Editor’s note: This commentary is by Marcia Hill, who is an artist and retired psychologist living in Worcester. She has recently joined the central Vermont chapter of SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice), a group of white people working for racial justice.
[I]f white people of good will could end our paralyzing discomfort about race, we could change the country. Our denial and avoidance may be the single greatest barrier to our ending racism. When you notice injustices to people of color, guilt whispers that this is wrong. When you notice your privilege, you know that it is inseparable from the hurts perpetrated on others. You have not created racism, but you benefit from it, and feeling uncomfortable is the response of someone with a healthy moral sense.
If you’re white, your starting point in thinking about racism is feeling bad about yourself, and for many people any further response ends right there. Avoidance is the easiest and perhaps first way that many of us ease our discomfort. We don’t think about racism. We stay ignorant. We don’t think; we don’t act.
Denial is another way of saying that racism is not a problem, or at least not your problem. This can be personal: “I’m not racist; I don’t see color.” It can be more general: “There is equal opportunity in this country. After all, we have a black president.”
Some of us try to shift the blame. We think of racism as the problem of a few bad apples. Or perhaps we think racism would not be a concern if people of color only behaved differently.
We need to change our understanding of what “racist” means. As long as it is synonymous with “bad person,” we will stay paralyzed and defensive.
Occasionally we may even focus attention on our own difficulties instead (“You think it’s hard being Mexican in this country? Try being queer and disabled, like me!”) as if your experiences of prejudice somehow make you immune to being prejudiced yourself. Everyone lives with a variety of identities, some privileged and some not. He is an old, working class white man: he has gender and race privilege but is the target of classism and ageism. She is a professional, heterosexual African American: she has privilege in the areas of class and sexual orientation, but has to cope with racism and sexism.
The antidote to guilt is to stop expecting yourself to be better than the rest of humanity. Prejudice, including racial prejudice, is human. You were taught it from infancy. How can you expect that you did not learn it? If you grew up in France, what language would you speak? French, of course: it’s a French-speaking country. If you grow up in the United States, your language includes racial bias. Every person on the planet, all seven billion of us, have some form of bias. How many armed conflicts are between different ethnic groups? Sexism is problematic in virtually every country. Religion is well-known for creating in groups and, by default, out groups. Negative attitudes about those different from oneself are the human condition. You are not an exception.
What matters is not whether you are biased; all white people have at least some racial bias, and all white people have racial privilege. What matters is what you are doing about it. Are you trying to learn more? Do you make an effort to notice where racism pops up in your life? Are you doing whatever you can, no matter how small, to make yourself and your neighborhood and this country less racist?
We need to change our understanding of what “racist” means. As long as it is synonymous with “bad person,” we will stay paralyzed and defensive. To be biased means that you learned the language of America. It would be revolutionary to step away from the crippling power of guilt, to accept that you are flawed in this way, to see this bias as simple training that you are trying to unlearn, and to accept that you will never completely unlearn it.
Sure, feel a little uncomfortable. An uneasy conscience about race is the hallmark of an ethical white person. But don’t be too impressed with your guilt. Your uneasiness is your innate sense of justice offering you an opportunity to be a better human being. Will you turn it down?
Years ago, if I walked down a city street alone, I noticed myself get just a little fearful when I saw a black man, more so than if the man were white. As a white woman, I had learned to be afraid of black men. I practiced reminding myself to really look at this person. He looks tired, perhaps. He looks like he is on his way to work. He is just another person, not what my racist training has taught me to fear. Notice your racist thoughts. We all have them. They do not hold up to the light of day, so see them, forgive yourself, and correct them. Let your uneasy conscience motivate you to keep learning, but reject guilt. Doing so will free you up and can make you a powerful force for ending racism.
