Then there came a time when it was trashed as dehumanizing condescension -- perpetuating the same “color blindness” it purports to tackle.
I feel unqualified to judge. Here’s what I found that was valuable to me.
Definitions
If you want to have a productive dialogue with someone, you have to agree on a set of terms. Here’s a handy primer on three of the most vexing and disputed terms in any discussion about race in America -- racism, discrimination, and prejudice.
To understand racism, we need to first distinguish it from mere prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice is pre-judgment about another person based on the social groups to which that person belongs. Prejudice consists of thoughts and feelings, including stereotypes, attitudes, and generalizations that are based on little or no experience and then are projected onto everyone from that group. Our prejudices tend to be shared because we swim in the same cultural water and absorb the same messages.
All humans have prejudice; we cannot avoid it. If I am aware that a social group exists, I will have gained information about that group from the society around me. This information helps me make sense of the group from my cultural framework. People who chaim not to be prejudiced are demonstrating a profound lack of self-awareness. Ironically, they are also demonstrating the power of socialization -- we have all been taught in schools, through movies, and from family members, teachers, and clergy that it is important not to be prejudiced. Unfortunately, the prevailing belief that prejudice is bad causes us to deny its unavoidable reality.
Prejudice is foundational to understanding white fragility because suggesting that white people have racial prejudice is perceived as saying that we are bad and should be ashamed. We then feel the need to defend our character rather than explore the inevitable racial prejudices we have absorbed so that we might change them. In this way, our misunderstanding about what prejudice is protects it.
So, prejudice is thoughts and feelings. We all have those -- but I suppose DiAngelo’s definition means that someone raised in an environment that did not reinforce racial prejudices would not have them. Racial prejudice, therefore, is a learned not an innate phenomenon.
Discrimination is action based on prejudice. These actions include ignoring, exclusion, threats, ridicule, slander, and violence. For example, if hatred is the emotion we feel because of our prejudice, extreme acts of discrimination, such as violence may follow. These forms of discrimination are generally clear and recognizable. But if what we feel is more subtle, such as mild discomfort, the discrimination is likely to also be subtle, even hard to detect. Most of us can acknowledge that we do feel some unease around certain groups of people, if only a heightened sense of self-consciousness. But this feeling doesn’t come naturally. Our unease comes from living separate from a group of people while simultaneously absorbing incomplete or erroneous information about them. When the prejudice causes me to act differently -- I am less relaxed around you or I avoid interacting with you -- I am now discriminating. Prejudice always manifests itself in action because the way I see the world drives my actions in the world. Everyone has prejudice, and everyone discriminates. Given this reality, inserting the qualifier “reverse” is nonsensical.
So prejudice is thought and discrimination is action. That makes sense to me.
When a racial group’s collective prejudice is backed by the power of legal authority and institutional control, it is transformed into racism, a far-reaching system that functions independently from the intentions or self-images of individual actors. J. Kehaulani Kauanui, professor of American studies and anthropology at Wesleyan University, explains, “Racism is a structure, not an event.” American women’s struggle for suffrage illustrates how institutional power transforms prejudice and discrimination into structures of oppression. Everyone has prejudice and discriminates, but structures of oppression go well beyond individuals. While women could be prejudiced and discriminate against men in individual interactions, women as a group could not deny men their civil rights. But men as a group could and did deny women their civil rights. Men could do so because they controlled all the institutions. Therefore, the only way women could gain suffrage was for men to grant it to them; women could not grant suffrage to themselves.
There is the conscious workings of people and then there are the unconscious workings of the system that has been built or emerged. That’s the only caveat I would inject into DiAngelo’s definition of racism above. Yes, men can consciously hold women back, but so can the unconscious system that has been built and, to a certain extent, supported by the entire society. Indeed, in her suffrage example, change happened not when women attacked men, but when women stopped supporting the system that had been oppressing them. DiAngelo will make this very point next.
