What do you believe? And what do you have to say about George Floyd’s lynching?
There’s no neutral on this, even if your view is complicated, still in formation, or holding the tension of multiple perspectives.
You have a viewpoint on this, and it will come out, consciously or not, intentionally or not, in the language you use (more on my use of “lynching” in the next post) and the tone you convey. And, for those who are extroverted processors, you need to say it out loud, in order to discern what you think.
If you’re at a loss, I’m finding it helpful (although also occasionally dispiriting, but even then, there’s something to learn) to watch and read statements by leaders, activists, students and other folks who have something to say about George Floyd’s lynching and the ongoing protests. I’ve been struck by:
Clarity about the identities and values that are activated for them, that also ground their responses, as modeled by Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms
Emotional and moral transparency and honesty about the facts, see again Mayor Lance Bottoms and former President Barack Obama
The ability to string together a sentence (seriously, not everyone can) at this time, like Barack Obama. It’s clear that too many leaders don’t have the words or the practice to speak as leaders about racism.
And if you’re not black, and you’re thinking that you can’t say what they said, or how they said it, you don’t have to. You just need to say what you have to say. Look, I’m Asian-American in a black-and-white USA, in the throes of an antiblack racist crisis. And I have something to say. As for how well (in my opinion) Obama and Lance Bottoms say their respective pieces, what they’re doing isn’t innate. It’s a skillset called cultural competency. As black leaders in the US, they may have had less choice about developing their cultural competency, but they’ve still had to do their own work, starting with discerning what they believe, and continuously practicing what they have to say when they need to speak up.
If you can’t just accept George Floyd’s lynching and the relentless murder of black and brown people in the US by police and other self-appointed authorities (like George Zimmerman, who shot Trayvon Martin while volunteering for the neighborhood watch in 2012), with the complicity of concerned citizens whose “concern” is actually implicit racial bias or explicit racial animus, you may be wondering what you can do.
Yes, we need to build new systems, not just offer prayers. There’s some long-term work we need to do.
And I’m going to focus here just on what you can and should be teaching your students and your own kids. Right now. Today. Or as soon as the new school year starts.
Maybe you’re already teaching about race, racism and antiracism, in which case, thank you. And, because we can all obviously do more than what we’ve considered to be sufficient so far, as the mortal racial inequality of this pandemic indicates, I encourage you to find your next level of teaching and learning about antiracism. It may help to consider: when and how are you teaching your students/kids? During Black History Month? In the aftermath of each murder? When they’re “old enough” to understand? As part of an integrated, ongoing process of “learning, unlearning and relearning” (AEA, 2011)? As history? As racism that they play their own part in? As an epidemic that yes, “we’re all in together” but not experiencing equally? In advisory or an elective course (with respect for both learning occasions, this is a question about whether students perceive or actually experience learning about systemic racism as core or optional)?
If you care that “black men are routinely killed” in the US and “the reality [that] we’ve diminished the value on” black lives (Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields, 2020), here’s what you should be teaching:
How to talk about race with other people. As opposed to the guarantee that you’ll never “get it wrong,” these are the guiding principles you’ll practice together that your student/child can apply in their personal practice (including online), even if others are operating from a different handbook. For example, noticing your own head, heart, gut and impulse to action (Singleton & Linton, 2006); naming when you’re not sure how to say something and asking for help; considering 4-6 possibilities before you say what you think (or what you think you think); and being prepared to repair (#5).
A baseline lexicon to understand and talk about race, racism and antiracism. This includes being able to name ethnoracial identities, which can feel like a minefield of “is it racist to say?” in itself: should you say “African-American” instead of “black”? why do people still say “black” and “white,” but not “yellow” or “red”? what is “Latinx”? who are “people of color” (and isn’t white a color)? is it best just to say “diverse” people? (On that last question: no. Diverse is not a synonym for minority, under-represented or disadvantaged.) While it can seem overwhelming that language is always evolving (what does “ethnoracial” even mean?!), we actually give racism a pass if we can’t talk accurately and specifically about it. And we practice the principles of perfectionism and defensiveness that uphold white supremacy. Antiracism requires growth mindset. And if you’re understandably concerned about offending others, your practice should include naming when you don’t know how to say something (#1) and being prepared to repair (#5) while you.
How it’s not possible to use the n-word “not in a racist way.” It is complicated, and it’s never neutral. And yes, your ethnoracial identity matters when you say it. But there’s no “reverse racism” or privilege involved. And the idea that black and brown people “get to say” the n-word is a racist notion.
How debating political correctness is a set up. As is, “I was just kidding. Don’t be so sensitive.” (Thank you, Joanna Schroeder.) Developing a sense of social correctness is inevitable, and you can either let others define it for you, or discern for yourself. And then, you’ll have to discern in practice how to live your sense of what’s socially correct in community with other people.
Being prepared to repair. Instead of just getting defensive when I say or do something that is racist, I can reasonably anticipate that I’ll say something racist; and when it happens, I can still be surprised, feel bad and be grateful that I’m still learning about what’s racist. (Because the alternative is that I don’t learn and keep doing it.) I can recognize that this isn’t about me (and my racist bone structure). This is about what I said or did. And that, I can strive to repair.
That may seem like a lot (and who has the time? If you’re a teacher, there’s already so much to cover). Yes, especially because these aren’t “one and done” lessons. Figuring out how to say sorry isn’t something you master for the rest of your life when you’re a toddler. It looks and sounds different in adolescence, in the workplace, and when you’re living in a different time and place from where and when you grew up. Learning what racism is is an ongoing lesson, that unfortunately, we don’t have to search hard or far to connect with whatever you were going to be teaching or talking about anyway.
And consider how core and useful these skills and discernments are, not just when it comes to teaching and learning about antiracism. (Although I’m hard-pressed hard to identify an aspect of society that exists apart from racism: when we talk about “making America great again” or “getting back to normal,” the question isn’t whether that great normality is or isn’t racist: it’s what we’re going to do about racism in the USA we’re making now.)
Just as you won’t be able to cram everything you need to teach about antiracism into one discussion, I won’t try to fit it all into this one post.
So here are a few thoughts about teaching and practicing a baseline lexicon to understand and talk about racism and antiracism (#2). When White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien told CNN this weekend, “I don’t think there’s systemic racism,” my first thought was: I don’t think he understands what “racism” is. Don’t help to graduate future leaders who are racism illiterate. Identify the basic vocabulary you should be helping kids to understand, speak and hear; and then practice that vocabulary with them. And not just in a crisis. If you only talk about race in dire situations, you’re creating a Pavlovian association between race and threat that may wire the kids to avoid talking about race at all, when, in fact, race is an integral aspect of their everyday lives that, yes, can be threatening, but can also be joyous, community-building or just what it is. Race is not racism. And on that note, if you’re wondering what baseline lexicon to teach, for starters:
Race and what is racial (as opposed to racist – think squares and rectangles: everything racist is racial, but everything racial is not racist)
Racial bias, prejudice, stereotype, discrimination, privilege (and for older kids: implicit bias and microaggressions)
Racism, white supremacy (And just exactly how do you teach racism to young kids? Keep it simple and stay accurate. For example, racism is treating some people better or worse because of their skin color. Note: It’s critical to teach that racism works for some people every time it works against others. And then explore you can wonder with them about the actual benefits and costs of racism working “for” you.)
Antiracism
And words to name ethnoracial identity (which I’ll talk about in the next post)
Kids don’t have to become antiracism literate all at once. But be prepared, whatever scope and sequence you plan for to teach these concepts, that racism may have its own timeline. I’ve found myself on more than one occasion needing to articulate the campaign of white supremacy in a discussion with students because they kept describing it without naming it themselves. Just like if they were talking about the function of a sentence without knowing or having permission to use the word “sentence,” I have an educator’s responsibility to teach them what they need where they are, not just where I’m comfortable with them being.
Also coming up this week: while you’re teaching kids about antiracism, how do you practice it? How do you not perpetuate racism in the very conversation you’re having? For example, teaching about ethnoracial identity without stereotyping? Talking about anti-black racism in a class where there’s only one black student?
So much, right? And. If you were wondering what you can do, as you grieve for George Floyd and each and every other person who has been murdered for being black or brown, as you watch rubber bullets fly and police cars on fire, as your students and children struggle to make sense and feel safe in this world, what you can do is help to equip them to think, speak and act for themselves and for antiracist justice in their lives.
This is Andrea Jenkins, Minneapolis City Council representative, being interviewed by CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin about Floyd Jenkins lynching in Jenkins’ ward.
This is another CNN anchor Don Lemon, not hosting his own show, but appearing as a guest on colleague Wolf Blitzer’s show, in coverage of the investigation into Floyd’s death.
Here is Blitzer’s other guest during this segment, CNN legal analyst Laura Coates (although this picture is from a different show):
All of these commentators are not just legitimate choices, they’re exceptionally qualified. Just check out Coates (who is a frequent commentator on all things legal for the network) explaining why “resisting arrest” is not a legitimate defense in Floyd’s lynching:
“Resisting suffocation is not resisting arrest. Let me be clear with that. The code and the policy of the police officers is that they have to use only the amount of force necessary to repel a force against them. This is a man on his stomach, handcuffed behind his back, gasping for air, calling out for help and saying he cannot breathe.”
So there’s no question to me about why these are critical, informative guests from whom we should be hearing right now.
