The "I'm not a racist, but" myth

These days, the term "Social Justice Warrior" seems to evoke a mixed bag of feelings. Some folks wear it proudly as a badge of honor, using it as their declaration that they fully intend to fight injustice and inequality on every front. Other use it as an insult, implying that people need to quit fighting for others and work on becoming better people themselves.

I think those views represent the extreme edges of the term's usefulness. If we examine the term as a spectrum, I expect that the majority of us fall somewhere in between - we might have an issue or two that we are willing to fight for, but we aren't going to wall for everything.

Image by Gerd Altmann (Creative Commons CC0)

One of those issues, for me, has surprisingly become racism.

I say surprisingly because I grew up in a small rural town that simply did not have a lot by way of racial diversity. My parents were both very open and accepting of differences, they were careful to raise me so that I did not consider the color of a person's skin when determining their character. Among my classmates, that made me very unique. When raising my own children, I made conscious choices to raise them in a more urban environment, where they would encounter a greater variety of people. Like my parents, I believed that that teaching my children to look at someone's personality and to ignore their skin color or cultural heritage was the way to stop racism.

With all the renewed attention on issues of race in the last few years, I have been re-examining that. The hard truth of the matter is that my parents did not do enough. More importantly, I did not do enough.

Last week, I found a comment on a friend's FB page that angered me, in large part because it is so similar to what I have been working so hard to process. The comment was: "frankly I don't care if I am racist or not. I don't consider myself personally a racist. But I don't go out of my way not to be a racist."

While that first part has never been true of me (I have always cared to not be racist), the last part - "I don't go out of my way to not be a racist" - pretty well sums up what I have been processing for myself over the last few years.

It has not been an easy process. It has involved facing some hard truths about myself. Specifically, it has required me to acknowledge the times when I could have said something, when I should have said something, but did not. Even worse, I had to confront the times when I laughed at things that I should not have laughed it, just to "keep peace" and not upset people.

This really seems to me to be a large part of the reason that systemic racism continues to exist. By ignoring that the problem exists, you help perpetuate the system. So you may not see yourself as actively encouraging it, but if you aren't actively working against it, then you are still complicit.

There are more than enough articles and essays already in existence on this subject, pieces which point out that if your first reaction is to stammer and mutter "but (insert excuse here)", then you are likely part of the problem.

My goal in bringing this up again here is not to make people defensive. I am instead hoping that maybe we can break some of that barrier down, shed a little light on it and discuss it openly.

With that in mind, then, let us look at another issue instead, for the sake of discussion. Let's use child abuse, since I am sure that we can all pretty much agree that child abuse is a bad thing, without needing to engage our defensive modes.

"I don't abuse children, but I don't go out of my way to do anything about it, either." 

It's pretty easy for everyone to agree that when your neighbor beats their child and you know it but do nothing, your neighbor assumes you are okay with that. And it is really not a stretch to agree with "and so will your neighbor's child."

We can probably even agree that children will understand that if the neighbors are okay with something, then it must be "okay."

We all know that peer pressure is an amazing thing. "Nobody cares" is only a small step from "everyone does it."  We have all heard someone argue along those longs, often to convince themselves that is okay to do (or not do) something which would otherwise be considered questionable.

By doing nothing, though, we normalize the abuse. We might as well actually say "I don't care what my neighbor does to their child." And most of us are willing to state flat out that is not an okay thing to say, when asked.

Somehow, though, when we change the subject back to racism, the conversation shifts dramatically. "I don't care what color my neighbors are" is now seen as a declaration of positive intent, a sign that I am not a racist and therefore, I am a good person.

So then, what is the difference between the two statements? Let's break that down.

By "not caring" about race, it disregards the the fact that the life experiences of a person of color are different than that of a white person. Because we have all been raised in a society that sadly does care.

As a middle aged white woman, I can walk through just about any neighborhood safely.

A middle aged black woman does not have that luxury. Sure, she can walk through the same neighborhoods, but she will get odd looks, possibly even jeers and insults. She may even put herself in the way of physical dangers that I would not face.

A middle aged black man has it even worse. In certain neighborhoods, doors would be locked and curtains closed. In others, the police could be called. And, in some, people might even reach for their guns. This is an experience that the majority of black men have either had or are likely to have at some point in their lives. By contrast, I will likely never experience that same thing.

By ignoring the visible difference, we ignore the boons our privilege grants us and we discount the life experience and life lessons of others. We disregard the fact that men of color were not born afraid of white people. It is a learned behavior.

My father has a saying. Well, my father has a lot of sayings, but one in particular comes to mind right now.

"If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem." So... Mr. or Ms. or Mx. "I'm not a racist, but" - maybe you aren't a racist. But unless you're going to be anti-racism, then you might as well be a racist.

It's a hard truth. It hurts. We want to continue to be the person that we thought we were.

And we can still be that person - we just have to work a little harder at it. In fact, that's one of the few things that being born white doesn't free us from - if we want to be a good person, we need to do the work to be one.