When it comes to racism are you a non or an anti

[Music]

i want to

present an argument to you and

make it on your behalf as well

that’s going to help guide you

in responding to this important question

when it comes to racism are you a

non-racist or are you an anti-racist

i have found that people are able to

see oppression in its many forms

when they are able to own the privileges

that they have in themselves

my privilege i mean a special right

advantage

or immunity granted or made available

only to a particular person or

group of people here’s what i mean

if i were to ask all of you in the

audience how many of you are

left-handed here’s what

folks who are left-handed would say

about

living in a right-handed person’s world

they might say that their family’s

culture

discouraged them from using their left

hand

and even forced them to put their left

hand behind their back or even

tap it when they tried to use it

they might say that i remember back in

kindergarten those scissors never worked

for me

they might also say that when i sit down

to write as a left-handed person

i always get ink and marks all over my

arm and i get spiral marks all up and

down my arm

now if you are right handed and you

never thought about that

that’s a privilege that you have it’s a

special right

advantage or immunity granted or made

available

only to right-handed people because

those scissors worked fine for me when i

was in elementary school as a

right-handed person

my colleagues and friends who are white

have continued to peel back

and uncover what peggy mcintosh refers

to as

white privilege an invisible knapsack

of unearned assets that i can

count on cashing in every day but here’s

the key piece

but about which i was meant to remain

oblivious

this is my privileged bracelet as you

can see it has a lot of different colors

on it because

i have a lot of privilege these

green beads represent my gender

privilege

and one of these beads represents the

fact that

i know whenever i go out into the street

i am not going to get unwanted comments

about my clothing or

cat calls directed at me because of my

wardrobe

these red beads represent my nationality

privilege

and one of these beads represents the

fact that

i assume people are going to talk to me

in english when they speak to me

and these blue beads represent my

ability privilege

and one of these bees represents the

fact that

i know i can gain easy access to any

building

anytime

i have been doing this work as an

anti-racist educator for

over 25 years and i remember when i

started because it was during the

terrible time of the

earthquake in kobe japan that destroyed

the city

and i remember saying to my earliest

audiences

kobe will be rebuilt before racism will

be eradicated

in this country and today kobe is once

again a thriving city

albeit in the time of covid

so then a central question to this

conversation is

how do you define racism and if i were

to

ask all of you in the audience how do

you define racism

your words might include prejudice

stereotype power

injustice discrimination and many others

in 1977 david wellman

authored a book entitled portraits of

white racism

and in the book he defines racism this

way

the essential feature of racism is not

about

hostility nor misperception

but rather a system of advantage

that is derived on the basis of race

so when i talk about racism i’m looking

through that

lens of systems of advantage that are

derived on the basis of race

i believe that racism is expressed in

three different ways

at the individual level at the cultural

level

and at the institutional level

racism at the end excuse me at the

individual level

is the racism that we are all familiar

with sing

it’s where black man is arrested for

waiting on a business meeting in a

starbucks

or where a black man is

has the police called on him by a white

woman watching

birds and he’s watching birds

but the police are called on him or

about the violence that we currently see

against the aapi

community those are all the things that

and more constitute individual racism

and

denzel washington says racism hasn’t

changed

it’s just being filled

racism at the cultural level is about

the

messages we are set about what it means

to be

normal and whoever creates that cultural

standard

puts themselves at the top of the

hierarchy

so not too long ago pre-covert

a black high school wrestler was

ordered by a white referee

to cut off his dreadlocks right in the

midst of a wrestling match

in other words the referee was putting

himself

at the top of the cultural hierarchy

when it came to what he thought

was appropriate hair length or a

wrestling match

cultural racism is also expressed in the

pushback that colin kaepernick and

others have received about taking a knee

during the playing of the national

anthem and cultural racism is

also found in the story of a person’s

name austin channing brown writes about

this in her book i’m still here

where she describes why her parents gave

her the name that they did as they were

thinking ahead to

the academic and professional

experiences that she would have and the

doors that we

would be open for her with that name

austin

racism at the institutional level

is deeply entrenched historically

in places such as government education

criminal justice economic opportunity

and so many more in a recent abc news

nightline piece

about home refinancing a biracial couple

a white husband and a black wife

sought to get an appraisal on their home

for the purposes of refinancing the

first appraisal came back at 336 000

the couple went to their bank officer

the bank officer looked at the

appraisal and thought that perhaps they

needed to get another appraisal because

that seemed just a little bit low

so the couple did but this time

only the husband was present and

all representations that there was a

black woman living in the house

culture pictures everything was removed

from the house

before the second appraisal which came

back at over four hundred and sixty

thousand dollars the economic wealth gap

in this country has been growing

exponentially especially over the last

30 years

and currently the aggregate household

wealth for white families in this

country

is about 17 times greater

than the aggregate household wealth for

black families

who is racist is not as

important as what are you doing to

interrupt these cycles of oppression

these

systemic advantages that are based on

race

so here’s that question once again when

it comes to racism

are you a non-racist or are you an

anti-racist now i want you to imagine

that i’ve got

four boxes up here with me

on the stage and this first box is

called the

active racist box and what goes into the

active racist box

well certainly all those individual acts

that wellman wrote about certainly all

those misperceptions

that wellman wrote about but also in

this box of active racism

would go a history of systemic advantage

based on race specifically

in my case that i’m going to share here

with you about economics

because we can go back to sharecropping

and peonage during the periods of

reconstruction

and move on up to 1921 and the

destruction of black wealth

in tulsa oklahoma and we can move

forward then to the end of world war

ii when black gis were denied mortgages

instead being redlined into enclaves of

disadvantagement

you don’t get any equity when you’re

renting

all the way up through today with

regards

to the gentrification practices that are

taking place

throughout this country

that’s the racist box the active racist

box

now this second box is called passive

racism

and this is one of the places where a

non-racist

feels comfortable because they’ll say

you know

i don’t support those policies i’m not

doing what those people are doing

discriminating against other people

i’m not like those people in in that box

number one

i’m not a racist

martin luther king would remind them in

the end

we will not remember the words of our

enemies

but the silence of our friends

now here’s box number three box number

three is the active

anti-racist box and anti-racism

is a verb it requires action

anti-racism is also not just about the

black white dichotomy

anti-racism is also not just about

racism it requires action

speak out educate others

get involved make your life a

have to ibram kendy even asks us to be

introspective

in our anti-racist work so that we’re

able

to find those places where we may still

be complicit in advancing

those systems of advantage that are

based on race

and other areas of oppression

at the peace and justice institute at

valencia college where i’m blessed to be

a facilitator

these actions take place by making

human connections with people while we

have

difficult conversations courageous

conversations

about the extraordinary times in which

we live

i said there were four boxes box number

four

the passive anti-racist box

this is an oxymoron there’s no such

thing

as passive anti-racism because

anti-racism is a verb it requires action

you can’t just be sitting there and

saying i’m passively anti-racist

because desmond tutu would tap you on

the shoulder and say

if you are neutral in the face of

oppression

you have chosen the side of the

oppressor

so is that question again when it comes

to racism

are you a non-racist or are you

an anti-racist james baldwin stated it

perfectly

not everything that is faced can be

changed

but nothing can be changed until it is

faced

may you be well may you be loved

may you be free of anxiety and worry

hakuna matata

and when it comes to racism may you be

an

anti-racist thank you

you