Does It Still "Take a Village?": Multiple Perspectives on a Chicago Encounter

Updated 10/19/09 at 10:20 a.m. CDT (added Jessie Daniels's response)

We look to our children as promises for the future, to progress beyond previous generations' limitations, failures and injustices. We recognize and dream about "their world" -- the one we'll live in when we are seniors, the one that embodies some of our wishes and the fruits of our labor and energy. But we also know that for these goals to be reached, there must be a context within which our young people can learn, grow and thrive. We agonize over how we can improve conditions for young Americans whose future is so instrumental to ours, and we worry about kids who seem to be heading in a direction that can undermine those aspirations.

THIS WEEK, we have assembled a small panel of thoughtful folks who are thinkers, writers and social justice advocates to discuss a confrontation that Stephen had with three young men who were vandalizing a subway station on Tuesday evening. We offer these perspectives in the spirit (and with the hope) of instigating positive, thoughtful discussion. Stephen's story is below, followed immediately by Charlton's response and then the responses of our guests.

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Stephen

My wife and I were climbing down into the Harrison Red Line subway station in our neighborhood in Chicago when we happened upon three young Black boys -- maybe 13 years old -- tagging the station walls with spray paint. It was particularly surprising because there are security cameras down there, yet the kids were dancing around and acting as if they didn't care if anyone saw what they were doing. I thought about it for a second or two and decided to let them know that I saw what they did. Rather than express disappointment or anger (I figured at that age, irrespective of race, they wouldn't care -- I wouldn't have!), I simply wanted them to know that they were not as quick or careful as they though they were. Even now, I'm not sure if I was trying to scare them or warn them that they could easily be caught, or if I was trying to discourage them from doing it again. In any case, they all denied having done anything wrong, and as we boarded the train, one of the boys stuck his head in the door before it closed, called me some names, and flipped me his middle finger while another boy spray painted on the window of the train as it pulled out of the station.

I spent the rest of the night thinking about whether there was anything I could have done to meaningfully intervene in those boys' lives. Since I am a White ally, I am very conscious about not wanting to be act like, feel like or be perceived as though I need to "save" (Dangerous Minds-style) persons of color. On the other hand, as an adult who wants to see all children succeed and who knows that sometimes getting in trouble is the best thing that can happen to turn someone's life around, I wonder if I should have tried to call a CTA employee or otherwise "bust" the kids. Further complicating the issue is the fact that with all the youth violence and gang activity in the area, saying anything to kids that age at all -- particularly while they are engaging in an illegal act -- probably isn't a particularly smart thing to do. Would I have felt the same or acted in the same way if I were Black (a man or a woman -- and would that matter) or if the kids were White? Would the kids have reacted to me differently? Did I act appropriately (do enough, do too much)?

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Charlton

There's no easy answer to this question. I suppose like many people my response to what the kids were doing would fluctuate depending on the day, my mood, and my immediate attitude about the actions these youths were engaged in. On one day, no doubt, I'd be apt to say that I would approach them and say something like, "No wonder why some people see kids like you as nothing more than ignorant thugs." It's the kind of thing that comes to mind when you are looking at someone from your own racial group reinforcing the dark shadow of prejudice on those of us who have tried so hard to overcome those perceptions.

But I've also noticed recently that I seem to be getting older. As I do, I find myself distanced from young Black teens not so much because they are Black, but because they are adolescents -- adolescents who seem to attempt more today than I would have ever thought possible to get away with when I was their age. And I admit part of me would have stood silently with my wife, not uttering a word to the kids -- in fear of their potential volatility and need to remain and keep my loved ones safe from potential harm.

If I were wearing my charitable, racially and socially conscious hat that day, I may have spent a moment not only contemplating acting -- confronting the young men -- but thinking through the implications of my actions. If I report them to the authorities ("authorities" -- I feel like I'm in a 1970s Japanese monster film) then these youth will probably be swept into a criminal justice system likely to impact them more negatively than the subway wall they were tagging. So no, don't report them; they probably deserve a chance that they probably won't get if the cops get a hold of them.

