When I wrote this I was in the Berkshires, in that little tail end that peeks into New York and stops before it gets to the Hudson River. There was snow in the woods! Not tons of it but a blanket thick enough for snowshoeing or cross country skiing. Having neither, I just looked at the puffy white comforter spread beneath the bare red oaks and hemlocks and smiled.
On the drive over I had a lot of time to think, which is one of the benefits of going on retreat. I kept trying to decide which of the Ten Commandments was most violated by racism. It is a bit tricky.
I only have five hundred words here, actually three hundred and seventy five now, so cut me some slack on simplification. There are various forms of racism — individual, interpersonal, institutional, structural to name a few. But let’s keep it at individual racism to apply The Commandments.
Individual racism consists of beliefs, attitudes, and actions that support or further racism whether consciously or unconsciously. For white people, being racist is just part of being white. Why? Because participating in, benefiting from, or acting in ways that perpetuate white privilege — even when we intellectually don’t think it should exist — is racist. Many of us don’t want to be, but we are; and many of us want to be, and are. Which of the Ten Commandments is it breaking? Did you figure it out yet?
Does it even really matter? Clearly as a society we don’t think too much of the Ten Commandments any more. Every day there are millions of fathers and mothers who aren’t honored and the neglect and abuse of elders is everywhere. But also the rampant disregard of older citizens simply because they are old. Adultery too, is infused into movies, books, and narratives of all sorts in every corner of the culture. That must reflect a certain propensity to practice it as well. HGTV is an entire network based on coveting what your neighbor has, and all the other networks have copycat shows too. There is no Sabbath any more either. Soccer, hockey, AAU of all kinds own Saturday and Sunday. Most kinds of theft and murder are still against the law so I’ll give you those. But otherwise, the famous “Ten” just don’t exact a lot of enforcement punch any more.
Still, it might give some of the willful racists among us pause if they considered their unselfconscious embrace of racism was also a direct violation of one or more of the Ten Commandments. In both Judaism and Christianity “Imago Dei” is a central tenant: that humans are made in the image of God. Therefore, to denigrate sub-groups of humanity, and act as if or claim they are not made fully in God’s image, is to create a false God (not to mention giving false testimony against your neighbor).
I realize that is a kind of torturous stretch of definitions but as I was driving I couldn’t identify which commandment racism was in violation of. If it wasn’t a blatant break of a commandment then “Thou shalt not act like a racist” needed to be made into the eleventh commandment, I thought. This is the kind of thing that goes through my head when I am driving, how about yours?
“whether consciously or unconsciously”. does that broadening of the definition of racism then rule out individual agency in the latter case, the unconscious category? Nell Irvin Painter educated me powerfully in her book A History of White people regarding the ways in which certain groups invented the concept of race and, therefore, the practice of racism over time. they’re invention spawned a system that reaches out to the dimensions of labor, class, and physical appearance. what’s important to me in this understanding is that we live within a racist system inherited and self propagating. (BTW all of my own prejudices from various probably incomplete readings — systems thinking, sense making, existentialism, epistemology – -coming to play in this response including the fact that Dr Painter is a professor America at Princeton University, which has been my hometown for the last 20 years.)
Thus if white people are born into a system of racism then they are like the proverbial goldfish who swim about each day not realizing they are surrounded by water. do you know the parable? more in my next comment since this is running long
continuing…
when David Foster Wallace died Jenna Krajewski in the New Yorker quoted his famous commencement speak for Kenyon College. (Yes, I know a lot of things cannot about him afterwards, but I’m an English major of the vintage when we were taught not to allow ourselves to fall prey to the biographical fallacy.)
here’s an excerpt:
In 2005, David Foster Wallace addressed the graduating class at Kenyon College with a speech that is now one of his most read pieces. In it, he argues, gorgeously, against “unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.” He begins with a parable:
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
Where we agree in your peace is that racism is the “default setting” in the United States of America. lots of it happens unconsciously because the system just skews that way and my most important insight from working and organizations for half a century is that all systems resist change and complex systems resist change in complex ways. I doubt that there is a more complex socio-political economic psychological system than racism in the USA. Therefore, all attempts to alter or even better dismantle that racism have failed. Even when an older wiser fish comes by and says, “hey, you’re swimming in racism” That doesn’t seem to do much. and that’s where I disagree with just one little part of your piece. I’ll save that for my third and final comment here.
Third and final comment:
Individual racism is NOT The unconscious participation in that overarching system of racism. That’s a bridge too far in the argument for me. I would parse your statement differently:
“participating in, benefiting from, or acting in ways that perpetuate white privilege knowingly is racist. Each of us if we are following the greatest commandments of Christ should follow a continuous quest to know the effects of our behavior. If we take seriously his words as related by Matthew, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” but to say that someone who’s path is not yet led them to that realization and whose actions are not overtly racist should also be considered individually racist seems unfair and illogical. Racism without a consideration of agency becomes a useless concept. If everyone is equally guilty, then no one is guilty. If we fail to take on racist structures in real estate, banking, hiring, education, and other realms one of the reasons might be because this universal condemnation of white people sucks the energy out of the scene. Even if others say this about themselves as white people that feels performative to me rather than actionable.
finally finally, do I win a prize? because I think that I identified the commandment against which racism is a sin even though it’s not one of the usual ten. If I love my neighbor as myself, then I have guarded mightily against the sin of racism. not saying it’s easy, but was anything Jesus told us to do easy?
