Battling Covert Racism

dear incoming first-year students

welcome to unc charlotte niner nation

while i’m a professor here this message

is some personal advice and

encouragement from you

hopefully you’ll hear something that

will challenge you towards more

introspective and positive change and if

you aren’t a brand new student hopefully

you’ll find something of use as well

first year students what a year you have

had

right 2020. most of you are members of

the high school class

that had to hold graduations at

racetracks drive-ins or didn’t get to

have a ceremony at all due to our

ongoing battle

against covid19 and

you’re also members of the generation of

young people that led

us all through this summer through the

marches for social justice and protests

against systemic racism

and police brutality in the wake of the

murder of george floyd

you are a generation of change agents

and today

i want to encourage you to continue to

challenge racist ideas

behaviors outdated systems far beyond

what my generation has accomplished

towards creating a just

society so yep we’re going to talk about

racism

and with that comes talking about white

privilege

and white supremacy because you can’t

have

oppression if you don’t have privilege

just the mention of the words rights

white supremacy

and privilege often cause people to just

tune out

but please just hang with me for a bit

while my goal is to challenge you to

think i do apologize in advance if i say

something kind of wrong or

unintentionally

hurtful to you this is a tough topic so

i might fumble it a bit

but i’m gonna try to reach some people

with something valuable

but if i just make you uncomfortable

then i think that is okay

because university professors like to

challenge students like you into

exploring new ideas

and defending what you determine that

you believe

it’s what we do you are adults now

many new first-year students are just

turning 18

so you’re now old enough to vote

register for selective service

join the armed forces like i did when i

turned 20.

