Race Reflections Revisited

When I published my recent essay, Race Reflections, I assumed there would be pushback. It’s a charged topic. Very many Americans, including the microscopic circle reached through my social media, feel rightly concerned with overcoming racial divisions that remain as a consequence of America’s history and politics. In observing conversations on race, however, I have noticed a kind of unspoken rule. When a white person engages on the topic of race with anything other than some iteration of white people should decry Systemic Racism and its legacy of harm, many take it as de facto evidence that the person hasn’t “done the work” of interrogating their privilege, which is to say, discovering their ignorance about the challenges endemic to being black in America.

Let me state for the record that I believe doing that work is valuable. Pursued sincerely and thoughtfully, learning about the struggles and pain of other people, particularly those unlike oneself, serves to build empathy. This lays the ground for participating usefully in efforts to create positive change.

Yet, I think this apparent “rule for white people” involves an assumption that, itself, needs interrogating.

The rule presumes a specific response to signal a personal racial reckoning has been actualized. Namely: a white person who critically examines black reality contrasted against their own white experience becomes humbled into deference on all claims against their race. Any speech, therefore, that does not default to amplifying the accepted narrative of black oppression at the hands of Systemic Racism (which is now recognized as “Whiteness”) is heard as proof that the speaker has failed to perceive our racial reality, fumbled their social and moral inventory by having entrenched themselves too deeply in denial, in justifications; they have remained too blinded by their own Whiteness to understand the scope of its privilege, its harmful impact in society.

Attached to that presumption I see a corollary: that true empathy for black struggle is demonstrated through championing that narrative. The idea that a white person, from genuine understanding and concern, might reach different conclusions about how best to consider and respond to black struggle — conclusions that do not reflect the deference and activism pre-scripted by the Privileged/Oppressed narrative — seems inconceivable.

Additionally, one of the proofs I often see advanced to indicate a white person’s empathy is sufficiently actualized is found in the declaration of personal connection to people of color. The assumption here seems to be that meaningful empathy is born of a correct understanding, which itself is legitimized by personally knowing black people who attest to their struggle. I see this as an intriguing twist on the verboten claim that having black friends signals a white person is not racist. Of course, that claim tends to be rejected by the same people who suggest knowing black people who feel oppressed validates their viewpoint as correctly enlightened. My question in response is: What if you’re listening to people of color who don’t feel oppressed?

One of the things I’ve found most striking in our ongoing conversation about racism and privilege is how easily the people who insist that voices of color must be sought, heard, and heeded discount any such voices that reject the narrative of endemic racial suffering. Black and brown people who refuse to regard themselves as victims of Systemic Racism, who reject the notion that their well-being and success hinge on white people finally reckoning with their prejudices, are either ignored or derided as race traitors.

Let’s stop and think about that. If you are a black person and refuse to regard yourself — or your fellow black Americans — as so disadvantaged by your skin color that you can’t overcome obstacles or make progress through your own choices, if you refuse to perceive yourself or other black people as beholden to the white conscience and its benevolence, if you resist or push back against the accepted role of hapless, helpless victim of a system designed to oppress you, then, effectively, “You ain’t black!” (to borrow Joe Biden’s infamous phrasing). Or at least, not black enough to matter.

Indeed, in my own exploration of black perspectives on race, which I started in earnest after George Floyd’s death, this is the point where I’ve noticed the most concentrated focus of black frustration regarding the dominant “woke” story of The Privileged Versus The Oppressed. It caught my attention in a video by YoungRippa59, which is a YouTube name for media personality and outspoken Libertarian commentator, Eric D. July. At the time, I hadn’t heard of July. But a few weeks into the nationwide protests over George Floyd’s death I was startled to see a scruffy, street-wise looking black man denouncing the Black Lives Matter movement. So I clicked play, and at twenty-three minutes into the video he said something that brought a vague thought I’d had into crystal focus:

When I was banging, you know, getting in all these fights and stuff like that, doing things that . . . had me on the path to being dead or in jail — just like a lot of the people I grew up with — never once was I accused of not being black, or being “white-washed,” “Uncle Tom” . . . I never was accused of that. Never once was I accused. It wasn’t until I dropped what I was as a leftist, from a political side of things, stopped begging for acceptance and all that sort of loser stuff — that’s when they said that.

So what does that say? What does that say? Because I choose not to align myself with that, what does that say? I could go beat up, kill — all that — other black people, terrorize, steal from other black people, and they feel like that’s, that’s what it is to be black.

That in itself shows you it’s a cultural problem. That they don’t want to address because it would require responsibility. And when I say they don’t want to address it I’m not saying there aren’t people who aren’t addressing it, I’m saying that when they look at all of these different things, they treat people like there’s nothing they can do to better their own situations. It’s “I’m the victim”. . . they act as if everything is not their fault. They’re in their situation — and I’m not saying there aren’t people that are actually victims of things — but to sit here, and I’m not willing to do that, sit here and pretend like all black people are innocent, just getting the short end of the stick due to “oppression,” or the history, the legacy of slavery? Like, C’mon dog! No. Lotta y’all in positions you got exactly what you deserve and it’s what you doing, what the folks within your community are doing. But that again requires responsibility. It requires agency.