If I were to say anything -- not wanting to incur the wrath of some pent up anger, or send them on a one-way trip through the American criminal and judicial process -- I may have just asked them why. "Hey -- why are you guys doing this?" I've always found that if you ask someone a question he or she will do one of two things. Some will ignore you, and others will answer the question. If they answer the question, you've taken the first step to engaging in some form of meaningful dialogue. This, I think, would be the best possible outcome -- and opportunity -- I could imagine in this situation.

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Jessie Daniels

The encounter that Stephen describes is a vexing situation for those of us who count ourselves as white allies for racial equality. As he describes the exchange, it is one bound up with white racial privilege (and, one suspects, class privilege). The image of the white professor chastising the young, black grafitti artists (or merely vandals) and their understandably angry response, seems like a reenactment of larger scripts about race and class in the culture.

I think it's also important to bring up the issue of gender and sexuality in the dissecting of this story. If I had been in that situation, and I had seen those young men while I (also a white professor, and a woman) had been with my partner (also a woman), I would not have said anything to a group of adolescent boys - whatever their race - for fear of retaliation that was more aggressive than a raised middle-finger. As lesbian-identified woman, groups of adolescent boys raise the possibility of a different kind of threat for me.

So, for me, the fact that Stephen feels he can call out these young men is completely bound up in his own position of privilege at the intersection of race and class, as well as gender and (hetero)sexuality.

If the underlying issue here is about how to intervene in the lives of young, black youth who may have gone astray on the path toward adulthood, full citizenship and participation in the broader society, I would echo what others have said here about community engagement. I wonder if Stephen knew the names of these young men? He doesn't say, but my guess is that he did not. Did he ever have a conversation with them prior to the exchange around the graffiti? Without a personal connection in which you at least know the young men's names or have had a conversation once before, an encounter such as this one is doomed to replay hierarchies of race and class.

And, just so you know that this not all theoretical for me, I'll close with a story from my own life. I attend a multi-racial, queer church called Metropolitan Community Church of New York (MCCNY). MCCNY has for 8 or so years run a shelter for LGBTQ homeless teens. The shelter is open 365 nights a year, and operates in the basement of the church building. The kids who reside there come from all over, are predominantly black and latino, and are mostly homeless because they have 'come out' to their families and been rejected by them. These young people are struggling - often heroically - to survive in difficult circumstances. They are also teenagers. As such, they not infrequently act out in ways that are just not acceptable. If I see unacceptable behavior by one of the teens and act in ways to correct it, I am in a similar position to the one that Stephen was in. I am white and a professor, and thus have racial and class privilege in relation to these young people. All of our interactions are always going to be inflected by those differences. However, that does not mean that I look the other way when I see a young person putting themselves in harm's way. I intercede when I can, and I'm mostly likely to take action - and to be effective - when I know a young person's name, I've talked with them before in some non-confrontational exchange, and they have a sense that I care about them beyond the interaction in which I'm telling them that they've messed up.

Dr. Jessie Daniels is an Associate Professor at Hunter College. She is cofounder and a frequent blogger at RacismReview; you can follow her on Twitter.

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Tami Winfrey Harris

It is easy to see the implications of race and class all over an interaction between a white, male, college professor and three, young, black, inner-city males in the city of Chicago. We are trained to think that way, especially those of us who are committed to anti-racism and the exploration of privilege and power. But in this case, I wonder if those things--race and class--are distractions.

Let me explain. Race and class play a tremendous role in the marginalization of young, black males. And there may be no better illustration of that fact than Chicago, where 36 young men of color have died violently this year, and the gap between the "haves" and "have nots" in the highly-segregated city grows ever wider. So, it is safe to say that race and class likely played a significant role in these youths' seeming disaffection. But I am not convinced that it colored their interaction with you, Stephen.