Wow, that was so long and complex I had to go back and read my own piece to see what I said and how to respond! So, yes, you win a prize for fishing out the better “commandment” even though it wasn’t one of The Ten. But I’m taking the prize back because at the very beginning I said “cut me some slack” because I had far fewer words to address the subject than you did to comment on it. Sorry.
I would just say that both intent and non-intent still classify as racist. They can and should be addressed differently by all means, and we need to think of them differently. But my own racism, whether by intent or ignorance or unconsciousness is still racism. When we own that it is in there (like the fish who breath the water) then we are more likely to be able to get at it and address it. It is a disease we have all contracted and there is no pretending some of us didn’t get it. Now, some of us are more fully on the way to recovery than others and that’s a blessing.
Anyway, as you say, woefully complicated. Thanks for the response (one of my kids went to Kenyon, btw). Cam
How kind of you to read my long piece! And I’m all for owning that racism is there. (Wrote a play about it with Joe Queenan that played in Wisconsin last year.) But I still worry that the unconscious indictment saps the energy to take substantial actions. An then I rea David Brooks and I think oh no am I going to quote David Brooks here?
“I say that liberal sadness was maladaptive because the mind-set didn’t increase people’s sense of agency; it decreased it. Trying to pass legislation grounds your thought in reality and can lead to real change. But when you treat politics as an emotional display, you end up making yourself and everybody else feel afflicted and powerless.”
And I did.
But as another correspondent look at the good you have accomplished by sparking this dialogue. Good on ya, as my Irish cousins would say.
I think I agree with Elliottj here about intent. Saying as you do, Cam, that institutional racism in the US means that the white baby born right now is automatically racist to me means you are reviving the old Christian notion of original sin and giving it another name. Also, be careful about saying white when you mean US white. Blanket statements that all white people are racist whether they know it are not sound a lot like The Honorable Elijah Mohammad’s idea the white devils(he of the Nation of Islam).
All that said, I agree that racism is a deeply rooted problem in the US.
Humans seem to form group identity in part by othering and typically hating the other, so the problem here and in cultures around the world is a besetting one.
Stuart
Yes, good “conversation” and I appreciate your addition Stuart.
No, I do not believe people are born sinners, because I do not believe in a category Christianity has named sin. But at the same time, I am certain that no one is born with the capacity for perfection. To me, saying that we are racist because we are born within a racist culture and it is impossible not to be influenced by it, is not a condemnation. It is a simple statement of fact — like being a straight, white, middle-class male inherits particular privileges. Not a label to be feared or resisted, but a description of what exists and that I can work with. Elijah Mohammad had other filters he used to come up with that conclusion so I don’t think I am in any danger here of the same thing.
Thanks for reminding me my audience is not only in the US, a caveat that I need to remember when I am writing to a particular audience in the Finger Lakes but posting online.
This exchange was riveting. Being anti-racist is a developmental process and authentic self-awareness is just plain uncomfortable.
Indeed, Jan, a good one. Thanks for your addition!
Wow, I’m exhausted; way to bury the lede!
We could have gotten to the denouement sooner and without the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Aw, everyone’s a critic! LOL.
Dear Cam,
I wanted to let you know that a bill was introduced in the Ohio General Assembly this week that explicitly makes illegal the teaching in public universities of the “non-intentional” definition of racism that provided.
You got me thinking about things, and I wanted to make one last comment. That is that white privilege is not the same for everyone. I have a brother who never got a college degree and lives with the support of food stamps and small social security benefits. I’m middle class and look to benefit in a few years from being part of one of the last defined benefit pension plans left in this, the unfashionable end of the galaxy. I remember hearing a few years ago on NPR about a white, middle-class couple who had been married 25 years or more. Then he got early onset Alzheimer’s and could no longer work and needed, as you can imagine, special care. But without work, he lost his health insurance–and he was the primary worker in the family. End result: the wife had to divorce him so he could get Medicaid benefits and she could keep a house and other assets so she wouldn’t be plunged into poverty. So much for white privilege.
My point is this: you and I benefit from white privilege, but only incidentally in so far as white privilege doesn’t actually exist for us. I think it exists for the ruling class–who for various reasons happens to be, largely, white. And the economic function of racism is to divide ordinary people so that the ruling class can preserve its power and privilege. You and are just numbers; we are expendable as far as the “people who matter” in the political economy are concerned. But we can also, along the way, benefit from white privileges (as long as we don’t get terribly sick and are forced into bankruptcy).
What I feel comfortable saying is that the ruling class wants us to be racist.
Is my Marxism showing? (I’m actually not a radical, I’m a left New Dealer and Keynesian–but I suppose in today’s world that is radical and anti-American).
Thanks for stirring thought–I may not agree with you completely but I completely like talking with you–regardless of what the legislature might say!
Stuart
Stuart, thanks for updating and for continuing the thoughts. This is not something resolved or even agreed upon in a short time or small space. That folks are thinking hard and deeply about this is important, and as you say, implementing what we think and value is most important.
I have always wondered about that, “… and the second is like unto it: Thous shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;” considering that that phrase is NOT in the original 10 Commandments. I get around it like this: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” I like to think of the NT as an amendment, or correction, to the OT. And therefore, Jesus’ command that we love one another is more up-to-date, and more to be followed, than the original version.
I get your logic but disagree that the NT is a correction to the OT. I think Jesus would have a hard time with that too. By volume there is a lot more in the Hebrew scripture than in the Christian one but I suspect the proportion of junk to wisdom is roughly the same in each. If there is one, I bet the Hebrew text has the upper hand in terms of practical wisdom and social justice. That’s my take anyway.