And, it does seem that Don Lemon is the go-to in-house guest specifically and maybe only when antiblack racism is the topic.
In Blitzer’s segment, he allowed what seemed to be more latitude than is typical during an interview, for Lemon and Coates to speak until they were done. (Often, CNN anchors will jump in to direct the response or because there’s a commercial break.)
Watching white and black professionals during a series of interviews yesterday, I kept thinking about who can speak about racism. As in, who is actually able to. Who has the lexicon and the practice talking about identity and injustice that they can marshal when we’re acutely experiencing that injustice.
I thought about who has to speak about racism. Who is supposed to explain compellingly, carefully and caringly to an audience that is perpetually surprised and taken aback, that this is racism. Sometimes while having to avoid words like racism and white supremacy. This is the racist insult added to racist injury.
I thought about who can afford to allow their emotions to show. Particularly in a white supremacist, patriarchal culture, which insists that “emotions are inherently destructive, irrational.” Yes, in yesterday’s segments and before, Lemon “got angry.” But if you listen to him, you hear him acknowledge his exceptional ability to speak out, not because he’s a gay black man, but despite being a gay black man. A white man at the same volume, demonstrating the same affect, might be called a man of conviction or lauded for his indignation, while Lemon still runs the risk of falling into the all-too-convenient racist trope of the angry black man. And let’s be honest: there’s an expectation that black commentators will be angry, because of the false premise that this is “personal” for them. As if racism, while a system, isn’t personal for all of us.
The question of who can show their emotions gets complicated with Baldwin. When Anderson Cooper (I know, I watch too much CNN) teared up during a segment on the individuals who comprise the coronavirus death count, he didn’t activate an implicit bias about men being overly emotional. Baldwin, however, does (regarding women). And her tears are both a vulnerability and a shield. As, in her own words, “a white woman,” she can’t afford to cry, and yet she can. She can be paralyzed or speechless in her anger.
When I think about who has to speak, who needs to speak, who can speak and who can risk speaking beyond the designated bounds of “professionalism” and “appropriateness” about racism, it’s evident we all have to, not just those of us who are implicated by proximate identity.
I speak to students and adults about “the n-word” all the time. Some people think that’s inappropriate because, they reason, only a black person can do that. Let me be clear: I don’t speak about the experience of being denigrated by the word. I speak about the experience of living in a world where that word has a clear history, where it’s used variously but is consistently unequal, where the ethnoracial identity of the speaker and listener matters, and where intent and impact may or may not align. Where there’s no either-or about the word. There’s a tangled accumulation of meaning and usage that requires discernment and responsibility.
I believe that identity needs to inform how, not whether, we speak up about injustice. And that the argument that you can only talk about something if you’re experiencing it is both inaccurate (because everyone is experiencing Floyd’s lynching, even if their experience is indifference or perceived “race baiting“) and provides an excuse for a lot of people, in this case, specifically people who identify as other than black, to avoid learning and practicing talking about racial identity, racism, antiblack racism and antiracism.
I believe that all of us need to speak up because this is our collective problem, and because identity doesn’t alone qualify one’s opinion. Again, Jenkins, Lemon and Coates? Qualified. But, for example, Andrew Yang, whom CNN trots out when something involves Asian-American people? I would and have argued: not qualified. But because Yang is CNN’s token Asian-American, he assumes the podium as if he knows and speaks for all of us Asian-Americans. (Lemon made me flinch when he asserted “what Black people don’t want” during his interview. It is tempting but racist to turn an entire ethnoracial group into a head-nodding unity.)
So, can you talk about Floyd’s lynching? Yes, and:
If you’re not sure “how to say this,” start by saying that. Take a moment. Try. Ask for help. And be prepared–not offended–to repair.
If you ask someone who is black for their opinion or suggestions about what you can do about antiblack racism, ask yourself: if you value their perspective on this issue, do you value their perspective [period]? As in, do you or might you ask for their insight, not just because they’re black when a black man is lynched, but because they’re a black person (and a colleague, and a parent like you, and really informed, and…) whom you trust?
And make sure you ask people who aren’t black about how to end antiblack racism. Maybe they won’t have anything to say, and that may be vital for you and them to experience. (The alternative is giving them a pass.) And don’t forget: the experts on antiblack racism aren’t just black. Antiblack racism requires a lot of nonblack participation.
If you ask someone for their counsel, offer and be prepared for them to decline.
Whomever you ask for insight, do your own work, too. Build, don’t just rely, on their perspective.
When I watched Christian Cooper’s video of Amy Cooper calling the police because he asked her to comply with park guidelines about keeping dogs on leashes, I was struck that she kept identifying him as “an African-American man.”
Honestly, I was thinking: she should just say “black” if she’s racially profiling him. Because her identification wasn’t about his ethnicity (if Christian Cooper were African-Canadian, I doubt this would have made a difference in her perception of and reaction to him, or the police’s profiling as they looked for their suspect).
