I have just finished writing a book called Ten Rules for Talking. The basic idea is that while some kinds of conversations just flow, other kinds do better with a structure. Nobody needs rules to kick a ball about in the park with friends, but when things get more competitive and the pressure rises, rules help. It’s the same with talking.
When George Floyd was killed by a policeman kneeling on his neck, and a global discontent about overt and systemic racism exploded into a series of international debates and protests, I wondered what does a book about talking, written by a white man, have to say about that?
Ibram X. Kendi wrote a book, How To Be an Antiracist, in which he argues that there is no such thing as ‘non-racist’. He says you are either actively opposed to racism, or a racist. There is no neutral. Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote a book called, Why I Am No Longer Talking to White People About Race, which criticised the ‘non-racist’ white inability to see structural racism. Author of the upcoming book Black Magic Chad Sanders wrote an article in the New York Times saying of the current situation, ‘I Don’t Need “Love” Texts From My White Friends.’
Barak Obama pointed out that, compared to civil rights protests a generation ago, current protests have many more white participants. Obama saw this as a cause for optimism. But given the reservations of black authors like Kendi, Eddo-Lodge and Sanders, how can white people usefully get involved in a discussion about racism?
So You Want to Talk About Race
White attitudes to the problem of racism diverge along three key dimensions. These are first, the extent of racism, second, if the real problem is racism specifically, or inequality more generally, and third, white privilege and guilt.
Part of the problem of racism is implicit bias. This is the unconscious negative stereotyping of black people. Acknowledging the power of implicit bias can feel threatening. When white people claim that they ‘don’t see colour’, this is the racist influence that they are claiming to be unaffected by. But acknowledging a general and unconscious racist influence in society is completely different from being an individual racist. This influence is not chosen, and it affects everyone in society, not only white people. As ex-England footballer and anti-racism campaigner John Barnes says, it is only by seeing the influence that we gain power over it and can work to counter it. Implicit bias is pernicious in popular culture. It is reinforced by the visibility of white CEO’s and politicians, ‘white saviour’ charity videos, sports commentators talking about the ‘physicality’ rather than the skill of black athletes, or Hollywood movies that ignore black women.
This influence affects black people’s health and wealth in practical and measurable ways. It is also a subliminal influence that can marginally influence the daily attitudes and decisions of white employers, neighbours, doctors, police, and judges. This bias has an effect that compounds, so that multiple seemingly small slights can accumulate into a meaningful disadvantage.
Because this bias affects real-world outcomes, like wealth, income, employment, educational attainment, criminal justice and health, part of its effect is objectively measurable. Numerous reputable media outlets have recently highlighted the facts of this stark reality. The unmeasurable part – what it feels like to be subject to this bias – is hard for white people to appreciate, because we do not experience it. Only a very small minority of white people are consciously racist, but for the majority that are not, one important topic of conversation is about the existence and the extent of this implicit or unconscious bias.
The second dimension along which white people differ is whether racism or inequality is the main problem. Almost everybody believes in fairness. (Even most unapologetic racists believe in fairness - they just mistakenly believe that racism is fair.) Most white people are concerned and saddened that black people experience inequality across a wide range of measures of prosperity and wellbeing. Only the ‘skunks of the world’ (to borrow a phrase from Nelson Mandela) would begrudge black people equality, and most white people do believe that black people should receive equal treatment.
Despite this concern, many white people are unaware of the extent of the inequality that black people face in supposedly non-racist societies like the US or the UK. This is where the growing awareness of the concept of systemic racism is a useful contribution to the conversation, because it undermines an excuse about unequal outcomes between races – that even if black people do not have equal outcomes, they do at least have equal opportunity (they don’t).
Also, many white people believe that the inequality that black people experience is best addressed by tackling inequality generally, rather than racism specifically. Tory Health Secretary Matt Hancock revealed this preference to talk about ‘injustice’ rather than racism when he was asked if he considered the UK to be racist. He replied: ‘I don't, but I do think that there is injustice that needs to be tackled, and I think that we are one of the most tolerant and open societies in the world.’
But is racism really just a subcategory of inequality or injustice? Would improving economic inequality (which almost everybody believes to be a good thing) also solve the insult and the injury of racism? This question cannot be answered without a good understanding of the facts and the lived experience of racial prejudice.
Many white people feel that the growth in economic inequality and the decline in social mobility in the US and the UK over the last 40 years has not been fair to them. When we evaluate if the world is fair to us, our judgement is affected by whether we compare ourselves to people more or less privileged than us. This is another contributor to divergence in white attitudes about the reasons for, and the solutions to, the unfairness of racial inequality.
The third dimension along which white people differ is acceptance of shame or privilege. To take myself as an example, in addition to being a white male, I am South African, and lived my formative years during the height of apartheid, with all the benefits that accrued to white people, and the consequent disadvantages borne by black people in that system. But it feels difficult for me to talk about being privileged. A brief mention can sound clichéd (“I am so aware of my privilege”), but going into too much detail could sound like boasting, or rubbing it in. Chad Sanders says that he does not want to get texts like the following from his white friends. “I’m sorry. I think I’m tired; meanwhile I’m sleeping in my Snuggie of white privilege. I love you and I’m here to fight and be useful in any way I can be. **Heart emojis**”
Admitting shame or guilt is complex. If white people as a group committed (and commit) acts of unfairness, how am I individually accountable? Could I ask a black person to forgive me? Or to forgive white people generally? But for what? That’s a big request to make of someone.
Many white people, like many people of other ethnicities, derive part of their individual identity from their ethnicity and their cultural histories. They feel invested in and protective of this identity in a way that other white people with a more cosmopolitan (‘metropolitan’) identity may find hard to understand. From one perspective, apologising for racial injustice could feel like ‘apologising for being white’. But from another point of view, seeing the bad parts of our cultural legacy lets us see the good parts also. We need to talk about how to feel shame and pride in a white identity.
Using 10 Rules for Talking
Rule 9 of the 10 Rules is ‘Listen’. If you want to understand the facts and the experience of racism, listening is a good place to start. Rule 7, ‘Use Rigor’, could remind us to get a good grip of the facts of systemic racism. Rule 2 is about accepting that talking is difficult. South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission invested time, energy and courage into recalling a history of pain and wrongdoing, so that it could be left in the past.
Rule 8 is ‘Use Complexity’. It is quite possible to be simultaneously privileged because of your race, and disadvantaged because of your class. The balance of advantage and disadvantage is quite individual. I don’t have a posh accent, I worry about money, and my children, and the future, and probably so do you. But Rule 10, ‘Reach Out’, could remind us to use our partial experience of being disadvantaged to try to gain respect for, rather than deny, what may be the more significant experience of others.
As a teenager in South Africa, even in the depths of apartheid, I always felt hopeful about the direction of the ‘arc of history’. The negotiated transition to democracy in the 1990s bore out this optimism. But when I read the news today, one of the things I worry about is whether the world that my almost adult children are emerging into is a better or worse place than the world that I grew up in.
But I remain confident of some things. I believe that talking to each other is still our best hope for positive change. I am made hopeful by the growing awareness of the difference between overt oppression, such as apartheid, and the more covert oppression of systemic racism. Everybody celebrated the end of overt oppression. By when do we wish to end covert oppression? Nelson Mandela spoke of how black and white people shared the pain of the damage of racial conflict, and how oppression robs not only the oppressed, but also the oppressor, of their dignity. Race and racism is an important, difficult conversation, for everybody. Let’s have it.
Comments