A week ago Saturday, I attended the 4th Annual Black Heritage Performing Arts Community Concert at Shiloah Baptist Church on the Southwest Side of Chicago. Among their stated objectives: “to preserve and promulgate Black Culture, to transform minds and behaviors, to improve interpersonal communication, to appreciate and embrace diversity, through the Performing Arts.”
After 2½ hours soaking it all up, I marveled again what a remarkable and resilient people Black Americans are and how much they have enriched our culture in spite of all that this country has put them through. At one point during the proceedings, a minister came to the podium and said, “I love you all — and there’s not a thing you can do about it.”
I could only shake my head in wonder.
The “Racial Reckoning,” declared in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis in 2020, has all but evaporated. In the ensuing white backlash, DEI programs (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) have been demonized, diminished, and/or dismissed as little more than elaborate white guilt trips.
I still hear people grouse about “Black Lives Matter” (“What about white lives?”). I suggest they think of it as the first three words of a fuller statement: “Black Lives Matter as Much as White Lives” (because white lives throughout our history have always mattered more). Sometimes they get it.
My own racial reckoning, an ongoing up-and-down evolution, has lasted most of my life. It accelerated when I recognized that I grew up in a society where “white” Americans, as a group, are relatively privileged and considered superior, whereas people of color are regarded as inferior – and that neither is fair and neither is true.
Growing up in such a stratified culture, it is almost impossible to avoid absorbing some of the attitudes and stereotypes that are so pervasive. For some, these attitudes are all too conscious — the Trump administration springs to mind. With the rest of us, it’s mostly unconscious. The goal of DEI, Black Lives Matter, and the Racial Reckoning has been to make our unconscious biases conscious so we can do something about them. But because so many white Americans are so resistant to acknowledging they might be tainted by racism, I use the term “racial conditioning” to, hopefully, make everyone feel less defensive.
Despite my efforts to become “anti-racist,” as author Ibram X. Kendi put it, or maybe because of those efforts, I discovered some of those attitudes and stereotypes lurking within. Turns out you can’t just wish them away. They’re sneaky. I learned this when I caught myself “in the act” of silently judging people of color and assuming they were less competent. My racial conditioning got the better of me. Fortunately, they kept proving me wrong. It was my “pleasant surprise” that tipped me off. Why was I “surprised”? I started noticing the pattern. Sound familiar?
I’ve seen this tendency in other white Americans too — being critical, judgmental, disapproving — in effect, “You’re suspect until proven competent.” It must be awful for people of color, who have spent their lives under this hypercritical white “gaze,” like living with a perfectionist who can never be pleased.
When I interact with a person of color now, I assume the best, not the worst. I assume I’m in the presence of a person of quality — and in almost every case, I’m proven right. When I lapse and catch myself making unjust assumptions, I stop myself and say, “There you go again” and let it dissipate. This seems to work.
I still have a long way to go, but there is a psychological payoff for dumping our unwanted biases. It’s liberating. Yes it’s work, but it’s doable — and rewarding. Yes, there is so much more to ending racism than correcting our unjust assumptions and improving our interactions with people of color — not electing racists who implement racist policies would obviously help.
But I don’t understand why so many of us resist this reckoning. There’s nothing to be ashamed of if we all admit we have biases we need to shed. If we come up short, as we will from time to time, there’s no need for shaming, only sympathy. We’re all in the same predicament. And if you’re further along this path, turn around and help someone who isn’t. That’s part of our “reckoning” too.
To relate to people of color as equals, first you have to genuinely believe they’re your equal, which is surprisingly easy because, my experience tells me, they are. It’s about respect, knowing they likely had to work twice as hard in this unequal society to be as successful as they are. That builds character. So it’s only fair that we should work twice as hard to meet them without our biased baggage. That builds character too.
In the end — someday, hopefully — we’ll all see eye to non-critical eye.
And then we’ll be free at last from this persistent cultural curse.
