I've lived in a bubble of White America my entire life. At age 60, I am now realizing I have mistakenly believed the goal was to "not be racist." Ibram X. Kendi's book, "How to Be an Antiracist" along with "White Fragility" by Robin DiAngelo and Michael Eric Dyson (both books are temporarily out of stock, which might tell you something) have forced upon me some much-needed reckoning.
Kendi asserts that actions and words allowing systemic inequality to thrive are, by definition, racist. He urges us to stop running from the word "racist" and instead accept it as a descriptor of very real and prevalent policies that keep inequality in place. Once we see the word "racist" as describing systems that maintain or promote inequality, we can move on to "antiracist" to label actions and words that demand policies that right years of wrong.
Kendi examines how his own parents raised him with assimilation attitudes to "better himself" and "lift up his race." He then goes on to explain how such attitudes are, in fact, built on the racist thinking that puts races on a hierarchy, and then tells one race to assimilate (behave more like another). Anti-racist thinking demands acknowledging the racism in hierarchical thinking. We must tear down the systems and policies that prevent equal opportunity and treatment for all people (and there are many).
My intent is not to summarize Kendi's book here, but to introduce my recent thinking about the tendency of well-meaning people in my parents' generation--as in mine--to believe that refraining from overt racism was the goal (a goal made easier if people of color acted "more White"). As I talked with my sister Adrienne about this, she reminded me of the summer our family participated in "Friendly Town," a program that brought inner-city children into White communities for a month of "experience."
Bobette and Connie were the 14-year-old Black girls who lived with us for a few weeks in the summer of 1972. Adrienne, who was their age, remembers it more clearly than I do. Bobette and Connie braided her waist-length brunette hair almost daily. They told her they loved its smoothness. They tried to twist the ends to finish the braids, as they could their own, but Adrienne's hair was slippery and wouldn't hold without a rubber band. They put Vaseline in their own hair to make it shine.
Adrienne also recounted a day she went shopping with Bobette, Connie, and our mom toward the end of their visit with us. Bobette and Connie slipped some candy and various sundries into their pockets, shoplifting undetected right under our mother's nose.
Adrienne--who had herself shoplifted at Wallgreens six months before!--knew from her own experience what would happen next: after confessing to our mom, Bobette and Connie would then need to return the merchandise and apologize, and then everyone would feel the sweet balm of forgivness! Ta-da! Adrienne took it upon herself to report the theft to our mom.
But unlike her stern reaction to my sister's shoplifting, my mother's response to our "Friendly Town" guests is now hazy in my sister's memory. "I'm pretty sure she didn't do anything about it," Adrienne said last night. "She just seemed so sad."
Adrienne said that years later when she asked her about it, our mom said the Friendly Town experience was a cruel mistake. To take Black children and dip them into White Life for a few weeks dripped with the judgment inherent in assimilation thinking: to be "better" is to be "more White."
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On the continuum, my parents were more progressive than most in our community. They made well-meaning seasonal commitments to teach Bible School in "the flats," the mostly Black community who lived Ft. Dodge's flood zone of the Des Moines River; they invited the ONE Black teacher at Ft. Dodge Senior High to dinner at our house.
I can't chastise my parents' behavior; the truth is, in the 1970s, progressives were trying to "help" Blacks "be more White." My parents were using their hearts and hands to live out their valuing of people of all races, as they did when they led our church's effort to sponsor Vietnamese refugees at the end of the war.
Through a clearer lens of anti-racist thinking, I see that my parents' attitudes were well-intentioned, but underpinned with the racist thinking that the "goal" is for YOU to be more like ME.
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I am isolated on a farm in rural Iowa. But I am also listening to the voices of humanity crying out for change. I am reading books and reflecting on my past, my assumptions, and my potential for growth. I am trying to put all of this into words on a page. Eventually, I want to feel hope. But tonight, I'm feeling shame.
Enough.
Be well.
Write.
Allison
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