I witnessed similar scenarios play out during my years in the Windy City with similar results. Adults, old enough to remember the time not so long ago when grown ups were expected to chasten ill-behaved young people and the young people generally obliged out of a sense of respect for age and authority, attempting to correct a raucous or anti-social group of teens only to be met with verbal or physical aggression. The races of the adults who embraced the notion of "it takes a village" varied, the infractions did also--loud cursing on the No. 6 bus, jimmying locks to make a short cut through private property--the outcome of their actions usually did not.

What is happening to our children? Well, in the case of black males (and there are certainly many troubled youth of other races, but young black men are particularly at risk), Anti-Racist Parent columnist Liz Dwyer said, in a post about the murder of Derrion Albert, that we are faced with "chickens coming home to roost."

As a society, we have chosen to not uphold desegregation laws. We have chosen to allow low income children of color to receive a substandard education, simply because they live in a different zip code. We have chosen to not pay a living wage so that people can actually have the means to pursue life, liberty and happiness, so they can move out of dangerous neighborhoods if they see fit. And we have chosen to allow gangs and narcotic trafficking to run rampant, as long as it stays controlled on the “bad” side of town.

As for having some sort of moral or spiritual “center” where today’s teens know not to beat one of their peers to death, that sort of center doesn’t just fall out of the sky and infect kids like Swine Flu. Yes, children and teens should know better, but we live in a do-whatever-you-wanna-do culture. Self-control is in no way a part of our world these days.

I’m not saying this to excuse what these teenagers did. But hello, didn’t you read Lord of the Flies as part of your education?

THIS is where race and class come in. Society has surely created an environment where anti-social behavior will fester in disenfranchised youth, including children of color and the poor. And because we broke it, it is our job to fix it. It is good that you intervened, Stephen--not as a white savior, but as a concerned adult. What most of us, including me, are far more likely to do is look away and say nothing, to tsk tsk about the kids and the mamas and daddies who are raising them, to give the children in question up for lost. We look away from the loud and aggressive behavior. We look away from the loitering. We look away from the vandalism. We look away...until a teenaged boy is beaten to death on camera...and then it seems people cannot look away. And we wonder how we got here.

Tami Winfrey Harris blogs at What Tami Said and is the editor of Anti-Racist Parent. Follow her on Twitter.

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Alvin Herring

It would be all too easy for me as an African American male to categorize the angst my White brother felt over this incident as just another example of the privilege Whites enjoy – as it relates to race - to stand at a distance from the dirty work of confronting the tough realities racism creates and retreat to the sidelines where behaviors, motives and choices can be safely analyzed and timidly dissected. For sure, that is the choice of many White liberals, intending to sound like allies and then losing their voice when situations and circumstances call for a more vigorous assertion of solidarity.

But in the real world of race, no one gets a pass. Racism exists to systematically rob of us our humanity and psychically prepare us for the dirty work of denying to those deemed “less than” or “other than” opportunity, access, power, wealth and the very essentials of life itself. And racism doesn’t ever stand alone as a single issue but pulls in every other societal structure in around it, forcing us to contend with unholy combinations of race and other social dimensions such as class, gender or sexual orientation.

What has to be remembered is that race is the predicate, the root. Indeed, a racist system will never truly let you forget it. In the encounter with the boys making mischief on the train, the scenario is as it seems. No matter of intent, goodwill or progressive racial sentiment can alter the reality that a White man has stepped into foreign territory and entered the world of these Black boys without invitation. Their response is neither novel nor unexpected. They rebuke him and put him “in his place.” His angst is also part of the “script.” Was he right to express his displeasure at the boys or was his behavior based on race? Did they reject his correction because he was an adult censoring youth rebellion or did they interpret his actions as racist?

In a better world a grown-up should be able to confront misbehaving juveniles and have his intent be seen if not as helpful and corrective at least benign. But this is not a better world. It is the world that racism has created. In that world –our world – racism is an idol that must be worshipped and our desire for community is the sacrificial lamb.