so you’re old enough now to have your

own opinions about race class

and social justice in america as new

university students

it’s now about more than adopting what

your parents believe

or your grandparents or just accepting

what your minister said

or coaches or news pundits or what’s

shared by

influencers on social media you

are now accountable for your own

positions and behaviors

this is a season of change poet maya

angelou

who is from north carolina said when we

know better

do better we can’t just keep defending

what makes us comfortable

it is past time to look at how we may be

accidentally propagating white supremacy

black and indigenous students of color

as new students

please challenge what you expect and

what you will accept

as far as treatment while a student here

at unc charlotte

so look at this graphic of this iceberg

maybe you’ve seen this

before or one like it if you haven’t

just google the words iceberg

and racism and you’ll find many versions

of this graphic

look how the overt or obvious racist

acts are at the top of the iceberg where

they can be seen above the water

hate crimes displaying swastikas these

are easy to call out

and not do whether it be accidentally or

on purpose

but look at some of these others that

are more covert and subtle

i want to point out several that

hopefully will get you thinking about

your own beliefs and words

and also what you will tolerate or

accept from others

the meritocracy myth have you heard of

it

meritocracy is the system that says

someone’s achievement in life

is based on their talents

accomplishments and amount of efforts

so basically iq plus effort equals merit

but it’s a myth it is not true ability

plus effort does not

always equal success really well yes

let’s take our city of charlotte in 2013

a harvard uc berkeley study showed that

charlotte north carolina

ranked 50 out of 50 for economic

mobility

that is the ability of a child born in

the bottom income bracket to rise to the

top

income bracket as an adult low-income

people including those in communities of

color

have a tremendous opportunity gap and

the day to prove it

we were 50 out of 50 dead last

among large u.s cities there is a

tremendous chasm

between the rich and the poor in our

city and we are the second largest

banking

capital in the country so we can’t make

statements that assume that someone’s

ability plus

effort will automatically lead to

success

because it doesn’t always happen let’s

talk about wealth

income is what you earn but wealth is

what you have

or what you inherit this relates to the

bootstrap

theory you’ve probably heard of this one

maybe you’ve even said the statement

yourself

those poor people which is kind of code

for racial minorities

immigrants other marginalized groups

right

so someone says those poor people must

be lazy they lack initiative

they just need to pull themselves up by

their bootstraps like my family did my

grandfather worked hard to start

our family business he pulled himself up

by his bootstraps

there is a terrible flaw in the logic

of the bootstrap theory imagine you

joined a monopoly board game after 30

minutes of play

by that time all the good properties are

bought up boardwalk and park place are

owned maybe hotels are going up

all four railroads are bought all that’s

left

are baltic avenue and mediterranean

place

you are not going to amass any wealth

from owning those properties

in fact some professors of education

just up i-85

at north carolina a t did a study on

this exact issue

their research article is entitled when

the rules are fair

but the game isn’t they showed it was

impossible to win at monopoly

if you start late and that the

experience of starting late was so

frustrating

that the new players often quit because

they just couldn’t get ahead no matter

how well they played

see the parallel to minority-owned

businesses late to the

game of the american economy it has led

to minority communities having less

wealth to pass to

the next generations so look at this one

white savior complex that is where

a white person helps a person of color

in a self-serving way to make themselves

feel good

and it propagates a horrific power

differential

unfortunately this is behind the

old-fashioned charity model that you see

in missions work

oh bless her heart she does so much work

with the poor

what would they possibly do without her

the white savior complex is best

illustrated

in some popular movies that you may know

the blind side

the help freedom writers there are a lot

of movies that are beloved by some

white people because they make them feel

good about their race

but students of color when you may have

watched these films or similar ones

did you notice this theme you aren’t

alone

if you hated the message of helpless

person of color is rescued by a good

white person

this white savior complex is a real

thing

i am a professor here in our school of

social work

the social work profession is currently

going through a rigorous

uncomfortable look in the mirror because

of many

issues including our historic role in

child welfare work

taking children away breaking up

families often in minority

and underserved communities with little

concern for

assessing the impact of their social

circumstances

and the role of culture well shame on us

i personally have been facing the

hypocrisy of my own role

providing social work services in

minority communities

as if i am the expert we need to always

make sure that people are empowered to

be the expert in their own lives

and go in with cultural humility

as a professor i’m committed to training

a multi-racial

very diverse cadre of the next

generation of social workers

so that we have many different workers

who perhaps look like

and have similar experiences to people

from many different walks of life

okay let’s see what else we can stir up

here who else can we make

uncomfortable colorblindness what

could be wrong with this i don’t see

color i treat everyone alike

america is a melting pot we all

assimilate and become the same

right maybe you know someone who says

this or you were taught this or you say

it

color blindness while well-intentioned

is outdated and falls short it creates

relationships where we don’t discuss

race

and we don’t actively examine our

implicit biases

look i think for white folk our worst

fear is to be labeled as a racist

i understand that is what’s behind

people saying that they don’t see color

but color blindness says someone’s lived

experiences being different from yours

doesn’t matter and it does matter

let’s celebrate diversity not sameness

all right white silence that means not

speaking

up and being complicit through not

confronting

something that you know could be hurtful

or oppressive to other people

so not saying racist jokes isn’t enough

we need to confront bad behavior in our

own social networks

so that’s friends even family

what we see on social media now we just

need to get you back to

in-person learning on campus so that you

can experience campus life

but as new college students and

full-fledged adults now

the future of our communities is on you

you need to do the work

students of color it is not your job to

challenge racism

it is a social responsibility of all of

us

you first-year students are members of

the outstanding generation of youth who

took it to the streets this summer

and made black lives matter finally

something that is understood by people

of all ages

keep leading the way and i’m preaching

to myself here

after decades of anti-racist personal

and professional work i still have a

ways to go

and here’s something that i’ve been

working on in in my heart lately

so my ancestors all came relatively

recently from poland

under stressful circumstances and none

of my people were present in america

when we had people who were legally

enslaved in north carolina

and they weren’t here when the

indigenous people were driven from their

lands

so i certainly have always been aware of

these atrocities but i didn’t personally

accept accountability for these acts of

violence

all of us living here in the charlotte

region benefit from those long

sinful legacies and we enjoy the

benefits of the grand city that was

built up

on the backs of oppressed people i’m

working on coming to terms with that

and maybe you are too charlotte is in

mecklenburg county

based on the u.s census data from 1860

so that’s right before the emancipation

proclamation in the civil war

38.2 percent of people in the county

were slaves think of that over a third

of people

in our region were surviving in bondage

and then look at this zoomed in map

maybe you can spot the county that you

are from

if you want to look more closely just

google the words

slavery census in north carolina and

you’ll be able to find this map

i’m also grappling with deeply

understanding that we are living

and learning and right now i’m standing

on

indigenous land that was colonized and

appropriated from the catawba people and

several other nations

who had lived on this land for ten

thousand years

when the european settlers first arrived

around 1540

there were approximately fifteen

thousand to twenty five thousand catawba

indians in the region

and by 1760 there were a thousand

between people who were enslaved

indentured

and the native people who were

exterminated or driven from their land

the soil of the charlotte region is

soaked with the blood of oppressed

people

and that oppression continues today in

the communities of their descendants

so the past of our country could be

characterized as something other than

great

my personal suggestion you’re now in a

four-year university

at north carolina’s urban research

campus which regardless of your race or

other statuses

makes you privileged in at least one

dimension education

and look at this iceberg again we

touched on several of these covert

threads of racism but there are many

more areas for focus

so we have a lot of work to do and let’s

do the work together

we are all niners go niners