The Myth of the Racist
What is racism? Our folk history — mythology at best — treats racism as the product of the mythical racist: the white-robed KKK burning crosses, the slaveowner with a whip in his hand and “nigger” on the tip of his tongue, the lone vigilante shooting up black churches. This mythology serves a simple purpose: shift the burden of racism away from the society to the individual.
But racism is not a lone individual with rage and hatred in his heart. Racism is not about the racist. Racism is an institution of oppression that permeates every aspect of society.
When we reduce racism to something so simple and caricatured, we allow society to pass the buck on its role in inequality by pointing to its most egregious examples and saying “I’m not like that, so therefore, I can’t be a racist”
It is this fantasy which allows Michael Richards to one night yell
Throw his ass out! He’s a nigger! He’s a nigger! He’s a nigger! A nigger, look there’s a nigger!
and then the next day say “I’m not a racist, that’s what’s so insane about this” in a rambling justification that includes such choice words as “the blacks” and “Afro-Americans”, dancing around the word ‘racist’ with phrases like “those kinds of remarks”.
Why does this happen? Because we have scapegoated the word racist to refer to the vilest of the vile, allowing us to ignore the complicity of America as a whole in the racist inequalities that plague us to this day. As long as white America’s idea of the racist can be reduced to a country hick with simple ideas and deep-seated biases, they will never be able to see how their own actions contribute to racism on a consistent and systemic basis.
My alma mater Brentwood School — a school with only 3 black 10th graders out of 120 total — is currently grappling with the racist actions of a number of its students. Those students posted a video of a boat party wherein a group of white boys and girls laugh and sing along to a song which prominently features a certain racist slur.
Let us be 100% clear. The actions of these students are deplorable and undeniably racist. The n-word harkens back to a time when rampant, open displays of racism were legal, common, and socially tolerated, to a time when black men were lynched for *talking* to white women. In those times, the word was in and of itself an action of power: an inviolable declaration that the recipient was less than the utterer.
This nature separates slurs from other taboo words, elevating them from merely offensive to oppressive. Their use is an act of dehumanization; a reminder that white supremacy has access to a form of emotional assault that will never have an appropriate form of retaliation.
To Brentwood’s credit, their response was swift and well in line with the progressive values I remember from my time there. In a statement that has since been removed, they said:
We are investigating this insensitive behavior, will address the situation directly, and will respond seriously…We will do more. We will reflect on our response as a school administration and identify what Brentwood can do better in the future to help all of our students understand the harm that this type of conduct causes to themselves, to others, and to the community.
If only the story ended there. In this day and age, I can’t even begin to understand what would make anybody argue that this insensitive display is anything but racist. And yet as though drawn to the word “racism” like a moth to a flame, many alumni and community members could not help but deliver their many hot takes as to how this whole situation was a part of our ridiculous sensitivity to issues of race.
I feel bad for the school and the negative publicity
It’s hard to think of a more clear form of racism than having more concern for extremely privileged kids getting negative publicity than for the black students in that school environment. One alumnus went so far as to suggest that the stigma against white Americans using the n-word was its own form of racism, and compared it to racial segregation:
White kids can only sing along to white music, and vice versa? Sounds like the “separate but equal” drinking fountains.
Why can’t white America accept that actions like that are “racist”? Because to do so aligns them with the boogeyman of their past. To acknowledge that “regular” people could do something racist requires them to internalize the lesson that PoC confront every day:
White supremacy is not a departure from America’s image as a shining city on a hill. It is the blood in the foundation stones, the bones under the hill.
In fact, it is often the minor, everyday actions of racism which have the largest impact, because they normalize racial insensitivity. A racist action is not an indictment of irredeemable evil, but merely one stone in the foundations. However, it can also be a moment for learning. That learning is all the more important at nigh-segregated schools like Brentwood School, with many students — from powerful and influential families — who will go on to be the movers and shakers of the world.
It is my hope that the administration, faculty, and even the students will take this moment as exactly such: a chance to realize that its insular privilege is sheltering its students from basic cultural competence regarding racial minorities.
Brentwood has a great opportunity as an institution of learning to teach its students about the historical and modern impact of racism. In doing so, it can teach its students not only how to avoid being implicit bystanders in the institution of racism, but how turn their position of privilege into a powerful bastion against it.
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