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I have a very modest goal for me and my white colleagues.
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To be able to read something like José Luis Vilson’s recent post, or Mia McKenzie’s recent post, without feeling defensive.
A modest goal, for sure. But a necessary one, and one that will allow us to move forward.
Each of these posts is by a Black/Latino writer, with teachers as (at least) part of the intended audience, and each calls out racism in schools. (And sexism—for which I have an equivalent goal for my male colleagues—it shouldn’t be hard to reread this post replacing race with gender wherever it appears.)
The defensive response I hope we can do away with.
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When white people read this writing, there is an instinctive reaction that begins and ends with Not all white people. That is the defensive response I hope we can do away with.
Here’s the problem with that response:
Racism is not about white people’s understanding of the nuances and varieties of white people. It is about the lived experience of people of color.
- “Not all white people” is a racist response.
- “Not all white people” denies the experience of the writer.
- “Not all white people” cuts off further conversation about race.
This leads me to a second claim.
Refusing to discuss race is a racist act.
There is a certain brand of white liberalism, for example, that believes noticing race to be a racist act. This view makes it impossible to talk about race.
In such a climate, asking a colleague what he knows about Somali culture in a quest to better understand a classroom incident is called into question as an act of racism because some white people engage in the same behaviors, and therefore there should be nothing to ask about. In such a climate we cannot speak of the vastly differential racial demographics of developmental math courses and College Algebra courses at the college level. To do so is seen as racist. Because—after all—we give the same placement tests to everybody.
Now a question for my white colleagues:
Why is “racist” that rare varitey of action that we allow the power to define us?
We can live with duality in other areas of our lives: I did/said a ___ thing, but this does not make me a ___ person.
I am comfortable owning that something I did was stupid.
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I have done many stupid things in my life, and I accept the potential for doing more stupid things in the future. Yet I am not a stupid person. I am comfortable owning that something I did was stupid. I can wish that I hadn’t done that stupid thing. But I don’t let the stupid thing define me.
Furthermore, it is OK to talk about how stupid something I did was, and the goal in talking about it is to ensure that I don’t do something that stupid again—or at least to eliminate this particular brand of stupidity from my repertoire.
We pretend that only racists do racist things.
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But we treat racism differently. We pretend that only racists do racist things. (Again, do only stupid people do stupid things?) Therefore, we cannot own our racist actions. If we admit that we have done, thought or said something racist, we become racists.
This mindset—this inability to speak of our racist actions; to name them (even the inadvertent ones) as racist—keeps us from being able to talk about our mistaken ideas and actions. But talking about them would help us to avoid perpetuating and repeating them.
You don’t need to own the racism of your fellow white people. You don’t need to identify as a racist because someone else has done something racist, nor even because you have. No.
You—I—can own an act without needing to own the title racist.
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You need to (I need to) honor the experiences of others. When a racist incident is brought to your attention, you need not to explain that “not all white people…” or that you have not experienced this. Doing so puts the focus back on you as a white person (which, again, is a racist act; and which, again, you—I—can own as an act without needing to own the title racist).
Pretending that racist acts can only be committed by people who are racists through and through—this is not an effective means to the end.
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See, you don’t need to explain the experience of others away. Instead you need to listen. You need to acknowledge that racist acts are committed in the world, and that our goal is to reduce and ultimately to eliminate their incidence. Pretending—through denial or through silence—that racist acts do not exist is itself a racist act. Pretending—through denial or through silence—that racist acts have no relevance is a racist act. Pretending that racist acts can only be committed by people who are racists through and through—this is not an effective means to the end.
I understand that my goal is modest: Reading accounts of racism, written by people of color, without becoming defensive. But we have ample empirical evidence that the goal has not yet been attained, and it is clear to me that moving forward to really dealing with racism is impossible in its face.
Achieving this goal allows us to listen.
And listening—to our own hearts, and to the hearts and experiences of others—is where learning begins.
Originally posted on Overthinking my teaching
Photo Credit: Getty Images
I’m a woman of color, and I see some real problems with a lot of the anti-“white privilege” arguments out there, like this article for example.
What alienates a lot of white people is the contradictory message they get, which is basically:
“You will never understand, but you have to listen to what I say anyway.”
Which means:
“Keep doing something that will never succeed, because it makes me feel better.”
There’s a very simple and quite effective response if you feel accused of being a white racist: Tell people that you are a person of color. If they don’t believe you, then the burden of proof is on them to prove that you are. That should be an interesting exercise in race construction. Very hard for them to do that without engaging in flagrant stereotyping. It’s much, much easier to prove objectively that someone is racist than to prove obkectively that someone is white. In any event, this is the kind of intense yet unproductive debate that happens when people… Read more »
Not talking about racism is racism. That’s an interesting turn. You’ve finally got me. I can now be considered a racist. I wondered how long it would take.
Me too I guess….
Helpful article.
Some of us have been raised to avoid discussions of potentially contentious issues, traditionally politics, religion and sex, in polite conversation. I would add “race” to that list. You think it’s racist to avoid talking about race, fine. I think it’s inappropriate to talk about it outside of a forum specifically intended for the discussion of hot-button stuff. Browbeating colleagues about it when you know you have them over a barrel–they know that anyone complaining to the boss about anything race-related is going to get what they want–is unacceptably bad behavior. And to quote Henry Rollins, “Any man who tells… Read more »
I’ve been an outspoken feminist since I was a teenager – and I would NEVER EVER say “all men” do or are this, that or the other. To deny the nuances of individuals in conversations and discussions on topics such as gender and race is to completely miss the point of why we have them in the first place and to lump together everyone of one category of people (however we decide to categorize and for whatever purpose) is in itself a prejudiced act.
By arguing his case above, the author clearly just made himself an irredeemable, sexist man. Ludicrous.
Can I just say for the record that not all white people, say “not all white people.”
You just fell into the trap. I believe it’s similar to a kafka trap.
Or a version of the “true Scotsman” fallacy:
If you don’t say “not all white people,” then you are not a white person after all.
You have to have very acute brand of narcissism to demand that others validate your experiences by agreeing that they represent the only legitimate take-away. What I took away from Mia Mckenzie’s article is that she had a bad fourth grade teacher (or at least it seemed that way to her, as it does to virtually all of us). But because the teacher was white, there *must* have been a racial element to it. And then expects the rest of us to agree. I’m sorry, but my interpretation is just as valid as her experience. There’s nothing she wrote that… Read more »
Wait, are you saying that someone might misinterpret something as racist when it really wasn’t motivated by racism?
Heretic! Denier! Racist! How dare you question my interpretation! 😉
Well, you got the overthinking tag right, thats for sure.
Does thinking at deep levels turn you off, Steve?