Healing Racism? I Don't Want to Talk About It . .
For a few days last September Americans had to face a dirty secret about our society and we didn't want to look. We found elegant and artful ways to call this ugly thing something else.But for a while we had to look at it directly and we didn't like what we saw. And what we saw is that poverty and inequality in this country has a black face. Despair, death, and squalor all were black last September, and it still is. That's what came bubbling to the surface in the fetid flood waters of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina after the levees broke, after the infrastructure collapsed and after all the rhetoric and bombast and pomposity broke down. American shame was on display for the world to see. Racism is an issue I have struggled with for many years in my adult life. I have led groups on racial healing and been part of an on-going group on racial healing. I have looked at my own white privilege. But none of that has made any difference. The racial divide and class divides and the economic and educational disparities persist. Most of all, the pain in African American hearts persists and isn't likely to go away anytime soon. And all our making nice about it and covering it up isn't doing a damn thing to make it go away. God save us from some other major disaster---bird flu anyone?
What is it about this social problem that it so damned resistant to amelioration? What would it take to heal it? Heal it? Did she say heal it? Uh huh. That's what I said. Heal it, completely for all time. Cuz I'm sick of it, sick and tired of people hurting and being hurt by this cancer and I think it's time that America healed itself of this infection. It's hurting us and I think it's time to stop pretending to ourselves that there is no problem. There is a problem and it is costing us plenty. There never has been any doubt in the mind of any black American that there is a problem and that racism has never gone away. Oh, maybe things have gotten a bit better here and there, but the big nasty is still there. The question is how to get white America's attention about it and to get white Americans to see that it is in our interest, our vital interest to decide to heal this thing, now, once and for all, for all time.
Right away when you start to talk about racism you run into a big problem, especially with white people, because the way the language is used in this effort, turns most people off big time. As soon as most white people hear themselves accused of racism, or its newest incarnation, white privilege, they turn off, they absolutely turn a deaf ear and leave the room. This is a critical question and it's one that people who care about such things absolutely need to address if we are to make any headway with this issue. I'm convinced that what white people hear when they are called to account for racism or white privilege is that they hear that they are bad. Or shameful. If someone accuses you of racism or racial bias and you are white, the vast majority of white people will get angry and defensive and the reason is because underneath that we have conflated shame with this word racism, as if we have done something terribly wrong.
About five years ago I applied for a job as a substitute school nurse in the Seattle school district and went in for an interview with the woman who was head of the department. I didn't know that anyone else would be present at the interview. At the last minute another woman, an African American entered the room and sat further away from my interviewer and was not introduced to me during the proceedings. I addressed my remarks to the first woman. Later I was called in for a private session and the head of the department confronted me (she was white) for my racial insensitivity to the African American woman who was a school nurse in the department. My interviewer challenged me about my whether I would be able to be unbiased in the extremely multi-racially mixed Seattle school system. I was heartsick and totally ashamed. I immediately rose to defend myself and blamed her saying, "But you should have told me who she was!" The fact was clear however, I had not accorded fundamental respect to the African American woman. I had not acknowledged her as a human being. I had ignored her presence. I wanted to die. What made this worse for me was that it came after I had done years of work in racism healing! As if that was not bad enough, a few months later, I ran into both these women unexpectedly in another social setting and again, I literally did not see the African American woman. I was so sick with shame that I wrote her a letter of apology afterwards. This experience has stayed seared on my consciousness.
I recently watched a movied called The Color of Fear which is a well-known film in the area of racism reduction. The film, made in 1993, shows a group of racially mixed men who go away for a weekend to discuss the impact of race and racism on their lives. Early on in the film, the men of color appear to gang up on one hapless white man who appears to be in total denial. He is just not getting it at all. As he persists in his ignorance the others, particularly one very articulate African American man, raise their voices, and start screaming at him about their pain and finally, slowly, he begins to connect the dots. I had a lot of problems watching this film this year and began to question whether anger, rage and shouting was the best way to break down white racism. There is no doubt at all in my mind that white racism exists and that it is pernicious. That is not the issue I'm raising. The problem is how best to get peoples' attention and once you get it, how do you hold it so that true healing of this ugly sore, this cancer on the American soul can begin?
When I was confronted on my own racism in 2001, it brought up my own shame and I certainly felt humiliated. However, what I had going for me is that I had already done years of work in this area and I was highly motivated to see through my blind spot and get conscious about it. I didn't have anything to lose. In addition, the nurse manager at the Seattle School District who challenged me about it, did it matter of factly and with great dignity. She was not out to shame me or make me wrong. She had simply taken a stand that this was unacceptable behavior among her staff members and she was fully empowering and supportive of persons of color who worked for her. Believe me, I got that message loud and clear from her and I will always revere her for that.
