My dad’s med school yearbook is still in his library. We loved looking through it as kids. Howard Med School is where Dad came when his undergraduate institution advised that he was the brightest colored man they’d seen, but there already were a couple in medical school there, so no room for him to continue his graduate studies with them. Racism brought him to Howard, where he met my mom. So, like many others, in many ways, I am the literal product of a racist America.
So, yes, med school yearbooks are a thing. And, yes, racism in America is a thing. And, no, being politically progressive doesn’t mean you aren’t racist yourself. Let’s work through this here and see if we can move beyond such conversations on this site. And not just those about Gov. Northam in these past few days.
I’ve been a member here for nearly 10 years next month. I came to find progressive company, and sometimes refuge, in the early Obama days. I found then what I still find now. The harsh enforcement of white progressive politics. Similar to white feminism, white progressivism mistakenly believes that whiteness is a neutral state in the movement. So as some believe that feminism should “only be about women,” and that introducing race clouds the purity of the conversation, some also believe that introducing race into progressive talks is somehow “identity politics” that harm the collective experience here.
The comment threads following the initial fallout behind Gov. Northam’s blackface photo have stuck to the enforced rules of white progressivism I routinely encounter here:
- Center the feelings and potential of the white person who has transgressed. Due to this, we are not discussing the many classmates and surely neighbors or co-workers or passersby who regularly encountered the Northams of this world and these specific blackface offenses. We focus on forgiveness of him rather than indignation and anger for those who were present at those parties, who cannot open their own med school yearbook without clenched hands and burning faces, who sat in classes with him or lived in dorms with him and experienced what all those of us who went to school with Gov. Northams experienced. We don’t think of or discuss the victims, the targets, of these oblivious, entitled folks first, if at all. Because doing so somehow is unfair to the actual transgressor. And while the experiences of people of color can be challenged and dismissed with or without proof, white people cannot be “unfairly” called racist, even with proof. Even with actual admissions of blackface Michael Jackson dancing that his college friend at the time demanded an apology for. Because, yes, we knew in college in 1984 that blackface was not okay.
- Push hard against the mention of “whiteness” as a real, cultural thing. The mention of whiteness is a violation. It makes people uncomfortable, and one of the core tenets of the culture of whiteness is the prioritization of comfort over almost all things. “The first rule of White club is never mention White club,” as it were. One must always feel good about oneself, and any suggestion that greater, shared cultural influences and experiences are part of one’s choices and opportunities is, in fact, racist. Critically, it strips white people of the individuality that is one of the central, albeit unacknowledged or vigorously denied, privileges of whiteness itself.
- Hurl profanity and threats of ostracism as quickly as possible to shut down differing opinions. Most of my diaries about race are flooded with f-bombs and attempts at contempt rather than dialogue about the topic or story at hand. The priority is stopping the discussion, not engaging in it.
As an example, ever since Russian bots and Republican voting rights abusers helped install 45 as president, we’ve been arguing about how to win back the working class. First, there was the insistence on the “economic anxiety” nonsense, which, thankfully, even the most die hard proponents finally walked away from last year. Then we got to discuss how — and whether — to address racists as potential voters — and the Sneeches effect took over here on the site. So much discussion about racism here is phrased in an “us” (good white people) vs “them” (bad white people) division. But the “us” here at Daily Kos still curses out people of color who mention race in any way that might include “us” and flocks to argue in defense of Gov. Northam and in utter dismissal of the damage POC are saying he has caused and continues to cause.
So here is a possibly new way to process this Gov. Northam debacle — and other discussions of race.
- Stop enforcing your own comfort. As soon as you find yourself trying to shut down comments that might intimate that you are not a perfect, loving, race-neutral, benevolent American, try sitting with it. Try experiencing racial discomfort for a moment. When you can’t stand it anymore, rather than shutting down those who make you uncomfortable, try verbalizing that you are, in fact, uncomfortable. This will help you get to the other side of addiction to comfort and being perceived as “good” and “nice” and “fair” and “just.” You will be able to just be who you are without reacting to what you experience as negative classifications of your character based on your race. That is the work people of color have to start doing at a very tender age. You can survive it in your 40s, 50s and 60s. And you must, because until white people can deal with and actively address whiteness and its impact, we are not going to fix this country.
