Anti-racism work is tiring. Unlike other jobs (whether it’s truly your day job like with me or virtually a job like for those who dedicate their off time to it), where time off is important to one’s overall sense of well being, it doesn’t ...
Anti-racism work is tiring. Unlike other jobs (whether it’s
truly your day job like with me or virtually a job like for those who dedicate
their off time to it), where time off is important to one’s overall sense of
well being, it doesn’t necessarily work the same. Doing anti-racism work as a
Black woman in Trump’s America means that even time off can be a loaded issue.
After all, racism, whether personal or systemic doesn’t operate on my time
clock nor does it take a break. I have had racism find me on vacation, when
shopping, when eating, when caring for an ailing family member…oh yeah, any
activity that I engage in can be interrupted by white supremacy and racism.
It’s just an uncomfortable truth and it has always been an uncomfortable truth.
As a result, I believe in blowing off steam by any means necessary. When I learned that letting things out was vital to my well-being, my anxiety decreased and my blood pressure thanked me. My usual venue for blowing off steam is Twitter. Those who follow me on Twitter tend to know this. Despite the site being a cesspool so often these days, there is still much good and useful about it. And, as someone who often works alone and from home, Twitter serves as a de-facto water cooler. I can pop in and pop out.
A few days ago, I did just that. A well-meaning but racially
ignorant white acquaintance made a comment and it was the type of comment that
will never fail to piss me off. For some reason, white people and their system
of whiteness believes that when a Black person or other non-white person
experiences racism, that it is far more important to “go high” or be a classy
act than it is to stand in truth.
As a 46-year-old Black woman, who has been Black all my
life. I am here to tell you that being the “better person” in the face of
injustice get tiring; it wears on you. And after a while, it steals your
humanity. Between the large acts of racism and the daily microaggressions that
are pretty much par for the course, that means you spend more than half of your
waking hours (assuming you are a POC around white people) stuffing down your
feelings and playing a role. What people see on the outside does not match
what’s on the inside. You are seething with rage and you can’t or don’t express
it because if you do, you risk being labeled. And as long as most of us earn our
daily bread working in white-owned institutions, showing up in our fullness as
people is simply not an option.
So, after fielding an ignorant comment from the casual,
white acquaintance, I went on Twitter to blow off steam and that’s when things
got weird.
A white woman tweeted back to tell me that she was unfollowing me because my tweet was sad and that I need to find peace with myself and the world because my anger is poisonous.
*blinks*
So, a Black woman expressing herself is poisonous? Clearly
this woman didn’t know or care that she was the embodiment of what Black folks
deal with everyday. The denial of our humanity via tone policing. Tone policing
is one of the oldest tools in a white liberal’s bag when it comes to race.
Rather than seeking to get at the heart of what’s causing the anger, the anger
becomes the focal point.
Remember, this all started because of the casual
acquaintance suggesting that I should go high/be a classy act and now a random
white woman on Twitter is telling me that I need to find some peace.
Instead of asking how they can be a part of the solution and
work toward becoming actively anti-racist, the onus is placed on me (or any
marginalized person) to a better person. There are times in life, when being
the better person can be a good option, but never has Black humanity been
granted by being the bigger person. If one is constantly abused by the system
and individual white people, how is shrugging that off “better” or “bigger?”
When has passively accepting chronic abuse caused it to disappear? Giving a
pass to the oppressors only gives them license to continue.
Systemic racism and white supremacy will not be dismantled
by being a better person. If that were the case, racism should have been
eradicated during Barack Obama’s eight years as U.S. president. Obama and his
wife were always going high and this country thanked them by electing an
ignorant buffoon and openly racist, sexist SOB. People may have admired the
Obama’s both in and out of office but even when the most powerful man in the
world was a Black man, the needle didn’t move on racism. Instead, a nastier and
more virulent form of racism sprouted up in our collective yards. Weeds on
steroids.
To be honest, it is disheartening when people who would
probably see themselves as allies of sorts engage in the same violent behavior
towards POC as the openly racist. Make no mistake, tone policing is violent and
harmful. It also widens the gulf and ensures that no real change will happen.
