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behaviors outdated systems far beyond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