- Stop invalidating anger in discussions of race. The biggest thing I came to understand after 2016 was how gigantic the gap was in the definitions of white womanhood and Black womanhood. How do you partner powerfully when one culture prioritizes being perceived as nice, being liked, being perceived as fair, never making people uncomfortable, etc. and the other culture prioritizes strength, honesty, independence and calling out injustice...in the very definitions of aspirational womanhood? My circles and I are still working through all of it. We are miles from where we were in November 2016. But the white cultural mandate against Black anger is very, very deeply ingrained. When people ask if I am angry, I ask why they are not. And it was a very real question up until 2016. Now I know why they are not. I see the incredible cost when a white woman gets angry and speaks out. I watch what happens to her social status, her friends, how brutal the castigation can be. I’ve been dealing with that collective hate and rage since about 2nd grade. That’s my first memory of the mob mentality of it. If you’re facing it for the first time in your 50s, yeah, I get why you’d be terrified. So I’m building that empathy, and I am asking you for that self-awareness. Your training that Black anger has to be undermined and scorned and neutralized, that you can only reward the nice ones who make you personally feel okay about the existence of racism, because it’s not your fault...see that in yourself and dismantle it.
- Release the belief that “white” is a neutral state. The “working class” has no race-neutral demographic. So when you say that single payer health care and advanced reproductive rights and other progressive positions might alienate the working class, are you including Black and gay and other working class Americans in your thoughts? If not, then talk about the “white working class.” It helps keep things clear. Similarly, “feminism” involves womanhood across all of our communities — and Black womanhood, Latina womanhood, API womanhood, lesbian womanhood, transgender womanhood, white womanhood and all of our other sisters’ experiences are wildly different. But they are ALL womanhood. And white womanhood is a real, defined, cultural thing. A whole lot of people have died behind that cultural value. It in no way reflects a “neutral” state of womanhood. It is the highest culturally enforced and protected female existence in our country.
- Care as much about those harmed by whiteness as you do about the white people who harm them. Argue as passionately for them. Feel as deeply for them.
- Learn and leverage our full history. Not just the white version of it from high school, college and graduate studies, plus MLK and Cesar Chavez. Read global histories, autobiographies, historical papers. Learn about the scientists and statespeople and travelers, the prisoners and poets and parents. Learn what so many of us were taught lovingly at home so we could see our whole selves, even as the Gov. Northams dismissed our merit and equality and value every day on campuses, in stores and walking down the street. Then you can apply that history. When someone tries to dismiss blackface as an understandable mistake because it was “1984,” or even “1954,” tell them that there never was a time in the history of blackface that Black folks weren’t letting white people know it was not okay. Frederick Douglass called it out in the North Star back in 1848, saying that minstrels were:
"...the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied them by nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow citizens."
Finally, consider diversifying the people you personally discuss politics with in your home. Who is having dinner at your table, with your children, and how do you model behavior around discussions of race? Are you still falling back on the “colorblindness” your own family might have hindered your own understanding and engagement with? Do you insist that “we don’t discuss politics at the table?” Do you regularly invite people who are different than you in appearance or beliefs into your home? Do you listen to their thoughts and respond thoughtfully with your own? Do you hold yourself to a high standard of discourse, discussing things you have researched, read and experienced, and acknowledging when your opinion or feeling is simply that?
That is how I grew up. That may not be how you grew up. But if how you grew up means you cannot tolerate, respect or allow the experiences and beliefs of others like me, then we are not in equal spaces here. As James Baldwin said:
We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.
Your opinion about whether or not blackface is a serious offense, and whether or not the governor should be forgiven or will cause harm if he does not resign, is not the equivalent of my lived experience of blackface as a Black person. If that is incredibly hard to hear, if you want to push back, ask yourself why. And ask what you need to unravel in your cultural training to date that you cannot allow a Black person to have a deeper insight even into blackface than you do.