That said, I chalked it up to an odd detail that she kept repeating “African-American.” Until I read “Why Amy Cooper’s Use of ‘African-American’ Stung” in The NY Times this morning. As Ginia Bellafante writes:
Three times, before and during the 911 call in which her voice climbed to horror-movie pitch as she leveled a phony accusation, she found the space to specifically identify Mr. Cooper as “African-American.” A resident of the Upper West Side with a graduate degree from the University of Chicago, a rescue dog and a face mask, Ms. Cooper engaged in a calculated act of profiling even as she accommodated the dictates of progressive speech.
The moment provided a bracing tutorial in what bigotry among the urbane looks like — the raw, virulent prejudice that can exist beneath the varnish of the right credentials, pets, accessories, social affiliations, the coinage absorbed from HBO documentaries and corporate sensitivity seminars.
“Ms. Cooper engaged in a calculated act of profiling even as she accommodated the dictates of progressive speech.”
Yes.
That is deep.
When I shared this piece with a colleague, they said it reminded them of when little kids are “hiding” behind a curtain but you can see their feet peeking out from behind. They think you can’t see them. They think they’re so clever. And it’s cute when it’s kids playing. But Amy Cooper wasn’t playing.
And the “calculated acting” even while “accommodating the dictates of progressive speech,” didn’t end with Amy. Bellafante did her research into Franklin Templeton, beyond my light web search.
Here’s the company’s “official” response (because Twitter is where serious announcements are made these days):
“We do not tolerate racism of any kind…”
I wrote about this kind of pat response in 2016, when a Catholic diocese in Indiana responded after white students chanted “Build a wall!” at a basketball game against a predominantly Latino school and team:
Any actions or words that can be perceived as racist or derogatory to others are antithetical to the Christian faith and will not be tolerated in any of our institutions. It was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind that such actions would be happening at a gathering of two of our Catholic high schools. This is not what we teach our students.
I thought about these kinds of boilerplate responses, when I read about “The Violence Project,” a study of commonalities among mass shooters in “Gatherings as states reopen could spell return of another dark American phenomenon: mass shootings.” According to The Washington Post,
In their research, [study co-authors] Densley and Peterson recognized a pattern in how local officials respond in the hours after mass shootings. The tendency is to frame the incident as an isolated one — an outlier, as opposed to a symptom of a failing public safety net for at-risk people.
“You rarely hear politicians say, ‘You know, people are hurting in our community and people are losing their jobs and they’re struggling and we’ve lost our sense of connection,’ ” Densley said. “If you say anything like that, there’s a sort of fear that you’re throwing yourself under the bus. And instead, if you can just point to individual behavior and say, look, this person’s an anomaly, that’s not who we are or who we stand for, and that’s not what people do around here, you create that kind of ‘us and them’ dichotomy and you absolve yourself of any responsibility. And that’s not to say that the offender should be absolved of that responsibility. They are ultimately responsible.”
It’s the same playbook used in response to racism and misogyny (as in, when we say Harvey Weinstein is a monster. But not anyone else or the entire culture of this industry, too).
And it’s dangerous, not just empty, talk. Because we can scapegoat an individual, we don’t just turn a blind eye to the systemic injustice, we wink first.
So I’m doubling down on my suggestion to employers, that:
Especially if your reflexive response is that an employee’s actions “don’t reflect your organization’s values” (the stock response when a community is faced with one of its own being caught in an act of hate), you should ask yourselves: what about our culture may have contributed to their thinking they could get away with it without consequence? What is our responsibility to cultivate employees who do represent our values, and not just when they’re on the clock? How are we instilling antiracist values and encouraging antiracist agency in our workplace?
… instead of just “accommodating the dictates of progressive speech” with a polished but superficial performance.
* Thanks to my beloved colleague CD for the great mental image:
Amy Cooper gave a truly horrific performance of racism in Central Park this week. Horrific, not just in the ease with which she defaulted to shrieking about “an African-American man threatening my life” while no such threats were made or implied before or during the call (except by Amy herself), but because she did so the same day George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis by a police officer kneeling on his neck, while Floyd, like Eric Garner almost 6 years ago, pleaded for his life.
Amy was inciting a lynching, while Officer Derek Chauvin was performing one, just like Daniel Panteleo (the officer who put Garner in a lethal chokehold).
Thus, Amy Cooper’s apology for her behavior toward and about Christian Cooper is what it is on an individual level, but what she did was not just an individual action.