Whiteness is a system of rules and norms designed to ensure
the long-term survival of white supremacy. One of those norms is discomfort
with uncomfortable feelings and an avoidance of the unpleasant and
uncomfortable. Another of those norms is a minimizing of the feelings of those
harmed.
Black people, Indigenous people and other marginalized
groups have every right to their anger. As a Black person whose ancestors were
enslaved and whose father grew up under Jim Crow laws and who lives every day
of my life fighting to be seen as fully human, I am very angry. Thankfully, I
have learned to use my anger for good by working for social change. Anger and a
willingness to not accept the status quo is often the fuel that motivates
people to change. If you can move past the place of being immobilized by anger or
wildly flailing about with it and instead by fueled by it, your anger can be a
source of good and you can actually find peace by being angry.
The question I have is: Why aren’t the good white people
angrier? Why can’t white people who purport to care about racial justice use
their anger and privilege for systemic change instead of stifling the anger of
marginalized people? Why can’t white people use their anger to confront the
bigots in their lives? Instead, only racist white people are actively at work
using their anger to protect their self interest, which is to maintain
whiteness and white supremacy. And it’s getting them pretty far lately.
Rather than feeling sorry, shocked or immobilized, tap into your anger and let it be the guiding light on your journey to change.
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(Following up on the recent post here at BGIM Media, a piece by one of our contributors on the pervasive inequities throughout the educational system that hold people back, often because of race)
So I’m
sure y’all have heard by now about this college admissions bribery/scandal/mess with this white
dude, William Singer, the two white actresses, and the other 50 parents,
administrators, and coaches in the thick of it. To summarize, Singer, for about
10 years, had been falsifying documents, doctoring photographs, rounding up
test scores and hiring his own proctors to control tests—all to get students
into prestigious programs in exchange for money from the parents (who knew what
he was doing). And I’m sure some of you are surprised by this.
Well, if
you are, that means you’ve been privileged by the education system.
The
education system in America privileges you if you are white, wealthy, and have
connections (and yet so many of those people still have to cheat to
get in—using a whole extra layer of privilege and connection allowed by wealth).
Anyone else attempting the right way to get in by working hard? Good luck.
Black and
Brown people have been fighting the education system that ultimately privileges
wealth and whiteness (Think all the way back to Ruby Bridges).
And what’s happened to these families? One Black mother, Kelley Williams-Bolar
in Ohio, falsified her address to send her children to another, better school
than the one in her district. When she was found out, she was told to pay over
$30,000 in back tuition and when she couldn’t, they made an example of her by
throwing her into jail for 10 days and giving her three years probation, along
with community service. All for attempting to enrich her child’s educational
experience because the system disadvantaged her kids by ignoring the schools
where she lived.
There is blatant
inequality because of race and wealth in education. It sadly does not matter if
these Black and Brown students work hard. Privilege can get you far when you’re
white and wealthy. Ashely Alese Edward writes in their article “This Mom Went
To Prison For Enrolling Her Son In A School Outside Her District”about another Black mother, Tanya
McDowell, who “falsified” her address about where she was staying (her and her
son were homeless at the time).
Edwards
writes: “All public
education in the U.S. is not created equal, which oftentimes forces parents
from low-income backgrounds to use the addresses of friends and family members
to get their child into a better school district. It should come as no surprise
that those most impacted by this disparity in funding are people of color: A
recent study found that white school districts have gotten $23 billion more in
state and local funding than predominately nonwhite districts”
This sums it up perfectly. Underfunded
school districts force parents to intercede in their child’s education. They
have no choice. Williams-Bolar and McDowell’s move of
falsifying their address isn’t hurting anyone; what these other parents did is,
they had a choice. Their choice is keeping brighter and more capable students
out. It’s fixing the system in their favor. These Black women should have never
been charged; their children should have been given an equal chance at
education.
There is
so much I could go on about within this topic: how the hardworking student of
color lost a spot to a privileged but less deserving white student, how the
student of color might be lost in student loan debt because of all of the loans
they had to take out, how the student of color isn’t heard at their university
with regards to their experience, how
the student of color is passed over for job opportunities in the future…
However,
what we need to start with is educational opportunities suited for all
students. We need to reward hardworking students, instead of letting them down.
