Welcome to Whiteness Wednesdays. One of the constant lies White people tell ourselves is that racism is a dying legacy of the past, and that we’re just about to move past it altogether. This mindset is justified by any number of informative tidbits to prove that assumption, some more true than others.
I’ve heard many times in private among White people that the discussions and accusations and assumptions about racism do far more to perpetuate it than anything else: this notion of “Why can’t They just get over it? Do we need to keep talking about it and bringing it up? We all learned about that stuff in school. Slavery isn’t here anymore, we have equality, we even had a Black president! How long do we have to keep hearing about racism as an excuse?”
While the above is not literally a single verbatim quote from a single person, it is a collection of verbatim quotes from various White people I have spoken with, firsthand, about race relations. One of them married to a Black person and with children.
Black people will probably not be surprised in the slightest to hear that any Black celebrity who has ever said a bad thing about their own skinfolk while not scaring White people is apt to be quoted at some point as proof. Thankfully, Bill Cosby no longer gets trotted out as an example or source of quotes about race relations anymore, but there’s no shortage to replace him (especially if people aren’t too picky about checking to see if said Black celebrity actually said it).
This narrative isn’t new, not by a long shot. In fact, the term “post-racial” in this context seems to date back to the early 1970s or late 1960s, just after the nation was dealing with the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act and was in the midst of reckoning with the White resentment backlash. This New York Times article is cited as an example of the earliest usage.
You might assume that it was resentful, embittered conservatives (Dixiecrats mostly) eager to foist this notion onto us, but the truth is right-wing pro-bigotry Whites have always preferred “the status quo is just fine!” as their self-delusion of choice. No, this was the territory of the other powerful preserving force of institutional racism: the Well-Meaning White Ally.
It’s time to rattle the digital tin cup again! The holidays have wrecked a bit of havoc on my life, as they do to us all, so I apologize for the staggered posting schedule as I get back on track. You can still sign up for a monthly subscription on my Ko-Fi (link here!) and be grandfathered in at the $3 tier for life. It’s a way to support my writing and journalism, and help make this into a proper job for me. More subscribers means more content and reliable content, as I can afford to make this a priority over looking for contracted work elsewhere.
You can also donate to the NAACP here: naacp.org/…
The group mentioned in the above NYT article (The Southern Growth Policies Board, now defunct) emerged from a conference of progressive leaders across the South, who saw the momentum from the turmoil of the 60s as a springboard to an integrated society where poverty, hunger, and ignorance would be the greatest societal problems and issues facing the South. Check “racism” off the list, it’ll be in the rear-view mirror soon enough. Not all attendants shared this opinion: as one former leader of that very organization describes in a history of the movement, no less than Jimmy Carter was skeptical that the ambitious and lofty future was really that do-able in the moment.
Since the NYT article above interjects reporting on the conference to go on for some length about a Black man allegedly shooting and maiming White people out of racially-motivated hatred, you can see his skepticism was warranted: the article makes it clear that racism is alive and well but paints it as a problem of troublesome, violent Blacks who won’t peaceably coexist with their White neighbors.
The notion that racial harmony is just around the corner, if only Black people would stop agitating and get on board, is perhaps one of the most insulting stories we have about Black America. Setting aside the fact that Black activists (particularly Black women) have always been the backbone of the civil rights movement and Democratic party workhorses for decades now, it’s also based on the flagrant lie that things have changed substantially for Black America in the time since Jim Crow.
Oh sure, we can cherry-pick the odd successful Black person: Oprah is a media titan, Rihanna is a billionaire, Beyonce could start her own cult if she had the inclination, Will Smith is Hollywood royalty in a way that used to be reserved for ornery White assholes like Clint Eastwood or Marlon Brando, and of course Obama WAS president (future article foreshadowing alert).
But outliers are only useful for throwing the curve and cherry-picking to build a narrative, neither of which give us a good look at what your average John & Jane Doe with melanin are experiencing now vs. the 1970s.
Study after study shows that for Black America, shockingly little has changed. Black homeownership and neighborhood segregation is basically unchanged since the passage of the FHA. In the South, Black and Latino individuals and households lag dramatically behind Whites in income, education, and advancement. Sure, some numbers have improved overall, but nowhere near as much as for Whites over the same period.
Discriminatory law enforcement? Do I even need to back this up with the countless hours of footage of Black men being killed in cold blood by cops, or can we move on?
The few token changes we see have largely occurred in spite of, rather than because of, White people. This is what is meant by structural racism, and why so many White allies infuriate POC: the bias in the system still exists until we tear it out, which cannot happen while so many of us are drowning in a comforting self-delusion. Simply acknowledging things are bad isn’t enough, one has to actively work to fix structural racism. As long as it exists, we continue to enjoy the poisonous fruits of the system: a life where our prosperity is fueled by their subjugation. We know, instinctively, the system benefits us and it is assumed on a primal level that breaking it will hurt us.
Maybe it will. That’s still not a good enough reason to keep it going. There’s really only three options when you’re faced with this reality:
1. You can pretend it doesn’t exist, and that everything is fine.
2. You can pretend it’s going to go away soon, and there’s nothing more you have to do about it.
3. You can stop pretending and start doing something about it.
The peace in this country has always been kept between White bigots and Whites who don’t like being bigots by pretending that the consequences of bigotry are invisible and out of sight. This is why so many conservatives complain about how “everything is political” these days.
You’re supposed to quietly do your token bit, and they’re supposed to watch their language in public and not use naughty words like slurs where minorities can hear them, and everyone is supposed to pretend that this is a civil and functioning society.
It isn’t. We’ve been pretending that this works for 50 years now, and it doesn’t. Getting angry at the people, mostly Black, who point that out won’t change it either.
