Why talk about racism?
Although I've spent over a decade of focused research on race/ethnicity, I still feel that I have more questions than answers when it comes to this topic. So many reasons why I feel that the discussion of race still needs to be in focus.
To get into the mindset of why we need to have this conversation, I chose to read this book called So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. The author, Ijeoma Oluo, is a journalist for various publications The Guardian and The NY Times Bestseller for this book and others like Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America. She tackles this topic with the questions and thoughts that are on everybody's mind. On top of that, she doesn't get into the abstract or conceptual but directly hits the reader with the cold hard facts. It is written with a blend of compassion but also delicacy knowing how we, as the reader, can broach the topic of race in certain situations like our office or school space.
Reflecting on what Oluo argues, and adding some of my own personal thoughts
We may ask ourselves- why talk about race- I'm not racist?
Racism is not a binary characterization, where it's only about whether you wear a white hood, place a swatiska on your jacket, post racist rhetoric on Twitter or deny someone equal treatment because of their ethnicity/race. Being racist is much more subtle and falls along a spectrum of assumptions and behavior. Certain behaviors that happen in real time like when you clutch your purse in the presence of a person of color, target disciplinary action because of the persons' skin and so forth. More importantly it is not acknowledging or doing anything about systemic racism across all sectors, such as college degree attainment (less 1/3rd compared to 1/2 White counterparts), salary gap comparing college grads ($7,000 less than White counterparts), imprisonment rates (33% compared to 12% total), and family wealth (57% less than White families). From this perspective, everybody has some racist tendencies and nobody is exempt from this characterization.
Not convinced, right? Okay after self-confessing that we have some inherent biases about certain groups, then we can justify that it's human nature and it's relative. We may think to ourselves- My uncle is racist and he says negative things outwardly. Life is unfair, that's the system, and so forth.
Something I personally struggled with growing up was shoplifting, and why it was a strong recurring problem for me was that I was oblivious to it. Denial played a major factor. It was easy to rationalize looking at the extremes- I wasn't a pickpocketer nor was I robbing people at gun point. But until I understood that I was going this slippery slope that could eventually lead to those things, then I knew I had to stop this problem. Addicts of all kinds things like alcohol, gambling, porn, struggle with their conditions because they are cognitively blind to the first step - acceptance.
Racism can work in this same way though there are greater implications. Individually, the more that we are conscious of our own racial bias the more that we can sensitive to the needs of others. But this is just a start because addressing racism isn't just simply not saying unracist things but collectively, there's a need for efforts to be anti-racist. Most recent attention has focused on Ibram X. Kendi's (Harvard Professor, Time's 100 Most Influential People) anti-racism work captured in his best selling work - How to be an Anti-Racist advocates fighting against systemic racism.
Why are people so focused on race, when there are so many problems going on in society?
You feel that you've been beset by certain challenges in your own life. We've been poor before, grew up with some kind of learning disabilities, health problems and so forth. So what makes being Black or Latino any different? Why should they get some kind of boost, when I've suffered some kind of hardship. This is a common sentiment that we come across. I think about this too being Asian American where being a person of color means that I had to climb past certain preconceptions. Though we have experienced certain barriers and have certain kinds of privileges, you may be thinking: but we have a fair meritocratic system and everybody has their own ability "to pull themselves from their bootstraps" and succeed. But this is far from the truth for Blacks in the "fairness" in our systems like education, justice system, health, and so forth. For example -Black boys are almost three times as likely to be suspended than white boys. In the justice system, Black males served 20% longer terms than their White counterparts. Politically, 1 in 13 Blacks lost their right to vote. A fair meritocratic system- this is far from the truth. I try not to be blind from this reality as I understand that I have certain privileges that helped me get where I am today. I was raised in an upper-middle income family and thus able to go to a private school with parents who both have advanced education degrees (my father has a Ph.D. and served as a Professor). The accumulation of all these disadvantages and continued perpetuation of systemic racism is disenfranchisement of the individual.
Race is too complicated so let's not talk about it because I'm too busy/uninformed/powerless.
First it's a messy and complex problem. We are afraid to talk about things where there's no end in sight. But does that mean that we should avoid this conversation altogether? Let's consider the global pandemic- it is a deeply never-ending complex problem on multiple layers - education, health, economic, political and so forth. Has that prevented everybody from all sectors of society to devote attention to this issue? It's been an "all hands on deck" problem for all humanity in devoting attention to this issue so that we can go back to the pre-pandemic days.
Tackling race is the same except that this time in comparison to the global pandemic lasting the last year or so, this is a problem that has historically existed in this country for over 400 years.
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