#blacklivesmatter #racism #uncomfortableconversations
For anyone trying to understand racism, I wrote this blog just for you because I have been trying to understand too.
We witnessed the horrific murder of Mr. George Floyd by police on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis during an arrest. This is not a common occurrence, but it is happening too frequently. I’m trying to understand why we are still experiencing racism?
Of course, there is no simple answer to why there is racism in America. Yet, we do know that it is a learned behavior that is taught from one person to another. Allow me to oversimplify a very complex topic based on what I have learned about human behavior.
Ambivalence exists in America, but more people are outraged and committed to acting in “good faith” towards justice. We have had nonviolent protests overall. Dr. Martin Luther King left the road map for us to do the work for justice.
My Experience
My parents and grandparents taught us to be antiracist and to feel sorry for anyone who had racists behaviors. In so many words, they said that racist individuals are mentally ill and that the disease keeps racist ignorant despite any level of education.
I was taught to never hate racist people because I would become mentally ill and destroy my ambition or self-respect if I did. I learned to rechannel racism into determination to achieve any goal.
I refused to let society or others define my identity and dictate to me what it means to be Black in America; instead, I embraced my humanity. As a result, I was self-conscious of being Black but was not restrained by it.
Trying to Understand: James Baldwin
Forty years later, I found this the video of James Baldwin that reflects similar sentiments.
Mr. James Baldwin was an American writer and former Pentecostal minister who gave insight into the #Civil Rights movement. His work will help you understand the #Black Lives Matter movement. See the excerpt below from his work “A Letter to My Nephew.”
“I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it
and I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my
country and my countrymen…they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of
thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it.”….”You know
and I know that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one
hundred years too early. We cannot be free until they are free.”
….”You must accept them and accept them with love, for these innocent
people have no other hope. They are in effect still trapped in a history which
they do not understand and until they understand it, they cannot be released from
it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that
black men are inferior to white men. Many of them indeed know better, but as you
will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know.”
Read the entire letter at this link here. It will help you understand.
How is Racism Taught?#Black Lives Matter
Social phycological research has demonstrated that people learn who they are and how to behave initially from parents or guardians. Then, as they gey get older, it all in the matter of the company they keep. Each person learns from their parents, extended family, peers, and society and interprets those messages to determine their world view.
As a child matures through the progression of developmental milestones, the interpretation of the messages is judged based on their peer group, friends, and society. Based on the judgment of what was learned, each person accepts or rejects the learned messages. This is how we identify who we are, which influences the way we see ourselves and the world. Then, the people we hang out with at home, work, and socially reinforce our world view.
Consequences of Racism
Some say that fear, or guilt, causes racism while others feel its hatred or something else. No matter what the reason, it must stop for human sake.
Many African Americans and others have lost their lives due to racial prejudice. Many more have lost their mental and physical health due to racism, but we usually don’t quantify those outcomes.
Besides deaths from the hands of racist, racism causes many poor outcomes, including isolation, loss of opportunity, barriers to health, and love, just to name some outcomes. This is a sad commentary, all due to fake assumptions about people. While all lives matter, we are protesting for justice and peace that #Black Lives Matter.
Trying to Understand: The Experiment
A very emotional experiment was done in the 1960s and repeated. Jane Elliott, an elementary school teacher, conducted this experiment and repeated it many times with the same results. She was motivated by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King to act and not be silent. Ms. Elliott started where she was and did what she could to help her students understand racism.
The video below will either make you angry, relieved, or mixed emotions about the experiment, perhaps due to the teacher’s approach. Spoiler alert, although each experiment lasted well less than a day, even for a couple of hours, you will probably recognize the human response to racism.
Helping Community Health Students Understand
I shared a brief video with my community health students as an adjunct faculty member at a large university. I worked in the Community Health Department, and each semester; I would get a new group of students.
The majority of my student was white, and some were in a high socioeconomic status. Many of my students said they had never heard of the Civil Rights Movement. I was bringing them into poor black communities to deliver health education as part of their curriculum.
As an African American professor, I felt the responsibility to expose my students to a video of Ms. Elliott’s work. I recommended that my students view the full Public Broadcasting episode. I did a question and answered the session to give context as part of their orientation. Later, I changed to the Oprah Show Brown Eye Blue Eye experiment program for orientation since it offered many contexts about the experiment.
I had my students view the experiment at the beginning of the semester to prepare them to minimize implicit bias. Some students said that it helped them and they appreciated it. I found it necessary to try to help my students understand racism.
Books to Help Anyone Trying to Understand
1) In the Shadow of Statues: A White southerner confronts history by Mitch Landrieu
2) Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
3) Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
4) How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X.Kendi
5) White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
6) The Homestead Act of 1862: A Primary Source History of the Settlement of American Heartland in the Late 19th Century by Jason Porterfield
7) Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Get a FREE book at Audible FREE. Click FreeAudibleBook
Movies to Help Anyone Trying to Understand
1) 13TH (View for free)
2) Nightjohn
3) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
4) The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
5) Tuskegee Airmen
6) Just Mercy
7) 12 Years A Slave
8) Slavery by Another Name
9) Glory
10) Black Wall Street Burning
YouTube Links to Help You Understand
1) MLK Talks ‘New Phase’ Of Civil Rights Struggle, 11 Months Before His Assassination | NBC
2) NewsUncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man – Episode 2
3) Reflecting on the Color of My Skin
4) Reflections on the Color of My Skin
5) Terry Warfeild – COLOR OF MY SKIN
6) AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO ALL CONTENT CREATORS
7) Chris Rock Reads Author James Baldwin’s “Letter to My Nephew”
Poems
Caroline Randall Williams “You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument The black people I come from were owned and raped by the white people I come from. Who dares to tell me to celebrate them?”
Conclusion for Anyone Trying to Understand Racism
Many African Americans have been killed by police for no reason, and the killer was not brought to justice. This injustice is a tragedy. Many more African Americans have been stopped by police on one or more occasions for suspicion and abused or treated poorly. However, all policemen are going out every day to protect us, and only a few are bad.
Somewhere somebody said, “Understanding is the best thing in the world.” Be a seeker and thinker and continue to try to understand. Be an antiracist, teach your children, grandchildren, and all children to be antiracist and never give up on America. #BlackLivesMatter
“We with love shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are….we can make America what America must become….it will be hard….but you come from sturdy stock…God speed”~James Baldwin
Fannie Lou Hamer“Until I’m free you ain’t free either because your freedom is shackled to mine”
“Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud“~James Browm
“It’s Been a Long time Coming, but I Know That Change Is Gonna Come“~Sam Cook
Resources:
Baldwin, J. A Letter to My Nephew. The Progressive. Retrieved from https://progressive.org/magazine/letter-nephew/
Hughes, L.(1993). Let America be Ameria again
