Can we talk? A conversation about racism and reconciliation in America

[COMMENTARY] Recently, in liberal, enlightened Ann Arbor, at a home accessory store, I was in the checkout line behind an older black couple. The cashier asked the man for ID as he paid with a credit card. She took my credit card without question. I noticed this small difference, but didn’t ask the clerk why she made the distinction. I didn’t invite the clerk into conversation about racism and stereotypes. I was silent.

Last week, Sen. Barack Obama asked Americans to acknowledge racism’s divisive presence and enduring impact in our society and individual lives, and to join a conversation. He invited us to participate in a process of reconciliation.

Accepting Obama’s invitation to discuss race and racism in America requires reflection about privilege and “otherness,” cultural constructs that rationalize and maintain systemic injustice. Now, let’s talk. What are your experiences of privilege and prejudice? What are you doing to help bring forth policies to improve equality?

According to George M. Fredrickson, a historian who specialized in racism and white supremacy, “Racism exists when one ethnic group or historical collectivity dominates, excludes, or seeks to eliminate another on the basis of differences that it believes are hereditary and unalterable.”

Obama tried to illustrate that racism is the complex product of a historical process that is still unfolding. And that we are all participants regardless of our depth or lack of self-awareness. We can’t disavow or disown each other even when our views are repugnant because we are ultimately aiming to become We.

Continued -Racism is the concerted practice of creating “otherness” for purposes of social status and advantage. It is a willful denial of the unity of the human family and a stripping away of the humanity of some of our brothers and sisters based on superficial traits. It is not reciprocal. America’s black/white divide is not a balance of equal opposites.

Some of us would rather not acknowledge racism, let alone examine it in detail. This exercise makes a lot of people uncomfortable stirring feelings of guilt, anger and vulnerability. Surely, if we believe in equality, we cannot be complicit in acts of racism? If we want equal opportunity for all Americans, we cannot at the same time act to support inequality, can we?

The way forward starts with self-examination. Understanding the history of racism and its role in our individual life stories takes effort, but just noticing it can be a start. How does racism affect you? Do you experience prejudice or privilege because of the color of your skin? Opposing racism takes honesty, insight, and the ability to discern the interplay of racism and privilege in your own life. You have to notice it and name it to be able to change it.

Peggy McIntosh, associate director of the Wellesley Centers for Women, offered tools for identifying white privilege in her 1988 article, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.”* She listed circumstances that elucidate the ways skin color gives advantage in our society, and they still hold 20 years later. Here are a few of her 50 examples:

* I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
* I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.
* I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
* I will feel welcomed and “normal” in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.
* I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

How do you personally navigate the deepest divide in our national psyche? Like it or not, you do it every day. America’s racial divide is perpetuated by habits and lies and silence — many lies, big and small, many habits repeated without thought by individuals and groups, and silence in the face of injustice. You may find yourself inadvertently telling lies, believing lies, swearing that they are truth. The most dangerous lie is that racial prejudice has been overcome in civilized society. The most perilous silence avoids talking about it.

Blindness to one’s privilege at the expense of others perpetuates injustice. We who are privileged need to admit some uncomfortable truths, the main one being that our society has a long way to go in achieving liberty and justice for all. The good news is that reconciliation, healing and change are possible. While we may not yet have a unified national will to actually achieve racial equality, each of us can begin where we are. Many small changes can lead to a tipping point.

If Americans are still engaged in a process seeking a more perfect union, we must think big. We need to aim high. We can take small inspired actions. We can move toward justice with each conscious choice. “In the end, then,” said Obama, “what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand — that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.”

We get to have faith in ourselves and each other and our future prospects as We the People. As the senator said, “But what we know — what we have seen — is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope — the audacity to hope — for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”

* Source: “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies” (1988), by Peggy McIntosh; print copy available for purchase from the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, contact McIntosh’s assistant, Marguerite Rupp, at mrupp@wellesley.edu. The working paper contains a longer list of privileges; proceeds from the sale have supported the SEED project (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity).