"And the sooner we both acknowledge this, the sooner we can begin to address the problem. So let’s talk."
I came across an amazing article by Rachel Shadoan in
Medium.com by Human Parts. The title,
'I'm Racist, And So Are You' was a bit off-putting, at first, and I almost didn't open the link. It seemed like 'title bait.' I mean come on. I'm clearly not a racist. I write about racism, and speak out when I hear covert/overt racist remarks and insinuations. I even dated a black man for two years, so how on earth could I be racist?
Here are some excerpts by the author, and I would greatly encourage visiting the site to read the whole article. It's eye-opening and disturbing, and written in a way that makes me want to meet this person and hang out with her, for integrity like hers is not common. At the bottom of Rachel Shadoan's piece, she lists 14 articles, books and publications on racism for suggested reading. She also lists five references of 'scholarly research.' It's this kind of writing, this kind of blogging, to which I greatly aspire:
Several years later, I’m walking across the street. It’s the middle of sunny afternoon at a busy intersection near my apartment. Three tall, broad black men in baggy tees and baseball caps, walk past me in the opposite direction. They don’t look at me, approach me, or interact with me in any way. And yet, I realized suddenly, I felt a flush of fear as they passed.
I don’t know what it was about this third interaction that made me recognize my racism for what it was. Perhaps it was because I’d been reading a lot of feminist writings about race and racism. Perhaps the third time was simply the charm. Perhaps it was how utterly and completely inculpable those three guys were in my rush of fear. They hadn’t even acknowledged my existence, and here I was, pulse spiking because I’d fucking walked past them.
Shadoan points out how media has influenced racism in America:
Mike Brown. Renisha McBride. Trayvon Martin. Eric Garner. These are only a handful of the hundreds of people killed each year because of white people’s fear. Because of fear like mine. Because of racism like mine.
The media will tell you that those people asked for it. They weren’t properly respectful. They were thugs or drunks or in some way unacceptable (as though that gives us license to murder them?!). We must recognize that as bullshit. They’re soothing, irrelevant, lies that we white people tell ourselves to avoid naming our fears for what they are—racism. We would rather slander the dead than admit to ourselves that our irrational fears are rooted deeply in this country’s history of enslaving, oppressing, and murdering black people. It is easier to cling to any justification of our fear, even the flimsiest, most transparent justifications, than it is to probe how our own fears contributed to their murder.
I especially love this paragraph:
Look, I’m not here to condemn you. Condemning you, after all, would condemn me as well. I’m here to tell you that it’s not us against the racists. We’re not fighting a battle with the Paula Deens of the world. If only it were that simple, that cut and dried. The battle is instead us against racism, and that racism resides in each of us. This war begins within.
Truth-seeking and truth-speaking like Rachel Shadoan's piece, floors me. I feel like a better person by reading it, because it teaches me something about myself and the world. I really don't want to know this about myself, and that's one of the reasons I most needed to. Thank you, Rachel Shadoan. Cheers to the author.
To read more articles by Rachel Shadoan, you can follow her blog: Being Shadoan
For the full article visit: Human Parts
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