So when I see how poplular the white privilege argument has become in the field of racism these days I am a little troubled. I recently went to a presentation about white privilege and the speaker was full of zeal, fiery and passionate about getting white people to wake up and see the privilege they have. Lots of teenage kids in the room had tee shirts on in colorful cues--red, green, blue--that said, "Got privilege?" Ya know, it didn't do anything for me. I really wonder if the anger in this approach, well meaning as it is, is the best way to go about waking people up. Whenever anyone has hammered at me about anything in my life, screamed at me, tried to shake me up, tried to get me to see the error of my ways, it has never worked. I literally put up my dukes and resist. And whenever I have tried this approach on anyone to get them to wake up to the blindness of their ways (trying to shake them into awakeness) I notice that it never works either! How come? Because of the shame/badness factor. Because when people are screamed at they feel made wrong and they turn off and go away.
I think to get the attention of white American about the problem of white racism and then to engage them in healing it, an altogether new strategy is called for. For the most part, white Americans didn't design or set white racism into motion. Racism is an inherited conversation. It is in the air we breathe, passed down from generation to generation and we absorb it unconsciously. That is why white Americans have such trouble accepting that it is inside us and it is indeed hurting people of color and hurting them badly. We don't even know we're doing it!! We may not be to blame for it, I think, and hence we need not feel shame for it, but we do need to be responsible for it, and in particular, I think we need to be responsible for healing the effects of it which are contaminating our culture and poisoning relations between black and white Americans and creating costs that I don't think any of us really want to bear any longer.
While racism has terrible finacial costs to African Americans, costs in lost opportunities, educationally and professionally and occupationally, ultimately what it is, is a disease of disconnection and not seeing someone for the precious and unique human being that they are, and persistenly denying them the opportunity to thrive on this planet. I certainly over simplify this problem if I imply that it is solely a white problem to solve. Not at all. In fact, I think there's plenty to be done to heal this problem. What it's going to take is a lot of work within the African American community and a lot of work within the white community and ultimately probably a coming together for some kind of healing in common. What we need however, is a new way to frame that problem, to shift it out of the present context of rage, hatred and blame. I suggest that other contexts might open up avenues for healing.
One of these new contexts for healing is the context of trauma. I saw this vividly when I heard African American author Dr. Joy de Gruy-Leary speak late last year. Dr. de Gruy-Leary has written a book called Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. de Gruy-Leary suggests that the millions of Africans who were transported here from Africa, and sold into slavery, were deeply traumatized by that harrowing, horrific and humiliating experience. It went on for 400 years. Under terrible conditions of involuntary servitude, people had to adapt and survive. There was no such thing then as post-traumatic stress disorder, no psychologists providing trauma interventions once slavery was over. Survive, survive, survive. That is what it was all about. Dr. de Gruy-Leary describes how African Americans developed patterns of behaviors to deal with their white owners, to protect their girl children from rape, to try to assure that their children would not be sold to other plantations. She traces how these behaviors still exist, unconsciously carried out, in black families today. This is altogether remarkable reading and it will make you weep. Families adapted but they did not heal. How could they? They came out of slavery with nothing and before you know it they faced the Jim Crow laws in the south and the era of lynchings had begun. Dr. de Gruy-Leary's book may be one of the most important books ever written on the effects of slavery and how they persist to this day. It is a brilliant book.
I deeply believe that for Americans to heal the cancer of racism we must go beyond blame and hatred, to the place of of anguish, pain and vulnerability. We must connect at the heart level and see the price that so many of our citizens have paid and continue to pay every day for this pernicious virus. We must be able to see and feel the pain black Americans have paid and we must meet soul to soul and we must grieve together. And this part is vital---white Americans must see the cost to them of continuing in denial, of pretending that this problem does not exist. After I heard Dr. de Gruy-Leary speak, I went home and cried for several days. I thought deeply about the cost to me, as a white American, of racism. What is the price I personally have paid, I asked myself? And this is what I came up with:
Questions of Inquiry:
1. Is there a time and a place for anger and rage in the healing of racism? If so, where and when?
2. How can we move past political correctness to honest vulnerability, to loving each other?
3. Do you think it's possible to truly heal racism in this country?
What is it about this social problem that it so damned resistant to amelioration? What would it take to heal it? Heal it? Did she say heal it? Uh huh. That's what I said. Heal it, completely for all time. Cuz I'm sick of it, sick and tired of people hurting and being hurt by this cancer and I think it's time that America healed itself of this infection. It's hurting us and I think it's time to stop pretending to ourselves that there is no problem. There is a problem and it is costing us plenty. There never has been any doubt in the mind of any black American that there is a problem and that racism has never gone away. Oh, maybe things have gotten a bit better here and there, but the big nasty is still there. The question is how to get white America's attention about it and to get white Americans to see that it is in our interest, our vital interest to decide to heal this thing, now, once and for all, for all time.
