Step 2: Accept, Challenge, and Offset Your Own Racism

A few days ago, when I promised a list of 11 ways we can make meaningful change on Race in America, I honestly had no idea how time consuming and emotionally exhausting it would be thinking and writing about a list that came to me pretty quickly. Thank you again for all of your kind encouraging words and messages. On Monday, I talked about de-weaponizing words on race.

Today, I present:

Step Two: Accept, Challenge, and Offset Your Own Racism

I assure you I did my best to keep this short ;)

In step one, I suggested it’s important to eliminate the word “Racist” from our conversations, but that in no way means we should ignore the gravity of racial bias and discrimination. My hope is that right now, with a nation finally listening, we can take this opportunity to expand our views of what we define as racially-biased behavior, without the demoralizing weight of that word -- and start to correct it.

The age old saying is “50% of fixing a problem is acknowledging the problem exists.” Well -- we have a society where few want to be considered “Racists” yet discriminatory behavior continues. So it’s time we dig a little deeper.

Racism is so frequently dismissed as an overt action -- the use of the “N-word”, drawing swastikas, or explicitly stating David Duke- level biases. So society has told us that if we’re not personally responsible for using that word in mixed company, or encouraging the outright persecution and elimination of an entire race of people, we’re off the hook.

Well, not so fast.

Here in “Step Two” I want to suggest that we Accept, Challenge, and Offset our Own Racism. There will be plenty of steps where I talk about what to do about the racist neighbor, co-worker, teacher, etc. but that is useless if change doesn’t come first from within. Otherwise it makes us hypocrites, messengers who feel superior in our 'woke-ness', but without a core grasp of the depth and insidious nature of the problem we have to fix.

So today, let's talk about each individual one of us.

I define “Our Own Racism” as the conscious or unconscious thoughts we have, feelings (shared or unshared) we possess, and subsequent actions we take. My background in the field of social psychology gave me access to perspectives and information about how we perceive others I had no idea about before, and still to this day have trouble grasping now. Without dragging you through the details and nuances of that work, one thing we know this: we all (ALL) make judgments within the first 7 seconds of meeting someone. These aren’t always conscious judgements. They line up with what we’ve seen in the media, our own previous experiences, or our brain’s best guesses of who a person might be and what to expect.

I’ve been asked by a friend to make these posts more personal and less clinical, so here’s an anecdote: When I was starting middle school, my mother (who stayed highly-involved in my education) attended a meeting where she was learning about what us soon-to-be middle schoolers were going to experience. She went armed with a handful of inquiries for teachers and administrators as to what programs the ‘gifted’ students had to look forward to, how 'tracking' would factor into my life, how homework would impact my list of extracurriculars and more. She, however, was blind-sided by a teacher who pulled her aside before she could open her mouth, to assure her that our school had great resources for ‘at-risk’ students.

Here’s where my aforementioned ban of the word ‘Racist’ matters. Was that a racist incident? In my mind, unequivocally yes. Do you think that was a racist incident? Maybe. Did that teacher think she was being racist at that moment? I’m guessing she did not.

One anecdote, one word, a spectrum of perspectives.

Here’s a perspective I can state about this interaction, in an apolitical, clinical, and unemotional way: We have an educator, who saw the face of a concerned mom, approached her with the intent to reassure her that her child was going to be okay in the hands of his new school. If I editorialize for a moment, she probably even went home feeling like she was ‘one of the good ones’ - someone who made the effort at that gathering to reach out to a parent from the black community.
Here’s what I can also state about that interaction: A mother of a child who had shown academic promise went to learn about what would be done to foster that promise, and how she could work with that institution to protect it. She was confronted by an educator who saw her color, made countless assumptions about her child because of it, and inspired no confidence that her son would be seen as anything other than ‘at-risk’ by this teacher, her peers, and the institution tasks with furthering his development.

The heartbreaking disconnect of this moment is that it's still the world we still live in 25 years later. We each harbor biases that fuel so many of our interactions, and in moments where we may have the best conscious intentions, our unconscious mind can be hard at work, permanently breaking trust with those who look different from us.

When it comes to matters of race, it is time that we fuse our conscious and unconscious minds, accept our personal biases, no matter how small or large they may be, challenge ourselves through introspection on the ways in which we participate and have participated in this complex system, and start looking at ways to offset the damage we’ve done.

The only wrong answer in a time of tumultuous and overdue change is to stand still. The status quo isn’t just a cultural affliction, it’s a personal one.

My last point on this step is that it is important to offset this racism. How do we do this? I don’t pretend to have the answers. My inclination is that one step could be something similar to a retroactive carbon-offset, but for race. Did you not give Jamal a job because you didn’t think he’d fit in at your company? Did you not hire the black vendor for your wedding because as much as you liked their (cake/photos/floral arrangements) the vendor you actually went with had a kid on your kid’s soccer team? This carbon-offset approach consciously side-steps the murky political waters of Affirmative Action and Quotas, and is a more immediate and personal (and admittedly controversial) challenge to correct past grievances, and really examine the ways in which we hide our discomfort with race behind decisions like networking or perceived familiarity.

See you tomorrow for Step 3: Fiercely Challenge, Monitor, and Question Gatekeepers in your Life

A quick closing note: Some reading this might ask why I, as a Black American, have used the word “we” so often in a document that appears targeted to White America. I assure you, I’ve not forgotten how much melanin I have floating around in this body. My phrasing is hyper-intentional, as my research and self-examination have taught me I am not less likely to hold biases against people of color. My research showed when it comes to stereotypes and discriminatory behavior, black people are just as likely to harbor those views, even to the point where it can be self-detrimental in how we perform academically, and how we show up in the world. True story. So while white supremacy got us into this mess, it truly will take all of us to unravel it.