How do we ever get past this? How do we meaningfully enter each other’s worlds and build real connections across race lines? The answers are not simple ones but they begin with a need for a universal recognition of what racism is and how it distorts the human heart and mind. It begins with Blacks and Whites each speaking to the ways our lives have been wounded by racism. Whites must summon the courage to acknowledge how they have been privileged by the oppression of people of color and undertake the work of dismantling that privilege by working for justice. Blacks must come to grips with centuries of rage and bitter resentment (much of which has been focused internally) and become earnest partners in forging a more just society.

Real community ought to be our goal, but to get there we are going to have to have the courage to step up to situations such as this and confront how incomplete our lives are in the shadow of structural racism. We’re going to have to finally reach that place where justice demands that we stop business as usual and get down to the real business of confronting racism.

Alvin Herring is the CEO and lead facilitator of Side by Side. Follow him on Twitter.

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Mikhail Lyubansky

This is a no-win situation. That was my immediate reaction to reading about Stephen’s encounter. But I didn’t want to write that. It was pessimistic and, more importantly, not at all useful, helpful, or constructive. I try to approach my analysis of race and racial dynamics constructively. So, I didn’t write anything, hoping that that something more constructive would come to me. Nothing has.

It’s a no-win situation even without the racial layer, at least from my perspective as a White ally (I’m in full agreement with Stephen’s take on it). That is, I don’t see a productive way to respond to this specific encounter, even if the boys in question are also white. The reason is that, given the situation, the boys are likely to distrust me and, therefore, perceive anything I do or say with suspicion. The remedy – the only remedy, in my opinion – is to earn their trust, to convince them that I had their interests and their needs in mind. As a clinical psychologist, I have some ideas about how to do this: I’d try to guess at their underlying motivations and needs (these might include self-expression, autonomy, fun, and even justice (e.g., payback for perceived systemic oppression) and respond to any expression (even if hostile) of such needs with statements expressing empathy and my desire to understand their motivations and experiences. Not always, but quite often, if it really comes from the heart (true empathy is hard to fake), this method is effective in building trust. But it takes time, sometimes a lot of time, and in this particular situation, the time is just not available. Stephen is waiting to get on a train, which could arrive at any moment, and even if he is willing to talk to forget the train and talk to the boys as long as necessary (unlikely since he is traveling with his wife), it is, at best, doubtful that the boys would be willing to engage with him long enough to be convinced of his good intentions.

And to this, we add the racial layer, because there is no way that this encounter is not, in part, racial in nature. In Spike Lee’s classic Do The Right Thing, the local African American community, furious about Radio Raheem’s needless death at the hands of the police and despondent over the certainty that the city would not care, take out their frustration on Sal’s Famous Pizzeria – not because Sal deserved it but because as a White person in the Black community he represented not just whiteness but white power and oppression. The destruction of Sal’s Famous was not a personal attack on Sal. In some ways, it had nothing to do with Sal the person, who, the incident with Radio’s radio aside, was generally well-liked by most of the people in the neighborhood. I recall Do The Right Thing, because, I think that, on some level (possibly an unconscious one), the boys in the subway station are acting out the same kind of frustration with the (white) “system” as the residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Do The Right Thing (or not – they could be middle-class kids just having “fun” – the truth is there is no way to know). As such, until he proves otherwise, Stephen represents the “system” and white oppression. It has nothing to do with Stephen the person. And it may not even be something that the boys have a conscious awareness of. But the moment that Stephen initiates a conversation, this racial history and symbolism come into play. His words and actions become transformed by who he is racially and who he represents on a racial level, pushing the possibility of trust even further out of reach. These racial dynamics can be overcome. In another context, I think Stephen could do it. I’m sure he has done it and will do it again in the future. But in this particular case, I just don’t think the opportunity for establishing a relationship is there. In this case, an engagement with the boys is a no-win situation. Allies need to know when to lead, when to play a supporting role, and when to stay out of the way. It makes me sad to say this, but I think this is a situation we have to stay out of.

Dr. Mikhail Lyubansky is a member of the faculty in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a managing editor at the progressive media site OpEdNews.com and blogs at Psychology Today. Follow him on Twitter.