The whole educational system needs an overhaul with all parents, instructors,
administrators, coaches, and the community working towards the betterment of
the students’ education. Every student. The education system is far from equal
when it comes to race and wealth. This need to change.
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So, let’s talk a bit about the college admission testing scam, bribery, fraud story that involves dozens of parents with enough money to try to buy their kids’ way into college but somehow not enough to educate and raise them well enough to make it into college on their own.
This is the part where, probably, those of you who don’t
like me much will mutter, “She makes everything about race” and even those of
you who agree with me a lot here might say, “Are we really surprised that
people with money buy their kids’ way into college?” So, there may be a bunch
of eye-rolling as people read this, because it may not seem like a racial
issue.
But it really is. A good chunk of it anyway.
I mean, on one hand it’s both absurd and funny. We have a list of people who may or may not go to jail but nonetheless are facing serious federal charges, among them the actors Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman (though somehow Huffman’s husband, actor William H. Macy dodged being charged with anything). And jokes about “Aunt Becky” from “Fuller House” going bad or Macy possibly somehow avoiding arrest for what some of his iconic characters get nailed for are all well and good out there on those social media streets, and I’ve made some of them myself, but this is serious business.
And I need to say it again: Race matters here.
A New York Times articletalked about some of why it matters, including as one interviewed source said:“This scandal exposed the fact that there is a misplaced emphasis on so-called affirmative action inequities, rather than privilege.”
I mean, you’ve heard people before gripe about “quotas” and people only getting into college because they’re not white, right? Maybe even had some of those thoughts yourself. You may recall a few years back Abigail Fisher, a white woman who sued claiming she didn’t get into the school of her choice because some person of color got her spot instead (instead of because her grades weren’t good enough), which ultimately failed but points to how pervasive this belief is, given that she actually decided to ram her case through the courts even though she didn’t deserve the admission. And think about it: How could she possibly know a person of color got her spot anyway?
Black parents in particular often have to tell their kids
that they will have to work twice as hard to get as much as a white person does—and
the reality is that we often get half as much for working twice as hard.
So much of the country buys into the lies that students of
color, especially Black ones, are getting into schools without any
qualifications and effort. People have accused me of getting my degrees only
because I’m Black while also suggesting that I got a free ride for them for
being Black. Let me tell you, the more than $100,000 I owe in student loans
says otherwise. And after working my ass off for both my bachelor’s and master’s
degrees, I spent years in low-paying positions (which people still assumed I
didn’t deserve because I was Black) before getting the one I have now that
actually pays me something approaching what I’m worth, and people still want to say I’m not qualified
despite my continued successes.
I’m not alone. Black women, for example, are among the most educated people around and yet they have
massive debt as a result and continue to be underpaid and under-represented in
high-level positions.
To be honest, it’s really galling to me that the Lori
Loughlins and Felicity Huffmans and William H. Macys of the world (and their
non-celebrity ilk) have been getting away with this kind of thing for years and
people shrug and say “That’s the way it’s always been” and then have the nerve
to question the right of someone like me to be in a school or to prosper from
my degree.
Here are some other random thoughts about why this scandal
matters in terms of race for a lot of non-white people but most especially
Black ones:
We are constantly told that we’re held back by laziness or lack of ability and told to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and yet the mediocre white people get to ascend the ranks constantly (remember slacker George W. Bush with his “gentleman’s C” grades in the Ivy League who got to be president…or the even less academically minded orange guy currently in the White House). That means mediocre (or worse) white people with fewer qualifications get to regularly and typically exert power and authority over smarter, more competent non-white ones.
Nobody questions that some partying, slacking white person in a college or university got there on merits, but we get questions about whether we’re part of a quota only because of the color of our skin, while we’re often making the grade and working our asses off to earn money.
People in this current scandal were faking sports participation/talent by their kids with doctored records and photos because their grades weren’t good enough, while non-white kids who get athletic scholarships and have good grades get accused of being idiots who only got into college because they can dribble or kick or pass a ball.
Black people who use other peoples’ addresses (like Tonya McDowell or Kelley Williams-Bolar) to ensure their kids can go to decent high schools under safe conditions have been given felony convictions and jail time—just for trying to make sure their kids get basic education. And I will be very surprised if the white people in this current scandal get much, if any, time at all in the end (possibly not even convictions). And even if they do, there are all those white people out there who did “less illegal” ways of getting their kids into college who probably think jailing those Black parents for faking an address is just fine, and that ain’t right.