I know some of that sounds harsh. And political. (Like I said, he’s a vocal Libertarian.) But what struck me about his perspective is that he isn’t someone who can be dismissed as ignorant about poverty, naive about the hardships and hurdles of growing up amidst the crime and violence of the streets. He lived it. He was a participant in it, and while living that life was wholly accepted as a member of his race. Think about that. No one thought to question his belonging in his community, or his allegiance to it, while he engaged in a life of crime and violence that victimized the people in it. It wasn’t until he rejected the destructiveness of that existence, along with the narrative of helplessness and victimhood that underwrites it, that his black bonafides were suddenly doubted. His rejection of street life and the mentality that perpetuates and excuses it got him stigmatized as “white-washed,” denounced as any kind of credible voice for the African American underclass, as having no legitimate standing to speak to their challenges.

I’d say that is a significant problem which needs some deep scrutiny.

Because this isn’t a one-off instance. It is a clear, hard-to-miss pattern. Any black American  — especially with an audience  — who rejects the prevailing “black oppression” narrative, is instantly discounted in the Antiracist handbook as “too white” to understand black pain. A traitor to their race. And from what I have seen, it can’t be neatly explained by the “hard-hearted conservative” versus “caring liberal” trope, despite often being framed that way in legacy media and Left intellectual circles. Because it doesn’t matter where on the Left-Right spectrum the black person speaks from or whether they’ve supported Democrats their entire life. If they don’t subscribe to the story of systemic white racism holding black Americans down, they are either ignored, ridiculed, or dismissed as a viable voice for black advancement. And what I find so inexplicable is that it makes no difference whether they personally have raised themselves out of disadvantaged, even violent circumstances to security and success. In our nation’s ongoing racial conversation they are routinely disregarded by the people who claim to care the most, discounted as lacking standing to address the situation of struggling black Americans.

The reason for this seems obvious in that most of these individuals, as demonstrated by July’s quote above, call out entrenched attitudes and self-defeating habits within parts of African American culture that they perceive as perpetuating cycles of poverty, crime, and violence. Indeed, one central position these black dissenters share is that among the most pernicious problems plaguing poor black communities are dysfunctional attitudes towards agency and victimhood. What is notable to me is the degree to which the Privileged/Oppressed narrative promoted throughout our society, often by earnest white “allies,” elevates the story of black victimhood and elides the concept of black agency. Or put another way, the concept of human agency among black Americans. We need to ask ourselves: Why? Who among us is actually helped by immersing themselves in a story of victimhood? By embracing a perception of powerlessness over their life or their circumstances?

I think the answer to that is complicated. Because racism is real and victimization is real, and victims need real recognition, support, and assistance. Yet it’s also true that the perception of being a victim can develop into a mindset that solidifies and expands into a self-limiting reality. As such, distinguishing actual from perceived injury, especially in one’s own life, is a critical challenge. It marks the difference between strength and weakness, between the possibility of empowerment and the path of defeat. And that is where my original concerns were directed regarding the distortions that can be created by relying on a racial filter to view and process one’s life experiences.

Based on the pushback I received from that essay, however, it seems my questioning the reliance on a racial lens was heard as rejecting it as ever appropriate or legitimate. I had attempted to forestall this possibility by way of the following (emphasis now added):

On the one hand I see the obvious value in becoming aware of the ways in which individuals experience the world differently . . . quite unevenly . . . because of the circumstances into which they are born. That includes the color of their skin. Empathy is undeniably key to recognizing and advancing justice — socially, politically, and morally.

Also:

. . . no, I am not suggesting we turn a blind eye to unambiguously racist incidents, that we pretend such things no longer exist. They do.

My point, perhaps not made clearly enough, was to acknowledge there are genuine challenges to navigating society as a racial minority which need our honest recognition and attention. Understanding the deep dynamics and consequences of prejudice is crucial to righting wrongs, to upholding our American ethic of justice for all.

Yet, it is now the ambiguous incidents and the statistical disparities we are called to label and decry as indisputable evidence of the pernicious “Whiteness” baked into American life. In other words, we are urged to err on the side of presuming grievance, of concluding that a heritage of ingrained discrimination explains all gaps between white and BIPOC Americans rather than parse out causal factors that could prove unconnected to skin pigmentation or any legacy it confers. It seems that if we wish to participate as a serious person in the conversation on race, we are expected to adopt a totalizing filter that frames all our human experiences through the lens of collective power and privilege   for anyone white,  and collective injustice and injury for anyone not.

But I refuse.

I believe it is damaging to individuals and dangerous for society, and I reject the idea that it is the only way a white person can demonstrate they are appropriately self-aware, caring, and informed. In fact, having spent the past year reading and listening frequently to people of color from many sectors of society, including “the hood,” who express concerns about that approach to solving injustice, I see clear reason to reject the racial lens. And yes, that last sentence offers the barest sampling of perspectives from POC, mostly black Americans, whose views on race-related issues are too easily disqualified because they don’t follow the Privileged/Oppressed script now being mainstreamed as The Story of America, of Western society itself.

Yet if you take the time to read or watch even a few of those links you will find these individuals don’t march in lockstep. They come from a wide variety of backgrounds and political perspectives. Yet they share one thing in common. They do not believe progress will be achieved by emphasizing racial divides and elevating differences, or by displacing the truth of our common struggle against adversity with reductive narratives of victimhood and oppression — by demoting personal agency as an empowering path to growth, the means forward for all of us. 

Perhaps it can go without saying, but I’ll make this final point. I do not offer that handful of voices because I agree with everything put forward by those individuals; I literally can’t since they contradict each other plenty. I am bringing them here on principle, as perspectives worthy of consideration in our conversation on race and healing. Because if we can all agree that black lives matter — and I think we do — then their voices should, too.