Beyond White Guilt: The Role of Allies in the Struggle for Racial Equality

We do not normally take requests, but THIS WEEK, Ludovic Blain, formerly of Stop Dog Whistle Racism (and now with the Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative), asked us to comment on "why white liberals are unable to grasp and take action to expose, challenge and provide alternatives to the racism spouted from the right." We think it is an important question and one that we may not have squarely addressed in this space over the past three years, so here we go.

First, it is important to be clear that we are limiting our discussion of what Blain referred to as "white liberals" to White folks who are progressive with respect to issues of race. Some of those folks may be politically conservative in other areas or would otherwise reject the label of "liberal" altogether. Still, we feel as if the root of the question is about Whites who 1) understand that there are significant problems with respect to racial inequality that are systemic and 2) are interested in seeing those problems addressed and eventually solved. There are many Whites, of course, who may be wonderful people in general, but are convinced that ending "racism" means getting folks to quit using the n-word or joining the Ku Klux Klan. These folks believe that we have progressed to the point where there is now equality among races in America and that the election of Barack Obama is further proof of such progress. We are not addressing those folks here; rather, we are addressing the role of what scholars refer to as "allies" in the ongoing struggle for racial equality.

Broadly speaking, allies are folks who have privilege in a given category but work alongside those who do not to bring about more equality. So an ally for LGBT rights would be heterosexual, for instance. Feminist men are allies. Able-bodied folks can be allies in the struggle to bring attention to and remedy discrimination against those with physical challenges. Whites are allies in the struggle for racial justice. (See Dr. John Raible's "Checklist for Allies Against Racism" for examples of what this might mean on a daily basis.)

It is important to remember that the word "privilege," when used in this context, does not mean absolute privilege. There are a lot of White folks, for example, who certainly could not be considered to be "privileged" because they are poor, were raised poor, had other disadvantages, etc. With respect to a similarly situated person of color, however, they are considered to "have privilege." In other words, having "privilege" means having an advantage, all other things being equal and is not the same as "being privileged." Like "racist," it refers to what we are, not who we are: "I am someone who has privilege, but I am not privileged; I am racist, but I am not a racist." Failing to appropriately define the concept invariably results in an unraveling of its meaning; after all, only a very small fraction of the population would be considered to be "privileged" in the broadest sense of the word (someone always has it better). Most of us have some degree of privilege in one context or another.

Allies are important to social movements, but they find themselves in a complicated position in a number of ways. They are at once needed because they have disproportionate (though almost never absolute) access to the power structure that, by definition, those who are out of the privileged group do not have. On the other hand, as members of the privileged group, they must always be aware that no matter how well intended, they do not have the lived experience of someone who is in a disadvantaged group, and exerting their perspective can be (or can be perceived as) a further act of oppression, symbolic of the larger issue. In this sense, there is a very real irony present in these relationships.

We will use ourselves as an example. Charlton has the experience of being a Black man in America, which is something Stephen can seek to understand, but can never fully comprehend. Stephen can only know what is is like to be a person of color through the lived experiences of persons of color. One of the ways that this is illustrated is when he speaks publicly about racism. In fact, we often engage audience members in discussion about this issue during the Q&A portion of our public lectures, so we can relate what those folks have shared with us.

There is an inherent sense of legitimacy ascribed to Stephen from White audience members because he is perceived to not have a personal agenda in the matter. That is, if he is successful, White supremacy -- from which he has benefited and continues to benefit in ways that are largely unknowable -- will be dismantled, and he will therefore have less of an advantage. When Charlton speaks about the same issues, he is certainly viewed with a sense of legitimacy with respect to his understanding of how racism works, but there is always a sense amongst White audience members that he is less trustworthy because he has a clear agenda; unlike Stephen, he stands to benefit directly if racism is lessened or eliminated.

Furthermore, it is expected that people of color in academia (particularly in the social sciences and humanities) will be engaged in scholarly pursuits related to race and ethnicity. This, like many stereotypes, is an assumption rooted in reality. It is true that a vastly disproportionate number of scholars who work on these issues are of color, and it is true that a great number of scholars who are of color have as their research interest issues that involve race. But it is quite frustrating for scholars of color who are not interested in these issues to be presumed to be, much like it is frustrating for all tall persons to be constantly asked if they play basketball. And for Whites who have devoted their careers to exploring (in the case of scholars) or fighting (in the case of activists) racism, similar questions arise.

