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At the conclusion of his 1963 "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., expressed the "hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities."
Today, most white Americans still live their entire lives in "a deep fog of misunderstanding" about the character, construction, and reproduction of white racism as a social system. For many, there are permanent "clouds of racial prejudice" that have become a normal part of everyday life. Racial hierarchies are seen as "natural" and are unquestioned; incidents of police brutality and "racial profiling" are "unfortunate" but "probably unavoidable"; school busing to promote racial integration is harmful to "neighborhood schools" and "quality education"; affirmative-action programs are "racial quotas" that give "special preferences" to unqualified applicants for jobs and college admissions; economic set-aside programs unfairly favor minority-owned businesses and deny government contracts to more competitive, cost-effective firms; and "no blacks or Hispanics" regularly attend our church because for some strange reason, "none live in our neighborhood." One of the luxuries of being white in a racist society is that you never have to talk about being white. When something is viewed as normal, then there's nothing unusual about it, so there's nothing to talk about.
The media does its best to keep white Americans in a permanent fog by refusing to call the American dilemma by its real name: racism. Media critic William E. Alberts recently observed that during former President Clinton's so-called "Race Initiative," the major newspapers deliberately employed code words in their editorials, headlines, and news stories that would "make the ism disappear from 'race.'" For example, the Washington Post repeatedly used phrases such as "the country's racial picture," "the overall racial climate," "relations between Americans of different races and ethnic backgrounds," "racial matters," "the race theme," "an incendiary topic," and (my favorite) "this most delicate and politically dangerous of subjects."
In the New York Times, the aversion to the word "racism" was just as strong. The Times frequently used phrases such as "the state of race relations," "the racial front," "the racial climate," and "black-white relations." Imbedded in the news coverage of Clinton's Race Initiative was an implied "solution" to the nation's racial problems, which was the challenge "to change the hearts and minds" of Americans about race. This was expressed in a nearly endless series of platitudes: "toward racial harmony"; "to prod Americans to talk to one another and get beyond skin color and ethnicity"; "inspiring Americans to appreciate its racial diversity"; fostering "racial healing"; "color-blindness"; and learning "how the races can get along on a day-to-day basis." Nearly all of the media coverage presumed that racial categories are fixed and that racial differences could be negotiated by changing attitudes rather than by reallocating resources and power.
The main pillars of structural racism throughout American history as well as today have been white prejudice, power, and privilege. By "prejudice," I mean a deep and unquestioned belief in the natural superiority of white people over nonwhites. In his 1920 essay "The Souls of White Folk," W.E.B. Du Bois described white supremacy as the belief "that every great soul the world ever saw was a white man's soul; that every great deed the world ever did was a white man's deed; that every great dream the world ever sang was a white man's dream." A belief in the purity of whiteness demands-and is dependent on-the degradation of blackness. As Du Bois put it: "Darker peoples are dark in mind as well as in body; of dark, uncertain, and imperfect descent; of frailer, cheaper stuff; they have no feelings, aspirations, and loves."
The essence of what Du Bois wrote back in 1920 still in many respects holds true today. A major reason that millions of white Americans remain detached from the terrible reality of 1 million black people who are currently incarcerated in this nation's prisons is the unspoken assumption that they belong there. The lower life expectancies, high infant-mortality rates, higher rates for hypertension, diabetes, and most other diseases, are largely caused, it is assumed, by poor health habits and a "culture of poverty."
The fact that black unemployment rates remain twice as high as those of whites in good times as well as bad is attributed to the absence of a work ethic and to welfare dependency. If we are less than human, then our pain is not the equal of white pain; our hunger is not as severe; our imprisonment is not as cruel; our denial of voting rights not a violation of democratic procedures. As Du Bois reminded us of the legal basis for this ideology of white supremacy: "A white man is always right and a black man has no rights which a white man is bound to respect."