That she got fired by her employer Franklin Templeton is also not necessarily meaningful beyond her personal experience. I actually had a very cynical moment when I read that she had been terminated, thinking this was just about optics and cancel culture in its basest form: Fire her so she doesn’t taint us. So I looked them up, to see if, by any chance, her public and mortally consequential act of racism was anything more than some distasteful PR for them. For what it’s worth, it turns out that they’re an investment firm that practices “responsible investing”:
Our integrated approach is designed to ensure that Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues are Recognised (understood), Rational (intended), and Rewarded (compensated) during the various steps of the investment cycle.
So maybe this wasn’t just about pinning the tail of racism on a single employee.
That said, it got me thinking about what any employer should do if an employee behaves like Amy did. And, for that matter, what any spouse/partner, child, parent/guardian, grandparent, other family, friend, co-worker or pet adoption agency should do. (Although I’ll stick to employers for now.)
If you haven’t already specifically articulated what violates your basement expectations for conduct (for example, tell the truth, don’t harass/intimidate/threaten people, and don’t discriminate on the basis of identity or role), then articulate those expectations, and whythey’re vital, not just words to fill up the back pages of your employee handbook. And then, leadership/HR/supervisors should run through a few unfortunately anticipatable scenarios, including allegations of sexual harassment/misconduct/assault involving a popular male colleague, and a colleague saying or doing something racist, which is “not like them at all.” As you run these scenarios, you should talk through not just the practice of what to do and how to do it, but also assess the systems you have in place. The current “he said-she said” / “white v black” culture, in which your very identity determines your credibility (notwithstanding facts and evidence) needs to be replaced with systems that advance justice, rather than perpetuating white supremacy and the patriarchy.
Stop debating whether something is racist or innocent/unintended/just a joke/but no one got hurt. (For the record, Christian Cooper did get hurt. He just didn’t get killed. His family and friends also got hurt. As did black and brown people who live in perpetual anticipation of violence against them.) If the incident or action wasn’t clearly antiracist, you can reasonably presume it had racist impacts, including perpetuating the status quo of racial inequality. Take “we’re all in this together” as an early slogan for this pandemic. In its colorblind (age-blind, class-blind and gender-blind) perpetuation of the myth of an equal “we,” this message is community-building and also racist. It may not have caused, but it certainly didn’t resist the lag in public health attention to how race matters in covid-19 susceptibility, detection and treatment.
Especially if your reflexive response is that this employee’s actions “don’t reflect your organization’s values” (the stock response when a community is faced with one of its own being caught in an act of hate), you should ask yourselves: what about our culture may have contributed to their thinking they could get away with it without consequence? What is our responsibility to cultivate employees who do represent our values, and not just when they’re on the clock? How are we instilling antiracist values and encouraging antiracist agency in our workplace?
You could ask a colleague or employee of color for their insight or advice about what you can do, but then…
Don’t only ask them their advice on race-specific or race-explicit topics. Ask them for their advice on other vital issues. Because they’re qualified (see: also an employee).
Ask yourself: what have you done? and what could you do? Start with your job description. What are you already doing not just to “not be racist” (Kendi, 2019), but to disable racism and enact antiracist outcomes in your assigned tasks and responsibilities? And, more broadly, consider your everyday actions: shopping, being part of a book group, charitable giving, traveling, voting… what can you do in these regular arenas of your life, not just in reaction or as a one-off gesture? In other words, as Bryan Stevenson suggest in Just Mercy, start with proximate action. And if you don’t know how or where to begin, then learn.
Prepare to and practice having conversations with colleagues about how what they did, what you (plural) did, or what you (yourself) did is racist, how a racist action isn’t the sum total of who they/you are (once again, thanks to Stevenson), and how to offer repair and take responsibility for the impacts and consequences of what happened (because saying sorry doesn’t mean nothing happened or all is now OK). Resiliency is one of those skills that I think benefit from 10,000 hours of practice.
I don’t need to hear Joe Biden proclaim his innocence, in response to Tara Reade’s allegation that he sexually harassed and assaulted her when she worked for him. I don’t need to hear him talk about how survivors deserve to be heard (but in this case, he didn’t do it). And I don’t need to hear him suggest that justice is up to the court of public opinion. As Kaylee McGhee writes in her op-ed “Joe Biden’s solution to Tara Reade’s allegation doesn’t address the real problem”:
When asked about the sexual assault allegations leveled against him by a former staffer, Joe Biden offered what seemed like a reasonable compromise: Those who disbelieve Tara Reade should vote for him, and those who do believe her should not.
“I think they should vote their heart,” he told MSNBC on Thursday. “And if they believe Tara Reade, they probably shouldn’t vote for me. I wouldn’t vote for me if I believed Tara Reade.”
What I need to hear from Joe Biden is what he will do, if elected president, to end the unequal system of “he said – she said” that our society uses to dispose of alleged and actual victims of sexual harassment and assault.