Whites ask them (sometimes quite openly), "Why do you do this? Do you feel guilty about being White?" People of color are sometimes (though, at least in Stephen's experience, not often openly) concerned about the possibility of intellectual colonialism. In other words, just like a man who teaches Women's Studies must be thoughtful about being patriarchal in his approach, Whites who are involved in these issues need to be constantly reflective about the potential to be (or even to appear to be) presumptuous about the proper way to do or think about things.

THIS WEEK, Chris Matthews (left) promoted a documentary about the Kennedy brothers (planned to air this coming Thursday on MSNBC -- see trailer here or below), some of which, naturally, focuses on their participation in the Civil Rights Movement. In plugging the program on The Colbert Report this past Thursday, Matthews claimed that the Kennedy brothers "created the Civil Rights Movement," to which Colbert brilliantly replied, "I loved Kennedy's 'I Have a Dream Speech.'" (Matthews appeared not to pick up on the jab). The comment is reminiscent of Hillary Clinton's remark during the Democratic primary contest in January 2008: “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.” The problem, of course, is that these statements give ultimate (rather than proportionate) credit to Whites for the progress made to bring about racial equality.

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This notion is not unprecedented, and we would not argue that it is an intentional slight. In other words, it is reflective of the speakers' latent racism, not of any conscious bigotry. As another example, school children who were educated in the second half of the 20th century, unless they were part of an Afrocentric curriculum, likely learned that Rosa Parks was an elderly woman who was too tired from a hard day of work as a seamstress to get out of her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. Though Rosa Parks did work the day she was arrested, she was not old (42), and while she was, indeed, tired, her real fatigue was from injustice and frustration that her work with the NAACP was not yielding enough publicity for the cause. Rosa Parks was an advocate for racial justice and was participating in an act of civil disobedience when she refused to give up her seat.

Why, then, did generations of children learn such a different story about Rosa Parks? While conspiracy theories are interesting (and often warranted), one need not believe in any conscious decision on the part of Whites to appreciate the cause and effect of this myth. (One compelling argument, for example, is that by not celebrating Parks's direct action, young folks were not taught to believe that civil disobedience was an acceptable or effective response to injustice.) It is more comfortable for Whites (who until very recently had the market cornered on writing history and History textbooks) to believe that it was the benevolence of Whites that remedied the past evils of slavery, Jim Crow and racism in general. It is comfortable for White folks to believe that while they may never have owned a slave or forced someone to a separate water fountain, they (and/or folks like them) took responsibility and corrected the wrongs of those earlier times.

To a certain extent, of course, this is correct. Whites did control almost all the power in those days (as they disproportionately still do), so Hillary Clinton and others were right in noting that "it took" Whites (not just LBJ but the U.S. Supreme Court, White members of Congress, etc.) to "get it done." But such a half-story undermines the courage and intelligence of African Americans who did much of the hard work and planning for years before Whites took notice on a large scale. Further, such skewed versions of history reinforce stereotypes of African Americans as helpless and needing Whites to come to the rescue.

And this remains the primary complication of the contemporary White American who is concerned with and involved in understanding and/or solving the problem of racial inequality. These folks do not wish to be perceived as believing that they are coming to the rescue. They wish to work alongside people of color in the struggle, all the while knowing that it is at once not their struggle and at the same time -- since White supremacy ultimately hurts every member of society -- very much their struggle, too.

In addition to the millions of White Americans who are deeply committed to moving forward toward greater racial equality, there are a handful of White scholars and activists who are deeply engaged in these issues. You might have (should have) come across the work of Tim Wise or that of our friend and colleague Bob Jensen, for instance. Are they driven by guilt? Probably initially, but not ultimately.

