ESSAYS AND OTHER WRITINGS

Sometimes, it seems that the label “racist” gets thrown about too easily producing more resistance and dis-ease, than resolution, in the conversation about race. What would happen if we applied some simple tools to evaluate whether there is racism in our own thoughts and actions?

Progressives have changed the world over and over again since the beginning of recorded time. However, it seems that, in recent times, they have come up with slogans that seem to create resistance to the very thing that they are trying to accomplish. Is there another way?

A lot of people seem to believe that we are ready for a paradigmatic shift in race relations. But before making big changes, in order to avoid a backlash, we must read the people and listen to all points of view. My three brothers are fair minded, intelligent men who represent political opinions across a spectrum. You may not get all three to agree to the change that is needed for racial reform, but if you talk respectfully with all of them, you might learn something and it will serve well in the end.

Black people have been living in this country with the rest of us for 400 years. We all share this place we call home—the streets, the schools, the malls, and all the open spaces—but black people don’t experience the same feelings of freedom and safety that the larger white community takes for granted. Is there something to be seen here?

We all recoil when someone claims that we are in denial about racism, but when it happens, rather than becoming defensive, it might be a good idea to become curious. What might happen if we begin to look at those unspoken, unexamined thoughts that pass through so quickly, we don’t even know they are there?

Examining the language and expressions that we use every day can shine a light on the structure and content of our belief systems. Sometimes, we expose harmless bits of our history, but at other times, we bring to the light of day thoughts that diminish others as well as ourselves—thoughts that ultimately rob us of the opportunity and limit our ability to truly come to know others.

Sometimes, people replace old myths with new myths, hoping it will improve our society. But often it has the opposite impact, creating more pain and separation. If the underlying belief structure of a new myth is the same as an old myth, can we really call that progress?

It is a commonly held belief that people of different colors and cultures are a threat to what we have worked for, and that if we take action to reduce systemic racism in our society, it will be a sacrifice that white people are making for black people. Nothing could be further from the truth. Anything we collectively do to make our system more equitable will be for all of us, and of benefit to all.

For many, many decades, our nation has been plagued by the social and political structure established by slavery. Many support “reparations” as a solution, but is that really what is needed? What would it take to reset the relationship between Blacks and Whites, through a conversation of true reconciliation?

If we are going to take a journey, we must know where we are going, but more importantly, we must know where we are. There are 400 years of history here in America, but our modern history, the story of where we are, begins with the progress brought about by the Civil Rights Movement and the end of the Jim Crow Era.

Resetting the Relationship Following the Civil Rights Movement, a couple of practices—forced busing and Affirmative Action—helped move the country toward more balance of opportunity for all. Though good policy, these practices also left a few social scars, creating resistance and leaving some feeling that they were treated unfairly

The continued economic stagnancy of the last 40 years for the American middle class has left both Blacks and Whites with a lot of unmet expectations. Some of us have blamed these unmet expectations on others, which perpetuates misunderstandings and mistrust, and gets in the way of further progress. We do have the knowledge and the ability to move forward. The question is, do we have the will?

Although it may seem as though we have a long way to go before we get there, the arc of history is moving us toward a just and equitable society—a society that ensures that every child born in America will have fair access to all the resources required for their success. The only question is whether or not we are willing to actively engage in the conversations that will bring it about sooner, rather than later.

To get where we want to go—to a place of racial equity—we will have to spend some money, even though we can’t expect everyone to get on board with this idea. However, if we can create a vehicle that allows us to agree on the same set of facts that brought us to this day, we might improve our chances of getting where we want to go together.

Once we have created a resource that every American can count on to find and understand our shared history, we must make it accessible to those who would otherwise not read it, by way of a high-quality documentary series. In addition, we must establish a second board of scholars that we can all trust to identify a process by which to create an equitable society.

Names, titles, and assignments of character such a “Old Black Woman” and “Old White Man” can leave us relating to individual or shared stereotypes, rather than to the actual people in front of us. Who we relate to will often depend on how we define people, based on our own presumptions and memories. But what happens when we redefine who people can be?

As Americans, we have been struggling with our racial relationship for 400 years. But never before have our circumstances been so perfect to support the possibility of reconciling our differences, and building a society that provides equal opportunity and equitable justice for all. The time is now for a nationwide conversation that will bring about true progress.

Most of us have no idea what racial equity would look like in our society, and most of us don’t really think about it. Someday, it won’t be necessary to define it, because it will be obvious to all of us that it already exists. But that is not where we are today. Today, we need to appoint a group of people of great integrity who can define what an equitable society looks like, set markers to evaluate our progress, and guide us in achieving it.

The conversation regarding reparations has begun, and it has the potential to help bring about racial equity on many levels of our society. But if we get bogged down in an argument about individual compensation for the evils of slavery, the political enemies of fairness and equity will use it as a way to generate fear, and to stall progress toward true reconciliation and repair-ations. We can’t afford that!

We often let unexamined emotions like guilt and fear get in the way of looking at the facts. We defend what doesn’t need defending, unconsciously believing that we are accountable or responsible for things that happened before we were even born. The sad part of this is that we simply can’t acknowledge the reliable facts about the past that are impacting the present. There are those who have difficulty moving forward when those facts aren’t acknowledge, left with a chasm where trust should be. What would happen if we could just acknowledge the reliable facts?