Let’s Get Started
Over these past several years beginning with Trump’s election in 2016 many of us who are well meaning and white have been shocked by the fact that so many Americans voted for someone who was clearly a demagogue, a white supremacist and just all around horrible person. How in the world did that happen we asked ourselves. Aren’t we a post racist society? Hadn’t the majority of voters elected Barack Obama to the presidency not once, but twice? For many of us Trump’s presidency was unfathomable.
And yet there were some people on the left who were not shocked at all. Carol Anderson, the Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University and author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Nation’s Divide, says in that book that the predominantly conservative white response to Obama’s presidency was predictable, part of a long, sad history of white backlash against Black progress. Many other Black Americans saw it coming as well.
Yes, Obama made some missteps but nothing white presidents haven’t done and worse. For many conservative white voters, though, for a Black man and his family — people they considered inferior to themselves simply because of their race — to occupy the White House was not to be tolerated. Trump hammered home the coming demographic shift with white people being the minority in the near future, and convinced these people that the very worst things that could possibly happen to them and their families would happen unless they voted for him. He said he alone could prevent that. They believed him and swept him into the White House.
Their ardor for him never cooled. Whatever he told them to do, they did. And when he lost the election last year he told them them he had actually won and was being forced out because the election was rigged. He told them it was their patriotic duty to go to the Capitol and fight for him. They did.
Have you seen the pictures of the masses of people outside the Capitol that day? If all of them had rushed the Capitol, overrun the police completely and thus allowed the paramilitary groups to kill at will, all of Trump’s enemies with the exception of Biden, would be dead, the coup successful and Trump would be dictator for life.
We MUST NOT give Trump and his army a second chance. So what can we do? I believe it is in our power to prevent a Trump re election and that we can do so long before we vote in the 2024 election and even perhaps before the midterms. How? Given that racist hate is behind Trump’s allure what we can do is puncture that racist hate. Maybe we can’t convince Trump’s base to give up their hate directly but there may be another path.
To understand that path I pose a question. Do you think that Trump would have become president if more of us well meaning white people had dismantled the systemic racism that continues unabated to this day? If we had collectively and actively worked to create economic and environmental justice? If we had worked to end mass incarceration and the casual murder of Black people disguised as traffic stops? I think the answer to those questions is no. I think our ignorance regarding systemic racism contributed to Trump’s rise. We didn’t speak up when people we knew said racist things. Many of us didn’t know the uglier parts of our history — I certainly didn’t — or even see racism as our concern. After all, we weren’t racist…It was them…..
It turns out we were wrong. We are racist, just passively so. Many of us have Black friends or family and go out of our way to treat individual Black people with respect. Nevertheless we perpetuate racism which is systemic and from which we benefit enormously. We perpetuate the system unconsciously and without harmful intent but the effect is just as damaging.
This is hard for most of us to hear. I get it. We want to see ourselves as good people. Yet it may be helpful to understand that we white people grew up in a deeply racist society and it is inevitable that those racist attitudes would influence us. And, while we can’t undo what we were told or what was modeled, we can now read and think about and challenge those older beliefs. Further,we can engage in anti racist actions that will dismantle the systemic racism that so poisons our society. Ijeoma Oluo,the author of So You Want to Talk About Race, says it best: … you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti racist. Anti racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it,including in yourself. And it is the only way forward.
So what are some anti racist actions you can take immediately? First read and educate yourself about the deliberately hidden history of racism in the United States and how that hidden history and the current vise of systemic racism is holding back the progress of Black people now. The two books I have referenced here are a good place to start that education. Once you have educated yourself and have committed to continuing that education via books, podcasts, etc., then the following are anti racist actions you can take immediately to push back hate:
* Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Accept to the degree that you can that you are part of the web of systemic racism. Listen every time to your Black friends when they talk about their experiences with racism and Validate what they say and feel.
* Direct your white peers toward Black perspectives (follow and engage with Black authors, scientists and/or activists on social media
* Consistently challenge yourself and other white people within your sphere of influence to think critically about how they see race/racism.
* If possible, get yourself into a position of power where you can change racist policies at the local level (school board, your business, your city).
* Support Black economic progress by buying services and goods from Black businesses on a consistent, monthly basis. Also donate monthly to Black activist organizations like Color of Change and Black Lives Matter.
* Work to open voting rights to all. Fair Fight, the organization begun and maintained by Stacey Abrams, is a leader in this effort.
* If you are a parent, make sure your family engages often with your Black friends and their families.
* Protest and march and/or support others who are doing so with child care help or contributing first aid supplies and food.
* Create art, poetry, essays, etc. that spread the anti racist message against hate and share it all generously on social media.
In conclusion, reading and learning and then talking about racism including our own racism is not racist. In fact, it is the best way to normalize the topic and to assess our own and others’ assumptions and attitudes about race. Talking about racism and doing anti racist actions in a public way can allow people within our wider sphere of influence to reassess attitudes and assumptions about race that they may have held for years. We can each find a niche where we can be the most helpful in spreading awareness about the systemic nature of racism. It is our responsibility as white people of good faith to do so. We are on the clock. Let’s get started.
