In early October, a group of about 30 people spent 2½ days at Grand Portage Lodge and Casino talking about how racism in America has impacted our entire society. Its lasting effects can still be seen in institutional practices and continue to filter down into individual lives.
The workshop, presented by The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond of New Orleans, is designed to facilitate critical analysis of systemic oppression, empowering people to organize for social transformation and self-determination. The goal is a long-term paradigm shift that will empower people of all colors.
We must see color
Many “WMWFs” (well-meaning white folks) believe that trying to ignore color is a noble way to fix the problem of racism. Part of the work, however, said John Morrin of Grand Portage, a long-time trainer with the People’s Institute, is for each of us to be conscious of our own reactions to issues related to color.
“If you don’t see color,” said workshop presenter Deena Hayes of Greensboro, North Carolina, “then you’re not going to be able to track disparity.”
Parents can be uncomfortable talking about race. Children are sometimes taught that it’s racist to notice race, but this silences them from talking about it, Hayes said. Children are taught to categorize and classify things, and one way to do that is to sort things by color. Not talking with children about race can promote racial bias.
If you sent all the bigoted, prejudiced people to live on the moon, however, Hayes said, leaving all the WMWFs on earth, you would still have institutional racism.
The problem with institutions
In a typical low-income neighborhood populated largely with people of color, institutions that exist to help the community are often counterproductive. “We’ve made people dependent on our institutions,” Hayes said.
Institutions such as education, law enforcement, government, health care, nonprofit charities, social services, and churches may meet individual needs but don’t necessarily help improve the status of a community as a whole. For example, “nonprofits don’t fund social change work,” said workshop presenter Cheryl Bowman of Duluth. “They fund social service work.”
The languages (or variations thereof) children speak in their communities are legitimate languages, said Hayes, but they are often seen as deficits in the schools.
In law enforcement, a lot of money is sometimes spent prosecuting lesser crimes while violent crimes go unsolved.
Social service providers often operate under a belief that there is only one proper way for families to operate, and they don’t always value the assets families bring to the table, such as help from extended family. Temporary fixes are sometimes applied without addressing underlying problems.
People who work for institutions often end up speaking for their clientele and interpreting the reality of their clientele without their clientele having a voice in the process. Listening to the voices in the community before making decisions and promoting leadership from within the community are vital to undoing racism, said Bowman.
Finding solutions
“Racism impacts all of us,” said Bowman. “It impacts our humanity. …There’s no quick fix. This isn’t going to be solved in our lifetime, but we still need to work on this issue.”
Silence means we’re consenting to the injustice that allows a certain portion of the population to retain power, she said. “We need to speak out, and we need to be able to take some risks.”
“Whiteness goes unexamined and remains invisible,” said Hayes. To undo racism, we have to go back to where we started so we know how we got there. Overcoming racism will require new perspectives on history and culture. Sometimes we try to fix a problem with someone when our diagnosis is wrong in the first place, said Hayes. We cannot solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it, she said, and one helpful change would be for more whites to come to a better understanding of the advantages they have inherited as whites.
Quoting a German theologian, Bowman said, “I’m responsible for the house I didn’t build but I live in….”
Morrin shared another quote: “We might have come over in different ships, but we’re all in the same boat together now.”
This was the last in a three-part series on issues discussed at an Undoing Racism workshop held October 3-5, 2011 at Grand Portage Lodge and Casino.
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