Right away when you start to talk about racism you run into a big problem, especially with white people, because the way the language is used in this effort, turns most people off big time. As soon as most white people hear themselves accused of racism, or its newest incarnation, white privilege, they turn off, they absolutely turn a deaf ear and leave the room. This is a critical question and it's one that people who care about such things absolutely need to address if we are to make any headway with this issue. I'm convinced that what white people hear when they are called to account for racism or white privilege is that they hear that they are bad. Or shameful. If someone accuses you of racism or racial bias and you are white, the vast majority of white people will get angry and defensive and the reason is because underneath that we have conflated shame with this word racism, as if we have done something terribly wrong.
About five years ago I applied for a job as a substitute school nurse in the Seattle school district and went in for an interview with the woman who was head of the department. I didn't know that anyone else would be present at the interview. At the last minute another woman, an African American entered the room and sat further away from my interviewer and was not introduced to me during the proceedings. I addressed my remarks to the first woman. Later I was called in for a private session and the head of the department confronted me (she was white) for my racial insensitivity to the African American woman who was a school nurse in the department. My interviewer challenged me about my whether I would be able to be unbiased in the extremely multi-racially mixed Seattle school system. I was heartsick and totally ashamed. I immediately rose to defend myself and blamed her saying, "But you should have told me who she was!" The fact was clear however, I had not accorded fundamental respect to the African American woman. I had not acknowledged her as a human being. I had ignored her presence. I wanted to die. What made this worse for me was that it came after I had done years of work in racism healing! As if that was not bad enough, a few months later, I ran into both these women unexpectedly in another social setting and again, I literally did not see the African American woman. I was so sick with shame that I wrote her a letter of apology afterwards. This experience has stayed seared on my consciousness.
I recently watched a movied called The Color of Fear which is a well-known film in the area of racism reduction. The film, made in 1993, shows a group of racially mixed men who go away for a weekend to discuss the impact of race and racism on their lives. Early on in the film, the men of color appear to gang up on one hapless white man who appears to be in total denial. He is just not getting it at all. As he persists in his ignorance the others, particularly one very articulate African American man, raise their voices, and start screaming at him about their pain and finally, slowly, he begins to connect the dots. I had a lot of problems watching this film this year and began to question whether anger, rage and shouting was the best way to break down white racism. There is no doubt at all in my mind that white racism exists and that it is pernicious. That is not the issue I'm raising. The problem is how best to get peoples' attention and once you get it, how do you hold it so that true healing of this ugly sore, this cancer on the American soul can begin?
When I was confronted on my own racism in 2001, it brought up my own shame and I certainly felt humiliated. However, what I had going for me is that I had already done years of work in this area and I was highly motivated to see through my blind spot and get conscious about it. I didn't have anything to lose. In addition, the nurse manager at the Seattle School District who challenged me about it, did it matter of factly and with great dignity. She was not out to shame me or make me wrong. She had simply taken a stand that this was unacceptable behavior among her staff members and she was fully empowering and supportive of persons of color who worked for her. Believe me, I got that message loud and clear from her and I will always revere her for that.
So when I see how poplular the white privilege argument has become in the field of racism these days I am a little troubled. I recently went to a presentation about white privilege and the speaker was full of zeal, fiery and passionate about getting white people to wake up and see the privilege they have. Lots of teenage kids in the room had tee shirts on in colorful cues--red, green, blue--that said, "Got privilege?" Ya know, it didn't do anything for me. I really wonder if the anger in this approach, well meaning as it is, is the best way to go about waking people up. Whenever anyone has hammered at me about anything in my life, screamed at me, tried to shake me up, tried to get me to see the error of my ways, it has never worked. I literally put up my dukes and resist. And whenever I have tried this approach on anyone to get them to wake up to the blindness of their ways (trying to shake them into awakeness) I notice that it never works either! How come? Because of the shame/badness factor. Because when people are screamed at they feel made wrong and they turn off and go away.
