Coming To Terms

One of the earliest definitions of racism I learned was a simple formula: 

Prejudice + Power = Racism. 

(I actually first heard Kevin Powell break down the definition for “Alabama Julie” on the inaugural season of The Real World). This was my operating definition for about a couple of decades, which followed the academic norm. Power was a must to exert racist views. Of course, there were problems with that definition, which is largely why it fell out of widespread favor. 

But still, not all racist acts are performed equally. Additionally, any perceived slight coming from a person of color cannot be chalked up to racism. So, no, J. Cole rejecting your invitation to give you a follow on Instagram is not racism. 

My favored definition now comes from Ibram X. Kendi: “Racism is a powerful collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity and are substantiated by racist ideas.” So here, we have multiple things at play: policies, (i.e. systems and structures) resulting in inequities (lacking equal fairness, distribution, or enforcement of rights) precisely due to ideas. In other words, and with zero apologies to Brad Paisley and LL Cool J, accidental racism isn’t a thing. (You had forgotten about it, hadn’t you?) 

 For now, here’s a couple of elementary terms that deal with individual actions, paraphrased here:

Active racism—Actions that reveal your lack of care for anyone else’s concerns: racial slurs, harassing/bullying due to race; trolling on social media due to race; violence or terrorism in extreme cases. These acts are always intentional, and they forward the idea of racial superiority.  

Here’s an example: My high school band was huge; we marched nearly 200 kids, so that meant we had a practice field and our band director was up in the tower yelling instructions. One day a friend told me to put my trumpet in one particular spot on the field. I did so, not thinking much about it, until I saw that we had made a swastika as a joke our band director would see. Another student, also a friend, saw the swastika and punted a trumpet like he was a Colquitt brother. He was half-Jewish, and although he was a friend, we didn’t talk about our religion much, if ever. Consequently, I participated in an action with no concern for him.  

That’s active racism, and I participated in it. A lot of times we think this active racism is the only form of racism. Our parents teach us to treat everyone equally. To be kind and fair. Most of us do not do these things most of the time, and yet racism cannot be encapsulated just by harsh actions.

Passive racism—Beliefs, attitudes, or actions that you may not have held or performed with ill-will, but ones that still contribute to a misunderstanding or hurt feelings. Maybe these attitudes were inherited from your family, culture, or your church. You are not to blame for the problem’s origin, but allowing those beliefs to persist—just going with the flow—maintains the status quo. 

For example, one day after track practice, I gave a black teammate a ride home. As he gave me directions, I realized pretty quickly that we were going to a so-called “bad neighborhood.” It wasn’t a bad neighborhood. It was just unfamiliar to me. I started getting nervous. I stopped listening to him, because I was paranoid, checking my mirrors constantly, until I dropped him off. Absolutely nothing happened, but in my ignorance I thought New Jack City was about to play out in Union City. I had listened to uninformed people and their rumors about particular places; their stereotypes had become my facts. 

It’s easy to slip into passive racism, where thoughts and feelings turn into actions. Assumptions become facts, and then those facts get attached to people and places. That’s racism, and these attitudes are present in you and me.

Lastly, as I’ve said in a previous post, also drawing on Kendi’s work, we combat racism by actively choosing to be anti-racists, combatting both the attitudes/actions, as well as the policies that forward racist ideas. 

What can you do? Make friendships, listen well, and ask questions when appropriate. If you exist in a relatively homogenous setting, then read books, listen to podcasts, and actively seek out perspectives from people of color. Empathy can be developed in a variety of ways, but only if you intentionally choose that path for yourself.

(© 2020, Justin Phillips)