Meanwhile, while people complain about “affirmative action” that doesn’t really hold white people back from opportunities at all and those same people claim to be all about real educations for people who “deserve it,” yet they also tend to be silent on the lack of funding for schools in largely non-white areas, leading to a $23-billion funding gap between mostly white schools compared to most non-white ones. They ain’t about educational equality; they’re about trying to ensure that Black, Latinx and Indigenous people are as under-educated and given as few opportunities as possible and that the social status quo of white’s first remains intact.
In the wake of this admissions scandal hitting the news, white America and Black America in particular are having two different discussions about it. And while it isn’t all about race, the problem is that in too many of the white discussions there isn’t any time devoted to the racial implications at all. And that’s why the affirmative action myth and all the related myths will continue to dominate for so many of them when they see a Black or brown person in a university setting and question their right to be there or look at their degree on a resume and disregard its validity.
If this piece or this blog resonates with you, please consider a one-time “tip” or become a monthly “patron”…this space runs on love and reader support. Want more BGIM? Consider booking me to speak with your group or organization.
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It’s
almost been a year since Linda Brown’s death and so I’ve been thinking a lot about
segregation. It still exists, of course, in very real ways, but it’s just not on the books in the
same form anymore. Unfortunately, so much of this is because, as a population
we’re still mentally segregated. This can be seen in not only our individual,
specific positions on race, but in everything from our views on history to how
we frame contemporary social issues.
As a
child, I was taught that slavery began with Africans selling each other to
white slavers. This story has been retold to me countless times throughout my
life. It was taught to my father and mother and their parents and probably to
you and yours as well. This story has implications that are in the very DNA of
this country. From this story we are to infer that Black people inherently do
not care for one another and therefore we are incapable of understanding core
tenets of American society, like “Honor” and “Family.” From this story we are
also to infer that whatever happened to us as a people was at the same time
inevitable and exclusively our own fault.
You can
see these beliefs of our moral inferiority and innate undeservedness make their
way from slavery all the way through Brown
v Board of Education and continuing to right now.
While
whiteness continues to change and eventually
include every other racial group, it will never include Native Americans or
us. This is because every other racial group is allowed an origin story of
self-reliance. All of their stories involve leaving a homeland that persecuted
them in one way or another. Their stories, and therefore their identities
support the identity of this country as a safe harbor for the tired, poor,
huddled masses, etc. Native Americans, on the other hand, are thought of as
noble savages who were too naïve to know that their time had come, leaches that
take advantage of a system designed with only the most benevolent intentions
for everyone, all of the above or somewhere in between.
We
ignore the fact that many Native Americans actually do have the same origin story as the rest of those groups.
Unfortunately, most of them were also murdered en masse because, while having
the same story, that story is at odds with this country’s
identity.
The same,
believe it or not, is true for Black people. While America tells itself the
stories of Black people being responsible for our own enslavement, it avoids
the true stories at all costs. America never tells the stories of the African
leaders who fought against and in some cases defeated attempted enslavers. It never tells the stories of
the Africans who fought against being enslaved in every
possible way. It never tells the stories of the countless rebellions by the people it enslaved.
America
never tells these stories because it cannot simultaneously be its own hero and
its own villain. And since it cannot admit to its own villainy, it continues. But
please don’t think of villainy, in this case as a reflection of an individual’s
intentions. I am speaking specifically of the stories we tell ourselves as
Americans about our fellow Americans that limit and destroy us as a country,
and perhaps as a globe.
Currently,
as a country we are struggling with addiction. The opioid epidemic has forced
us to rethink our relationship to drugs entirely. We have begun decriminalizing
addiction and treating it as a medical issue. Rightfully so. This change in
attitude comes because it fits with our national identity of self-reliance. For
white people.
Looking
back at the crack epidemic, which affected mostly Black people, you can see the
old, familiar story resulting in mass incarceration. White people, being
self-reliant and superior find their victims of addiction in hospitals. Black
people, as dishonorable things that would sell their own family members
deservedly end up in cages or dead.