Of course, not all sexual harassment and assaults are perpetrated by men against women, but I’ll use this trope (1) because of the allegations that keep coming up that do involve male politicians and female staffers/associates/members of the public, and (2) because I believe it pertains to “he said – he said” and “they said – they said” cases, too.
Now, at face value, what could be more equal than she gets to say, and then he gets to say, right? What could be fairer?
For starters, if what “she” says were considered with equal credibility. Yet the burden of proof, the suspicion of dishonesty and the question of character disproportionately taint women. And why is that? At the very least:
The archetype of women “out to trap” men is old (and I mean that in all senses) and enduring. Just consider the language of “the old ball and chain.”
Then there’s the stereotype of women as unstable (thanks, Freud) and jealous. Combine the two, and apparently, if we find ourselves to be “women scorned,” we’re prone to “falsely accuse” men of rape to get even.
Add age (as in: if a woman alleges an assault happened years ago in her youth) and “desperate for attention” gets added to the rationalization.
And regardless of the passage of time, there’s the standard fallback that women are sluts, while men… well, need to “sow their oats,” “will be boys” and are somehow healthy and manly if they “get around.”
Meanwhile, in the pattern of relatively lesser known and powerful women alleging abuse and attack by men, power becomes a conveniently supposed vulnerability, even as it continues to shield. Biden (or Kavanaugh/Trump/Thomas) have so much to lose!
… to a power-hungry woman. And here is the enduring bias that power belongs to men, and is inappropriately sought by women (who should “stay in our place”).
Normative US culture is so thick and deep with gender bias that overlooks, discounts and outright villifies everyone who isn’t a cisgender heterosexual man that “he says, she says” is effectively “he says, so shut up.” If that sounds extreme, I’m talking about the implicit bias that may not be activated in everyday interactions (especially if people feel safe and comfortable) but lurks right below our performances of gender respect, and flares up readily – like when it’s our candidate, father, son, hero or friend whose treatment of women in under question.
I thought about this as the #MeToo movement ignited. If, as the CDC reports, “1 in 3 women experience sexual assault in their lifetime,” how many assaulters are we talking about? Realizing that it’s not only men who assault women, we can’t not talk about men among those assaulters, given that:
“51.1% of female victims of rape reported being raped by an intimate partner and 40.8% by an acquaintance” (MeToo movement) and
96.8% of women, age 18 and older, in the US identified as heterosexual in 2018 (CDC)
Actually, the question I kept asking myself was: given how many women I know who have been harassed or assaulted, how many men do I know who have been the perpetrators? To whose defense would I jump, because I “couldn’t believe” it was possible. Because they’re “a good guy.” And “would never.”
Because individual and mass cultural bias is so entrenched and persuasive, we can’t rely on “he said, she said,” and, as Biden, suggests let the chips of justice fall where they may, all too predictably burying those who allege harassment and assault, even as we now know to say “we should hear the victims out” while shoveling over them.
We need a systems-fix. So, Joe, how are you going to level the grossly unequal playing field on which we’re currently litigating sexual harassment and assault allegations? How are you going to get the US to stop playing the “who do you believe” game and institute responsibility and accountability for sexual justice?
It won’t begin and end with a performance of “hearing her out” only when she has something urgent to say. It will have to involve increasing the diversity of leaders and decision-makers to make more people more visibly human to other people, normalize differences of perspective and activate everyone’s best discernment and action. And that will require equalizing access to opportunity, so that women aren’t held back by implicit bias, which justifies their under-representation in leadership, which permits implicit bias and not actual experience to characterize how would be as leaders… and so on, in a sexist chicken-and-egg cycle that has resulted in the ridiculous (but not funny) fact that when The NY Times indexed “the glass ceiling” as it manifests across various decision-making roles, they couldn’t compare men and women. They had to compare all women just to guys named John, for instance. According to the Times:
Fewer large companies are run by women than by men named John, a sure indicator that the glass ceiling remains firmly in place in corporate America.
I do care whether Biden assaulted Reade. And I need to know how he’s going to change the system.
Yes, I clicked on it. Paraphrasing her response in the original interview, Kudrow “called the show a ‘time capsule’ of the ’90s and early ’00s, and said she hopes people can view it in that light,” and “went on to say that the show ‘thought it was very progressive’ at the time. ‘There was a guy whose wife discovered she was gay and pregnant, and they raised the child together. We had surrogacy, too.'”
Inadvertently, Kudrow points out a defining feature of some progressive ideology (think Bernie Sanders): it’s race-blind, race-unconscious or race-as-an-afterthought or lower priority (if it even is). It’s defined by being “ahead of its time” on issues that white people can experience: homophobia, infertility, poverty, hunger, drug (particularly opioid) abuse. It is “not racist,” an thus, decidedly not antiracist. Which means it’s racist.