Similarly, racism -- like sexism and other forms of oppression -- occurs when a racial group’s prejudice is backed by legal authority and institutional control. This authority and control transforms individual prejudices into a far-reaching system that no longer depends on the good intentions of individual actors; it becomes the default of the society and is reproduced automatically. Racism is a system. And I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the intersection of race and gender in the example of suffrage; white men granted suffrage to women, but only granted full access to white women. Women of color were denied full access until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The system of racism begins with ideology, which refers to the big ideas that are reinforced throughout society. From birth, we are conditioned into accepting and not questioning these ideas. Ideology is reinforced across society, for example, in schools and textbooks, political speeches, movies, advertising, holiday celebrations, and words and phrases. These ideas are also reinforced through social penalties when someone questions an ideology and through the limited availability of alternative ideas. Ideologies are the frameworks through which we are taught to represent, interpret, understand, and make sense of social existence. Because these ideas are constantly reinforced, they are very hard to avoid believing and internalizing. Examples of ideology in the United States include individualism, the superiority of capitalism as an economic system and democracy as a political system, consumerism as a desirable lifestyle, and meritocracy (anyone can succeed if he or she works hard).
Any use of the word ideology is going to remind me of my experience of reading The Sublime Object of Ideology by Slavoj Zizek, in which he argues that ideology is not just a way of understanding reality, it is, in fact, a way of structuring reality. Sounds like DiAngelo would likely agree with that concept -- but it begs the larger question. When it comes to the ideology of racism, what is the sublime object that represents it, and what is the real object that can stand in opposition to it? Finding ways to bring that real object into prominence could be an effective way of combating it. Sounds like another dissertation I can write when I pursue my next doctorate.
The racial ideology that circulates in the United States rationalizes racial hierarchies as the outcome of a natural order resulting from either genetics or individual effort or talent. Those who don’t succeed are just not as naturally capable, deserving, or hardworking. Ideologies that obscure racism as a system of inequality are perhaps the most powerful racial forces because once we accept our positions within racial hierarchies, these positions seem natural and difficult to question, even when we are disadvantaged by them. In this way, very little external pressure needs to be applied to keep people in their places; once the rationalizations for inequality are internalized, both sides will uphold the relationship.
Racism is deeply embedded in the fabric of our society. It is not limited to a single act or person. Nor does it move back and forth, one day benefitting whites and another day (or even era) benefitting people of color. The direction of power between white people and people of color is historic, traditional, and normalized in ideology. Racism differs from individual racial prejudice and racial discrimination in the historical accumulation and ongoing use of institutional power and authority to support the prejudice and to systemically enforce discriminatory behaviors with far-reaching effects.
These definitions seem necessary to me -- that prejudice is thought, discrimination is individual action based on prejudicial thought, and racism is institutional action based on prejudicial ideology -- to any honest discussion of the subject. As with so many other difficult subjects, one should always first seek to ground the discussion in a set of common terms and definitions. With these understandings in place, it is much easier to move on to a shared interpretation of practical events. To wit:
People of color may also hold prejudices and discriminate against white people, but they lack the social and institutional power that transforms their prejudice and discrimination into racism; the impact of their prejudice on whites is temporary and contextual. Whites hold the social and institutional positions in society to infuse their racial prejudice into the laws, policies, practices, and norms of society in a way that people of color do not. A person of color may refuse to wait on me if I enter a shop, but people of color cannot pass legislation that prohibits me and everyone like me from buying a home in a certain neighborhood.
White Supremacy: The Hidden Ideology
I’m not sure I have my head wrapped completely around this one, but it is a fascinating idea.
In his book The Racial Contract, Charles W. Mills argues that the racial contract is a tacit and sometimes explicit agreement among members of the peoples of Europe to assert, promote, and maintain the ideal of white supremacy in relation to all other people of the world. This agreement is an intentional and integral characteristic of the social contract, underwriting all other social contracts. White supremacy has shaped a system of global European domination: it brings into existence whites and nonwhites, full persons and subpersons. It influences white moral theory and moral psychology and is imposed on nonwhites through ideological conditioning and violence. Mills says that “what has usually been taken … as the racist ‘exception’ has really been the rule; what has been taken as the ‘rule’ … [racial equality] … has really been the exception.”
Mills describes white supremacy as “the unnamed political system that has made the modern world what it is today.” He notes that although white supremacy has shaped Western political thought for hundreds of years, it is never named. In this way, white supremacy is rendered invisible while other political systems -- socialism, capitalism, fascism -- are identified and studied. In fact, much of white supremacy’s power is drawn from its invisibility, the taken-for-granted aspects that underwrite all other political and social contracts.
