNHRC). In creating the preamble to the agreement among the two commissions and the city of Farmington, there was discussion about the wording of language describing the past treatment of Navajo people:
"We must never forget the tragedies inflicted against the Navajo people" and "this racism
continues in America to this day." The mayor of Farmington wanted the language removed and replaced with the acknowledgement that we are moving forward and let's keep the past in the past.
A letter to the editor by a former council member supported the mayor's decision writing: "But the majority of people in San Juan County (Anglo, Native American, Black or Hispanic) live, work and play without even distinguishing that there is a racial difference. We are friends, neighbors, co-workers and business associates. While we shouldn't forget what happened in the past, we also will never get beyond it if the coals are fanned back to flame at the very start of every conversation. That language keeps the old wounds exposed and implies that racism always has been and continues to be a white-against-Navajo problem...the NNHRC should emphasize improving ongoing relations by focusing on the future, and should take responsibility and a practive role in that effort" (in Editorial by George Sharpe, June 11, 2010 in the Farmington Daily Times).
The NNHRC submitted the excerpted preamble version below that was accepted:
"While the majority of the people in the city and on the Navajo Nation do not tolerate racism, we must never forget the tragedies inflicted on Navajos by a minority in the community and ensure that the Navajo people's stories are acknowledged and told in their words....Racism and discriminatory practices must be eliminated now and forever at every level of government and eventually in the hearts and minds of all peoples" (Lynn, October 6, 2010).
The NNHRC also accepted the mayor's suggestions that the preamble include progress that Farmington has made in race relations. The interchange among the city officials, the NNHRC and the CRC is an example of what Bell (2010) would describe as examples of a stock story, counterstorytelling story and concealed stories.
Bell (2010) challenges these patterns of inequality through the Storytelling Project Model where stories are pedagogical tools for analyzing talk about race. Bell identifies four story types: stock stories, concealed stories, resistance stories and emerging/transforming stories that can. This has become my lens as entrée into these conversations. Michael Thompson (Personal Communication, June 1, 2011) asked similarly, “Where are the spaces in which people can begin to have these conversations; what are the venues to discuss?” Perhaps we can take our leads from the Storytelling Project Model where storytelling methodology becomes a tool in creating a “consciously counter-storytelling community” as Bell describes” (p. 19). This space and place could invite marginalized voices to be validated and equally in recognizing the dominant stories that reveal racism from within.