Stop Shooting the Messengers: Racism is a Systemic Problem

It can be tough living as part of a target group.

It’s easy to ferret out individuals who say and do blatantly racist things. Take the debacle in which Oklahoma University white frat boys engaged in a racist bus ride sing-along that was caught on video. It seems some folks are so “white” – that is, part of a system that promotes the supremacy of one race over others – they truly don’t realize they’re treading on their own humanity.

              That’s right, their own humanity. Yes, they’re also stripping people of color of their humanity too. But white people who engage in racist behavior also lose. Problem is, most don’t realize it.

              They can’t fathom a system of oppression exists that is based on the color of a person’s skin. It’s unbelievable. Unbelievable because most refuse to accept how racism was firmly cemented into our social way of being through nation-founding documents. Unbelievable because it’s not happening to them.

              The U.S. is my home and I love it. But just like in families, sometimes you gotta pull back the curtain and just tell it. Except most white folks don’t want to hear it. They’re afraid. Some of them. Too much to lose. Privilege, power. Worst of all, their reality as they’ve been conditioned to see it.

              In the nation our Founding Fathers envisioned, people have to share. Not equally but equitably. However, the way our society is set up, sharing is a bad word. Which brings up another bad word, at least within the context of racism: system.

Yes it is a big deal

              Since the bus video incident there have been a string of media reports outing white students engaged in racist behavior. The most recent was a week ago down south at Duke University. According to reports, a white student there admitted to hanging a noose from a tree.

              (For those unaware, a hanging noose carries significant torment in some communities of color. It is particularly so among African Americans, who were systematically lynched by the thousands throughout the 20^th Century.)

              Last month, up north at Connecticut College in New London, classes were cancelled. The controversy there was a posting of illicit images that bore heinous racist graffiti. The foreboding message stated, “No Nig*ers.”

              Around the same time in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on the campus of Bucknell University, three students spouted racist rhetoric on air. It involved a campus radio broadcast in which they spat racist comments. One used the N-word. Another proclaimed, “…black people should be dead.” The third said, “lynch ’em.”

              Like the racist bus frat incident, responses from the various universities were swift and decisive. Campus presidents suspended, expelled or otherwise disciplined offending students. To those leaders and others, that was the end of it. But such punishment should have only been the beginning, if it should even happened at all.

              Most believe punishing the racist behavior of a few ignorant students should be the focus. “Eliminate the behavior of the offensive people and the problem is solved.” If it was only that easy.

              It’s sad but true: behind the behavior of the few individuals acting out is a larger, systematic issue: prevailing attitudes. Collective biases, conscious and unconscious, preserve and promote systems of inequity. And like an iceberg on the ocean, we only see the tip of an immense but largely invisible threat that plagues our nation.

             

To quote Yoda, "You must unlearn what you have learned."

Sure, make the students pay for what they did, but do it in meaningful, not punitive ways. Educate them through means that hold them socially accountable. Compel them to enroll in anti-racist workshops, conceptually tough but ultimately spiritually nurturing experiences. They are places in which all truths are shared, not just the white perspective.

              If you want to dole out punishment, here’s an idea. Penalize our institutions by stripping them of racism. Education, finance, housing, courts, healthcare. Media. Churches. But do it in a systematic way, one that scrutinizes policies rather than people. One that savages inequitable practices as opposed to reprimanding individuals.

              It hurts, but people of color can handle the random racist citizen; been doing it for centuries. What’s harder taking down the institutional racism that’s tearing us all apart, one human being at a time.

 Follow J.R. on Twitter @4humansbeing or contact him at 4humansbeing@gmail.com.