Not in an intentionally malicious way. In a much more pervasive, socially lauded and potentially more devastating way. Not only because this kind of progressivism passively permits racism to proceed unchecked, but because this progressivism wears the mantle of advancing justice, in other ways. That serve white privilege.
This isn’t about Kudrow or Sanders being racists. This is about progressive platforms that point elsewhere or everywhere but antiracism being called what they are: progressive for whiteness.
Like with “community” and “equality,” we have to be clearer with the term “progressive” and always ask: for whom?
In Obama’s commencement speech for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) yesterday, there was much I appreciated. In particular, this passage struck me profoundly:
… these aren’t normal times. You’re being asked to find your way in a world in the middle of a devastating pandemic and a terrible recession. The timing is not ideal. And let’s be honest — a disease like this just spotlights the underlying inequalities and extra burdens that black communities have historically had to deal with in this country. We see it in the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on our communities, just as we see it when a black man goes for a jog, and some folks feel like they can stop and question and shoot him if he doesn’t submit to their questioning.
First of all, agreed and, as Obama himself points out a few sentences later, disagreed on the point that these aren’t “normal times.” Pandemic, not normal. Social inequality, normal. Racism, normal.
Not right. Just still, persistently and mortally normal.
To the extent that as Obama exhorts the Class of 2020, who hold “the power to shine brightly for justice, and for equality, and for joy,” to take charge “if the world’s going to get better”… to also voice the fact black people can still be lynched today in the US.
Thinking back on my graduations, the graduation for which I gave the keynote, and the countless other graduations I’ve attended as a family and faculty member, I have to say that this was a first. Sure, I’ve heard speakers and myself spoke about diversity, justice, fairness… and with some hard truths presented to anchor the abstractions.
But to realize that what you need to say to a graduating class is “I hope you are bold. I hope you have a vision that isn’t clouded by cynicism or fear,” knowing that you could be killed just for being black, even if you’re not doing anything particularly bold or world-shaping at that moment.
It makes me realize the racism of my own commencement address and so many others in our normalizing the future to whiteness. And I think this is a crucial issue even in addresses to overwhelmingly white graduating classes: how are we whitewashing our messages of inspiration, leaving out the mortal realities that are not just the future for some of our students of color, but the present? Why? And whom does that really serve?
And to those who would argue that the joyous occasion of commencement isn’t the time to talk about lynching, isn’t the ceremony itself an acknowledgment that our graduate are “ready” for the world? When, if not now, should we be able to talk truth with each other? If not now, why didn’t we prepare them better?
I would also offer that the choice isn’t whether but how we talk about what we need to talk about when we are bringing our students together one last time. Obama’s speech to me is an example of the most vital inspiration: admitting the awesome, as fearful, beautiful, moving and overwhelming as it is, to animate others to their possibilities.
There are a lot of articles out there right now about the challenges of connecting digitally for work, school or some socializing at a distance. Here’s one I found that I wanted to share forward.
According to a Los Angeles-based parenting coach and early childhood consultant, “It’s the dirty secret of parenting right now. Everyone’s pretending their kids are successfully doing Zoom calls, but that’s not what I’m seeing with my clients.” Takeaway: If our students (even those well past the early stages of their childhoods) are struggling to pay attention, focus, engage and just show up on Zoom, of course! And if we’re not seeing signs of struggle, perhaps that’s because our students are pretending to be “successful,” too. Potential action item: Check in regularly, even if the kids seem fine. Approaching online teaching and learning as if everyone just needs to “adjust” and then we can trundle on, assuming all systems are go puts our students in the service of the system that is supposed to serve all of them.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’m still processing that being a “parenting coach and early childhood consultant” is a thing. Takeaway: I do not “get” how unequal our students’ resources, experiences and predictable (although not absolute) outcomes are. The idea that I fully understand how the injustices at the core of my work manifest in the diverse lives of students, families and educators is straight up hubris. Perpetual action item: Keep asking “what else?” and “what could I be missing/blind to?”
As a child & family psychologist and parenting coach points out, “It’s easy for parents to forget that kids aren’t yet experts at small talk.” Takeaway: That makes so much sense. And makes me wonder about the value of small talk. According to research, one of the factors that makes us “click” with other people is connection, even if based on seemingly trivial information, which small talk can facilitate. And yet, sometimes we talk small instead of talking for real. Potential action item: Teach kids about talking to connect. Name small and other kinds of talk, and create spaces in our online meetings for the different, vital ways we need to connect, which, in any diverse group (meaning, all groups, including groups of only two people) will provide different points of access, comfort and possibilities to different people.