I think to get the attention of white American about the problem of white racism and then to engage them in healing it, an altogether new strategy is called for. For the most part, white Americans didn't design or set white racism into motion. Racism is an inherited conversation. It is in the air we breathe, passed down from generation to generation and we absorb it unconsciously. That is why white Americans have such trouble accepting that it is inside us and it is indeed hurting people of color and hurting them badly. We don't even know we're doing it!! We may not be to blame for it, I think, and hence we need not feel shame for it, but we do need to be responsible for it, and in particular, I think we need to be responsible for healing the effects of it which are contaminating our culture and poisoning relations between black and white Americans and creating costs that I don't think any of us really want to bear any longer.
While racism has terrible finacial costs to African Americans, costs in lost opportunities, educationally and professionally and occupationally, ultimately what it is, is a disease of disconnection and not seeing someone for the precious and unique human being that they are, and persistenly denying them the opportunity to thrive on this planet. I certainly over simplify this problem if I imply that it is solely a white problem to solve. Not at all. In fact, I think there's plenty to be done to heal this problem. What it's going to take is a lot of work within the African American community and a lot of work within the white community and ultimately probably a coming together for some kind of healing in common. What we need however, is a new way to frame that problem, to shift it out of the present context of rage, hatred and blame. I suggest that other contexts might open up avenues for healing.
One of these new contexts for healing is the context of trauma. I saw this vividly when I heard African American author Dr. Joy de Gruy-Leary speak late last year. Dr. de Gruy-Leary has written a book called Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. de Gruy-Leary suggests that the millions of Africans who were transported here from Africa, and sold into slavery, were deeply traumatized by that harrowing, horrific and humiliating experience. It went on for 400 years. Under terrible conditions of involuntary servitude, people had to adapt and survive. There was no such thing then as post-traumatic stress disorder, no psychologists providing trauma interventions once slavery was over. Survive, survive, survive. That is what it was all about. Dr. de Gruy-Leary describes how African Americans developed patterns of behaviors to deal with their white owners, to protect their girl children from rape, to try to assure that their children would not be sold to other plantations. She traces how these behaviors still exist, unconsciously carried out, in black families today. This is altogether remarkable reading and it will make you weep. Families adapted but they did not heal. How could they? They came out of slavery with nothing and before you know it they faced the Jim Crow laws in the south and the era of lynchings had begun. Dr. de Gruy-Leary's book may be one of the most important books ever written on the effects of slavery and how they persist to this day. It is a brilliant book.
I deeply believe that for Americans to heal the cancer of racism we must go beyond blame and hatred, to the place of of anguish, pain and vulnerability. We must connect at the heart level and see the price that so many of our citizens have paid and continue to pay every day for this pernicious virus. We must be able to see and feel the pain black Americans have paid and we must meet soul to soul and we must grieve together. And this part is vital---white Americans must see the cost to them of continuing in denial, of pretending that this problem does not exist. After I heard Dr. de Gruy-Leary speak, I went home and cried for several days. I thought deeply about the cost to me, as a white American, of racism. What is the price I personally have paid, I asked myself? And this is what I came up with:
- When I walk down the street, especially at night I am still afraid of being physically attacked or robbed by black boys or men.
- I am afraid of the anger of powerful black women.
- I am sick of the financial cost of keeping one third to one half of the population of black men in this country in prison.
- I am sick that with so many black men having been in prison, many of them cannot vote.
- I am sick of the cost to our educational system that so many AA kids continue to fail in school.
- I am saddened by the numbers of African Americans who fail to realize their dreams, whatever those dreams are, whether to be an artist, a doctor, a lawyer, a politician, a writer.
- I am saddened at the economic and gap in inherited wealth between white and African Americans that still persists.
- I am dismayed that after so many years of working to end racism, I still have so few African American friends. I still live a semi-integrated area but have no close neighbors of color.
- African Americans go to different parties and to different churches and social clubs than me.
- Most of all, I miss out and continue to miss out on loving so many people who, were conditions different in our country, I would be able to love and love deeply.
The loss of love, that is the real and terrible cost of racism. It has cut our country apart. And it is a vicious gash on the body politic. After four hundred years, is it not time to heal it, not with anger, not with hatred and blame and accusations, but with deep listening, and compassion and ultimately, with healing?
Questions of Inquiry:
1. Is there a time and a place for anger and rage in the healing of racism? If so, where and when?
2. How can we move past political correctness to honest vulnerability, to loving each other?
3. Do you think it's possible to truly heal racism in this country?
posted by Joy at 4:32 PM
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