Episode 13 of the Make Saints podcast: “Racism”
There is probably nothing more ubiquitous than racism. We all know about it. We all have experience with it.
As a concept, racism is pretty easy to understand and identify. Most of us think of it as when people hate other people because of race. This common understanding of racism, however, is almost too easy. It makes it a bit like music: everyone feels entitled to their opinion about it.
Those who study race account for it a little differently.
Racism needs to be understood as being both about individuals interacting with each other and about a world with social and common outcomes. We need to account for racism that has individual effects–such as when a person of color is treated poorly–and societal effects–such as when many persons of color are treated poorly.
Those who study race and the effects of racism are constantly trying to address how the system itself can account for observable problems. And then, just as importantly, what we can do about it.
This is actually pretty easy to understand. But many of us don’t want to.
The Individual Racist Problem
There is an ongoing tension between recognizing racism as something demonstrated with evidence as a systemic problem (on the one hand) and the sincerely-held desire that racism is inside a human heart (on the other).
While both are present and true, many people are attracted to the one idea that racism is about what’s inside a person’s heart only. They want racism to be about motivation and the individual alone.
This isn’t totally illogical, of course. Because we commonly define racism as hate. Which means we are processing it as something emotional and therefore personal.
But this has the additional effect of narrowing the scope to the individual. And it raises the demand of proof that a person intends to hate; that they hate because of race more than any other factor.
While it is easy to see how the tracks lead the logic train there, it is actually an extremist position in terms of logic. And one not supported by the evidence.
The problem with this narrow understanding, of course, is that it means we don’t address the outcomes at all. It seeks to define racism by motivation (which cannot be proven) only and not the means by which many are directly harmed by racist systems.
Imagine treating cancer without therapy. Not just no chemo or radiation. Nothing. It’s the body part’s problem and they shouldn’t have gotten sick.
This ultimately serves to preserve inequality.
The simple idea that there are situations in 2022 in which a person is three times more likely to die in childbirth because they are black is immoral. But that fact that this fact persists demonstrates that there is something tangible and real that needs to be dealt with.
So the idea of making racism be internal makes it so we never actually address it. It’s a cop out.
It’s also a way of preserving racism.
We need to name this: that it serves the purpose of the racist. But almost more importantly, we need to name the intellectual bankruptcy of this idea.
Because our work isn’t in discovering or assigning motivations to racist actions only. It is transforming unjust systems as well.
Therefore, it isn’t just that racists gonna racist. That’s obvious.
Myopically defining racism as only the sincerely-held beliefs of the human heart is a fundamentally incoherent vision that can’t survive outside the individual. It is a weak excuse. There is no intellectual rigor behind it.
It is literally the only way the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States can argue that we are “over” racism.
We should recognize that this is the tell.
It means they aren’t focused on outcomes: just assigning blame. They aren’t actually trying to fix the problem or make the society more just. They are only looking to assign blame.
It is too generous to suggest that this is another way of seeing the world because it is predicated on seeing only half of it!
It is important to recognize how not logically rigorous the narrow racism of heart and motivation is. And recognize how focused and robust the work of analyzing racism as something beyond emotions truly is.
The people doing the work of anti-racism, who are doing the work of helping us change the laws or our approach to our neighbors are NOT trying to assign blame.
Anti-Racists are the ones not obsessed with blame.
It isn’t the purpose of the work. And it isn’t the foundational construct. Nor is it the first, second, or third order of business. It doesn’t top the list of desires.
The point of anti-racist work is to change the system that is unequal and unfair and unjust and creates indignity in the lives of millions of people.
Changing the unjust system. That is the primary focus. That’s the work.
To pigeonhole racism into a question of blame; into this context of assigning blame and punishing those caught in it: that isn’t the central material. And seeing it that way represents a distortion of the desires of those doing the work. It’s akin to using a mathematical response to a literature question. It is distracting and destructive. And we must treat it as such.
So if we’re being intellectually honest to the work, we don’t get there by allowing the blame and the dominion of the individual to be the centerpiece of the conversation. It is only half of the conversation.
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
1. Systemic racism is a problem for everyone.
Because our communities are undermined by unjust systems.
2. Observing systemic problems makes more usable laws.
The present approach on the Supreme Court of narrowly-defined racism creates a patchwork of expanding and reducing liberty that is both logically incomprehensible and impossible to enforce. In other words, it produces less justice, more confusion, and makes the job of judges like them harder. But if we treat our systemic problems as actually systemic, then we find their solutions are far more sensible.
3. Treating racism as an emotional response makes us afraid.
Hunting “the real racists” doesn’t produce equal outcomes. But it does produce more emotional reactivity from individuals—who are themselves defining emotional reactivity as the central problem.
4. Injustice for some is injustice for all.
Treating racism as something that only affects minorities ignores the myriad ways the majority is burdened by racism. And how much emotional and political investment goes into preserving unjust systems that only benefit a few of those who advocate for them.
5. Racism is just stupid.
So all the more reason we should deal with the way smart people use it to their advantage. And account for who benefits from maintaining unjust and illogical systems. Chances are, it’s not you.