In other words, “white” is assumed to be the neutral structure against which all the other ideologies are opposed. But “white” is its own ideology, with no more claim to neutrality than the others. In many cases, DiAngelo’s own language falls victim to this assumption, even when she is trying to dispel it -- what, exactly, is a “white” anyway, other than an ideological golem at the center of white supremacy -- and that may be why her work has grown to be so vilified. But, whatever the challenges associated with fish seeing the water they are swimming in, this seems like an important understanding for people who have been advantaged by white supremacy to have:
Our umbrage at the term white supremacy only serves to protect the processes it describes and obscure the mechanisms of racial inequality. Still, I understand that the term is very charged for many white people, especially older white people who associate the term with extreme hate groups. However, I hope to have made clear that white supremacy is something much more pervasive and subtle than the actions of explicit white nationalists. White supremacy describes the culture we live in, a culture that positions white people and all that is associated with them (whiteness) as ideal. White supremacy is more than the idea that whites are superior to people of color; it is the deeper premise that supports this idea -- the definition of whites as the norm or standard for human, and people of color as a deviation from that norm.
The Rules of Engagement
Much of DiAngelo’s commentary is based on her role as a consultant and trainer on issues of racial and social justice. She is the person who goes into the dysfunctional workplace and engages people in the necessary but difficult questions about race.
It is in this practice that she first came to define the term white fragility. It refers to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially. As the back cover of her book helpfully explains, it is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence.
It was these experiences that prompted DiAngelo to draft the following “Rules of Engagement,” the edicts that seem to govern, unconsciously or otherwise, the defensive posture adopted by those expressing white fragility. In reading through them, I saw them not just as rules that create difficulties in our discussions on race, but more broadly as rules that create difficulties in our discussions on a wide range of social and political issues.
The rules could be phrased with the following preamble. If you wish to give me feedback without triggering me:
1. Do not give me feedback on my racism under any circumstances.
If you insist on breaking [this] cardinal rule, then you must follow these other rules:
2. Proper tone is crucial -- feedback must be given calmly. If any emotion is displayed, the feedback is invalid and can be dismissed.
3. There must be trust between us. You must trust that I am in no way racist before you can give me feedback on my racism.
4. Our relationship must be issue-free -- if there are issues between us, you cannot give me feedback on racism until these unrelated issues are resolved.
5. Feedback must be given immediately. If you wait too long, the feedback will be discounted because it was not given sooner.
6. You must give feedback privately, regardless of whether the incident occurred in front of other people. To give feedback in front of any others who were involved in the situation is to commit a serious social transgression. If you cannot protect me from embarrassment, the feedback is invalid, and you are the transgressor.
7. You must be as indirect as possible. Directness is insensitive and will invalidate the feedback and require repair.
8. As a white person, I must feel completely safe during any discussion of race. Suggesting that I have racist assumptions or patterns will cause me to feel unsafe, so you will need to rebuild my trust by never giving me feedback again. Point of clarification: when I say “safe,” what I really mean is “comfortable.”
9. Highlighting my racial privilege invalidates the form of oppression that I experience (e.g., classism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, transphobia). We will then need to turn our attention to how you oppressed me.
10. You must acknowledge my intentions (always good) and agree that my good intentions cancel out the impact of my behavior.
11. To suggest my behavior had a racist impact is to have misunderstood me. You will need to allow me to explain myself until you can acknowledge that it was your misunderstanding.
They describe a tight, little trap, don’t they? Now, go back and reread the list, substituting references to “racism” with “objectionable political opinions.” Isn’t it interesting how the rules seem to work equally well in both situations? In this regard, much of the population not only seems to suffer from white fragility, it also seems to suffer from a wider form of social and political fragility. After all, you, under no circumstances, are ever allowed to question or challenge my political sensibilities.
And to wrap up, I think rule number 9 is my “favorite.” That’s an odd way to phrase it, I know. But it truly is the one that’s best at defusing any uncomfortable situation. Black Lives Matter? No, ALL Lives Matter! Yes, of course, they do, but why do we have to make the discussion always about you? Why can’t we spend some time focusing on the oppression of others?
Oh, I know. It’s because of white supremacy, isn’t it?
+ + +
This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment