The Ugly Horror for All Americans Lurking Behind Abstract Language: Institutional Racism
I am currently working with a small group of Democrats to increase diversity within the Multnomah County Democratic Party. Since we haven’t written our mission statement, I can’t be more specific, but I can tell you how I am working with other organizations to achieve a similar result. Before I do, that I am going to do two things to “get you in the mood” to think about this problem. First, I ask you to contemplate the landscape outlined by the quote that I shared in my last essay concerning the now infamous remark of Reagan political strategist, Lee Atwater:
“You start out in 1954 by saying, [n-word, n-word, n-word]. By 1968 you can’t say [n-word] — that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites… ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than [n-word, n-word]”
For those who understand that Institutional Racism includes things like redlining, racist covenants in property deeds, and the systematic underfunding of schools attended by minority students, these are still abstract economic pronouncements, to use Atwater’s words. Even those who are the direct victims may fail to realize the true nature of the theft that befell them. I ask that you next stop and take 2:49 to let the words of Aamer Rahman’s comedy routine, “Reverse Racism,” sink in. If you prefer, read the transcript.
My “woke” readers know many stories that show the cruelty and immorality of institutional racism, but for most of us the concepts are abstract. For those who ARE African-American, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran, Haitian, Somali — the list is much longer — most of us have some visceral connection to the feelings of fear, marginalization, and despair created by institutional racism.
I am going to focus your attention on the words of Lee Atwater in such a way that you will feel the depth of his contempt for African-Americans. I suspect that every reporter in the room where Atwater made these off-the-record remarks was white — all complicit in guarding Atwater’s feelings about niggers. (It hurts me to use such language, but in the era of the grab-em-by-the pussy president’s pronouncements about shithole countries, you need to know that the Reagan White House was every bit as intentionally racist as the current administration — they just knew how to watch their language when speaking on the record.)
Far too many Americans have been, and are still, seduced by the abstract language Atwater recommended that Republicans use in undermining government services. Compare the arguments even Democrats often use to oppose policies that would strengthen the social safety net, raise the minimum wage, adequately tax corporations and the rich, or force us to more quickly wean ourselves off of fossil fuels.
Compare the abstract language about these issues with the tents and tarps that thousands of Portlanders are living in, the senior citizens standing forlornly with their signs begging at freeway off-ramps, traumatized children acting out in Kindergarten classrooms while lack of support staff forces the rest of the class to clear the room, people being denied health care at the behest of insurance companies — the list is long and ugly and, much like our president’s rhetoric, it has become normal for us.
This abstract language allows a minimum wage so low that a person making minimum wage in Portland grosses less than $1800/month and pays taxes on about half of it, wages so low that fulltime workers need government subsidized health care and food stamps — the “entitlements” that need “reform,” there are many who say that taxes are still too high, despite our crumbling infrastructure and crises in the foster care system, the adult guardian system, community policing, public education — add some of your own favorite funding crises.
Some of the language is much worse than simply “abstract.” We pay into a fund for Social Security — our employers do as well, so calling this “an entitlement” and causing people to believe that those benefits are unearned is misleading. If you are a compassionate person, you are probably sad and uncomfortable right now. Please forgive me for exposing you to this, but as Martin Luther King said, “It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people.” This is no time to stand on the sidelines; your silence provides comfort to those who think of themselves as my enemies.
So many of us see at least some of the injustices that our system has created — some the legacies of Native American Genocide and Slavery, others the result of inheriting the colonial mantle from the destroyed countries of Spain, England, and France after WWII. If you think things are bad in the US, look at how the desire of multinational corporations to plunder the resources of the developing world has led to deforestation, desertification, and poverty, as well as the decimation of Indigenous Peoples who try to stand up to the onslaught. There are things we can do.
Until we confront institutional racism, we will always be susceptible to dog whistle politics, to use a contemporary turn of phrase. I am in the midst of trying to figure out how one confronts this; actually, I believe I know how to confront this — I need to figure out how to convince others that there is a path to do so.
When I think of our most pressing problems, I think of the ones that may render human beings extinct — or at least kill many more of us that we imagine possible. Such catastrophes will not spare members of privileged classes. Nuclear, biological, and chemical war, global climate collapse, and/or global ecosystem collapse are my top priorities. Unfortunately, until we begin to have unequivocally extreme events — forest fires, hurricanes, and tornadoes are larger but still only forest fires, hurricanes, and tornados — we have nothing but abstract language to alert a populace much more interested in entertainment. It was only a few weeks ago that stories in the mainstream media compared the political alliances of the day to the situation the day before the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and the onset of World War One. At this point you may be wondering what I think can or should be done about institutional racism.
In a teachers’ group, I am advocating for shining light on the disparate treatment of white versus minority teachers, disparate discipline for students of color, the way Portland Public Schools has overcrowded schools serving historically white neighborhoods and dramatically under-enrolled schools in historically minority neighborhoods. We are actively interrogating Portland Public Schools Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero’s recent announcements about a renewed commitment to equity, juxtaposed with the termination of the Equity Department at the central office, while cringing at his referring to his efforts as “Equity 2.0.”
In the Dems group, I am working to attract people of color — who overwhelmingly vote Democratic but are dramatically underrepresented in party leadership and administration. The idea that I hope our group adopts is to attract the leaders of community organizations to our group and asking them what we can do to make their followers welcome. Just as the teachers union asks members to be delegates to Representative Assemblies, the Dems are governed by the members of Precinct Committees — each voting precinct is “led” by a committee whose members vote on all party business.
Of course, many of you don’t have the time or energy to provide such leadership in your community. So, the most important things you can do include, (but certainly aren’t limited to): be a good parent — raising and educating the next generation of human beings is one of the most important jobs on the planet — so you can also be a teacher, be a good neighbor and, most important of all… Be Peace. In my next offering, I will begin to explore the power harnessed by Mahatma Gandhi to win India’s independence from the British Empire and by Martin Luther King to win passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