When White folks realize the depth and complexity involved in racism (i.e., that it is more than simply disliking someone based on the color of his or her skin), there is an inevitable feeling of guilt because they understand that it is impossible to know how much of what they have achieved is the result of their own hard work and perseverance and how much can be attributed to their race. That is a confusing place to be, and it invariably leads to some feelings of guilt.

But Whites who are committed to being anti-racist (which is a proactive stance that differs from simply being not racist, which we contend is impossible without the praxis involved with anti-racism) -- whether they are dentists or service workers or insurance salespersons -- do so because they feel a responsibility to take advantage of their advantage. They seek to use the privilege that they neither sought nor earned to contribute to the dismantling of the system that provided it to them.

Finally, then, we come to Mr. Blain's question that he posted to our Facebook page: [W]hy [are] white liberals . . . unable to grasp and take action to expose, challenge and provide alternatives to the racism spouted from the right?"

One reason is that it very difficult to address because it is so complicated. A sophisticated understanding of racism cannot be reduced to sound bites. People of color understand it because it is a part of their lived experience. One of the ultimate privileges that comes with being White, however, is that it is possible to go through most of one's life without considering race. (Of course, anyone paying attention to the news in the past few years in particular does not have such a luxury, which is one of the most powerful benefits of having a Black candidate for president, and, of course, a Black president.) Most White folks believe that if they avoid basing their conscious evaluations of people on skin color (or gender or sexual orientation) then they have successfully avoided racism (or sexism or heterosexism). To convince them otherwise requires that they have an understanding of how the human brain works (i.e., the subconscious) and how systems and institutions are more than the sum of the humans who occupy positions within them. In short, it takes a lot of work to disrupt the comfort most Whites have come to enjoy with respect to their own (mostly subconscious) racism.

Secondly, many Whites do not feel that it is their "place" to engage in such conversations. While those who understand the complexities of racism understand that the battle is against a system of White supremacy, not against White people, most folks see it as a battle between Whites and persons of color. They may be rooting for persons of color to "get ahead," but they do not see how they are involved so long as they remain "color blind."

Finally, it is important to understand that many of the "liberal Whites" who are out in front and are visibly and vocally advocating for a more tolerant and fair society with respect to race are not the folks who have (or who articulate) the most sophisticated understanding of how it works. Chris Matthews, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and others are certainly on the liberal side of the political spectrum and have been clear about their commitment to racial progress, but if we compare their statements and actions against Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech or the writings and public statements of Patricia J. Williams or bell hooks or Cornel West or Michael Eric Dyson or (most prominently as of late) Melissa Harris-Lacewell and Marc Lamont Hill, we can see that the depth of understanding is absent from the public comments of these progressive Whites (if not from their own personal understanding). In that sense, while it is certainly better than leaving the issue to Patrick Buchanan or Glenn Beck -- or leaving it unaddressed -- it does a sort of disservice because it perpetuates and reinforces the notion that progressive Whites must simply avoid racial prejudice for their work to be done. It is certainly admirable to avoid bigotry, but it is only through a proactive anti-racist process that White supremacy will ultimately be dismantled.

In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois criticized Booker T. Washington's approach to racial progress by noting that it "has tended to make the whites, North and South, shift the burden of the Negro problem to the Negro’s shoulders and stand aside as critical and rather pessimistic spectators; when in fact the burden belongs to the nation, and the hands of none of us are clean if we bend not our energies to righting these great wrongs." Just as DuBois was correct that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line," he is correct that the burden to dismantle an unjust system falls on all of our shoulders. Whites and people of color, however, must bear that burden differently while we bear it together precisely because of the ways in which racism has affected us differently as it has affected us together.


We want to give a special shout-out THIS WEEK to the kind contributors at the Google Blogger Help newsgroup who solved a relatively minor but nagging issue that we had. You may have noticed that the RaceProject "favicon" (the small logo that appears in your URL window and favorites list) and our list of "Links" only appeared on the main landing page and not on the archived pages. That's fixed now, so you should see them on every page you surf on the blog site. Thanks, Blogger Help folks!