The same
story is told about gun violence. A white person goes on a shooting spree and
they are mentally ill and in need of treatment. The reaction to Black gun
violence is, again, that Black people are inherently violent and nothing can be
done.
Again, it’s
not only in the acts of the individual where this can be seen. Currently, the most
important issue the country faces is climate change. For white people. Not for
people of color, though. Racism is still the most important issue for us
because we’ve already been living with the effects of climate change for years
and racism is why.
Humanity
faces a lot of problems, but addiction and the temperature of the earth don’t
care what color you are. They don’t care about your gender, for that matter,
either. But if women and people of color were allowed the opportunities of a
white man, there would be more doctors. There would be more scientists. Without
even getting into the value of different perspectives, there would simply be more people attacking
the issues that affect our species.
That’s the story this country and the world need to start telling.
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Losing a friend because I was steeped in
white supremacy (and didn’t even see it) was the beginning of my turning point in racial justice
work; she showed me that my “writing for white people” in a
newspaper, however good my intentions were, had the impact of harming people of
color. Without realizing it, I erased them entirely from my consideration, as
if they didn’t matter. It was this new perspective, that I was much more racist
than I realized, that was transformative.
So, what did I do next?
Before I answer that question, I need to
be clear: I do not think I have somehow passed into “the good ones” group in
terms of racial justice. I want it understood that I’m talking about my own
personal journey. I also do my best to share in community with others who
recognize the value of inner racial justice work for us white people. The fear
of seeming like a “know-it-all” has kept me quiet in many ways. So, I’m going
to share with you what I did after that pivotal moment with the caveat that I
think what I’m doing is the bare minimum of what it means to be a decent human
being. I’ll write here about the time immediately following our conversation,
and I’ll write later about the more recent past, present, and future actions.
One reason I spoke with my former friend
is because I was expanding my spiritual life. In my spiritual practice, built
in great part on a twelve-step program of recovery from substance use
disorders, I examine my past and identify where I have harmed other people. I
approach those people, asking if they would be willing to talk with me about my
making amends. The conversation I referred to in my last post was related
to the growth of my spiritual life. At that time, I was doing my best to flow
in life, rather than trying to force change; doing those things I knew were
under my control, and accepting those things (most things) that weren’t.
Something happened in that conversation.
It felt like blinders had been ripped away from my eyes. For decades, I had
been involved in some way or another in social justice work, including
anti-racism work. In that conversation it hit me that I lived inside whiteness
(see “Key Features of Whiteness here: http://www.aclrc.com/whiteness). I began some very
uncomfortable self-searching. I’m not exaggerating when I say I wasn’t sure who
I was. If I could be this wrong about myself, where else was I also unaware or
wrong?
I’ve mentioned Rev. angel Kyodo williams
here before, and I will be forever grateful to the synchronicity that introduced
me to her work at just this time. Because of her words I could take
what I had learned from spiritual leaders like Thích Nhất Hạnh and practice examining my
whiteness with those tools. I was able to hold concepts I felt were deeply in
conflict—that I believed with all my heart in racial justice, and that I was
also moving in the world causing harm to people of color—in my awareness at the
same time. I connected spiritually in a way that freed me from the fear that
had been blocking me.
For all of the research I had done about
the life experiences of Black and brown bodied people, for all of my
understandings of how systems in our country were set up to keep them down, it
was terrifying to see that I wasn’t really comfortable with what might be
required of me. If I really want to dismantle white supremacy, what might I
have to do? How might I have to change? What might I have to give up?
In the last three years, I have incorporated my inner learnings and some answers to these questions into an ongoing spiritual practice that involves actions in the private and public spheres. I find the more I practice, the more effective I am. However, one of the biggest lessons in this is that I must shed the idea of getting “good” and “not racist” anytime soon. I can’t. It’s been a lifetime and generations of living in whiteness. I can’t unlearn it quickly. In my next post, I will write about the day-to-day and longer term actions I take to unlearn whiteness and work toward racial justice.
If this piece or this blog resonates with you, please consider a one-time “tip” or become a monthly “patron”…this space runs on love and reader support. Want more BGIM? Consider booking me to speak with your group or organization.
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