The author’s son finally had a “can we do it again” experience on Zoom when his former soccer coach invited him to a team hangout, for which he planned a scavenger hunt. Takeaway: My takeaway is not that everyone has to love connecting online or have a “Who says you can’t have fun during quarantine!” experience on Zoom. My takeaway is that many educators have insights into how their students engage deeply not only with each other, but also with their own brains, and can activate their thinking, connecting and love of learning even over a digital platform. We just have to, again, commit to making the system serve our diverse students, instead of making the students and ourselves conform to whatever system or norms seem to dictate how things are going to be. Action item: Apply what we know about kinesthetic, experiential and other learning modalities, and mix up how we can still and might also apply that knowledge in the digital space. Some of our students will hate doing a scavenger hunt, some of them will love it, and others will just humor us; some of them will hate being in small group breakout sessions, some of them will love it, and others will just do as they’re told. As long as our kids are safe, if we can help them to be versatile and resilient in various circumstances, and share the burden of discomfort (so that the experience that “this isn’t really my thing” doesn’t overly fall on some and not others) we will be helping them through and beyond this pandemic, into the next challenges they face.
So says photographer Buck Ellison, who captures the “language of white American wealth” in his work.
In an interview about his latest project Living Trust, Ellison explains,
Privilege is a shitty little word used to police the behaviour of others. In the United States, we have a society that prides itself on its level playing field during a historical moment of ever-increasing inequality. As we judge rich people for consuming well or badly, working hard or being lazy, giving money away or keeping it, we miss the point. To say someone inhabits privilege incorrectly implies that it is possible to inhabit it correctly, which isn’t possible! I think it’s a frustrating word, as it draws attention away from the institutions and social processes that maintain inequality.
I agree. To be clear, what’s shitty is how “privilege” (an essential term to name a system that sustains and justifies social inequality) is sometimes used:
Privilege isn’t personal. It isn’t about someone. It’s about how groups of people see and are seen by others, how their lives are facilitated or obstructed in the very same communities, and how systemic advantage/disadvantage is so pervasive and consequential that we accept it as innate.
Privilege isn’t just excess you can see. Privilege is a collective mindset of entitlement that necessarily bounds your opportunity as we claim ours. It’s the “manifest destiny” and “westward expansion” at the heart of our national narrative (even see the choice of words, which from another perspective might become imperialism, theft and genocide). And the collective impact of an entire class of people consciously and unconsciously exercising their entitlement together not just a matter of being “tone deaf.” It’s how economies of inequality are created and grow.
When I read the phrase “inhabits privilege incorrectly,” I thought back to my critique of the term “food insecurity” Both feel like misdirection mechanisms, although not identically.
“Inhabiting privilege” seems to suggest that privilege is something you put on and take off, like a coat. It’s not about you. You could just as easily inhabit… something else? Meanwhile, I’ll critique your need to wear labels or buy a new coat every week. But that’s not how it works: privilege isn’t a personal choice. It isn’t even a choice. What you (in the singular feeding the collective) do with it is. And what you do with it isn’t as simple as “correct” or “incorrect.” That’s another trap. Well, if I’m just going to get it wrong, what’s the point of trying anyway?
As for “food insecurity,” I’m hearing the phrase a lot in coverage of the current spike in food prices, but still not in how people in line at food banks are describing themselves: more often, they talk about not being able to feed their families. Whereas Ellison points out the usage of “privilege” to personalize and distract from what is systemic, I’m hearing “food insecurity” deployed to abstract and distance, even if unintentionally (after all, in this example, journalists are intentionally spotlighting an issue, presumably with good intention).
Have you ever watched an ASPCA commercial? I can’t imagine the voiceover talking about “home insecure” or “affection insecure” animals. The ASPCA shows us abused and neglected animals and names the problem.
And that’s the point right? We really need to name what we’re talking about, and because injustice is always operating on the personal, social and institutional levels, we have to be clear about which part of the issue we’re talking about. And then innovate when the language we have doesn’t seem to help, and take feedback.
Getting back to privilege, can we rethink the phrase “tone deaf” (used, for example, when celebrities post messages about how we’re “all in this pandemic together” from their mansions)? First of all, some people are actually tone deaf. We don’t need to incorrectly disparage a physical condition as a character flaw. And what are we really trying to say? That these celebrities lack awareness of their advantages, are outright flaunting their wealth (even if unconsciously), and are immune to some of the material, devastating impacts of this pandemic. I don’t have a succinct replacement for “tone deaf.” But maybe that’s the thing: it may not always serve to have a catchy new phrase to describe something. Sometimes it takes more, language: like Mia McKenzie’s rejection of “ally” for “currently operating in solidarity with.”
I had to consider how to talk about myself when I realized that the words already in play to describe socioeconomic status don’t really say who and how I think I am: need to work wealthy. And that–naming myself–has helped me to notice myself what’s about me when I’m talking about privilege, wealth, and not having enough (or having too much) to eat.
rethinking diversity 