One of the great paradoxes of being black in a racist society is that we must become preoccupied with understanding, as thoroughly and completely as possible, the very thing that we are determined to destroy: racism. In our daily lives, racism presents itself as a virtually endless series of "racialized moments," in which part of our humanity is stolen or denied. Du Bois described the problem of everyday racism as a sequence of terrible events in which "you are losing your own soul."
Du Bois's vivid description of racism, written more than eighty years ago, still strikes home for me today: the denial of a home mortgage or a car loan, and wondering whether race played a factor in the decision; the whites who refuse to sit next to a black person on a crowded bus or subway car, even when the seat is vacant; the taxicabs that speed past my outstretched arms, but cruise to a halt half a block later to pick up whites; the state highway patrol officer on the New Jersey Turnpike who pulls me over to do a "routine check" of my license and registration, even though I am driving under the speed limit; the restaurant delivery dispatcher who curtly informs me that take-out service in Manhattan is unavailable above 120th Street. The fundamental challenge to the existence of democracy in America was, and still remains, white racism.
Today, most white Americans still live their entire lives in "a deep fog of misunderstanding" about the character, construction, and reproduction of white racism as a social system. For many, there are permanent "clouds of racial prejudice" that have become a normal part of everyday life. Racial hierarchies are seen as "natural" and are unquestioned; incidents of police brutality and "racial profiling" are "unfortunate" but "probably unavoidable"; school busing to promote racial integration is harmful to "neighborhood schools" and "quality education"; affirmative-action programs are "racial quotas" that give "special preferences" to unqualified applicants for jobs and college admissions; economic set-aside programs unfairly favor minority-owned businesses and deny government contracts to more competitive, cost-effective firms; and "no blacks or Hispanics" regularly attend our church because for some strange reason, "none live in our neighborhood." One of the luxuries of being white in a racist society is that you never have to talk about being white. When something is viewed as normal, then there's nothing unusual about it, so there's nothing to talk about.
The media does its best to keep white Americans in a permanent fog by refusing to call the American dilemma by its real name: racism. Media critic William E. Alberts recently observed that during former President Clinton's so-called "Race Initiative," the major newspapers deliberately employed code words in their editorials, headlines, and news stories that would "make the ism disappear from 'race.'" For example, the Washington Post repeatedly used phrases such as "the country's racial picture," "the overall racial climate," "relations between Americans of different races and ethnic backgrounds," "racial matters," "the race theme," "an incendiary topic," and (my favorite) "this most delicate and politically dangerous of subjects."
In the New York Times, the aversion to the word "racism" was just as strong. The Times frequently used phrases such as "the state of race relations," "the racial front," "the racial climate," and "black-white relations." Imbedded in the news coverage of Clinton's Race Initiative was an implied "solution" to the nation's racial problems, which was the challenge "to change the hearts and minds" of Americans about race. This was expressed in a nearly endless series of platitudes: "toward racial harmony"; "to prod Americans to talk to one another and get beyond skin color and ethnicity"; "inspiring Americans to appreciate its racial diversity"; fostering "racial healing"; "color-blindness"; and learning "how the races can get along on a day-to-day basis." Nearly all of the media coverage presumed that racial categories are fixed and that racial differences could be negotiated by changing attitudes rather than by reallocating resources and power.
The main pillars of structural racism throughout American history as well as today have been white prejudice, power, and privilege. By "prejudice," I mean a deep and unquestioned belief in the natural superiority of white people over nonwhites. In his 1920 essay "The Souls of White Folk," W.E.B. Du Bois described white supremacy as the belief "that every great soul the world ever saw was a white man's soul; that every great deed the world ever did was a white man's deed; that every great dream the world ever sang was a white man's dream." A belief in the purity of whiteness demands-and is dependent on-the degradation of blackness. As Du Bois put it: "Darker peoples are dark in mind as well as in body; of dark, uncertain, and imperfect descent; of frailer, cheaper stuff; they have no feelings, aspirations, and loves."
The essence of what Du Bois wrote back in 1920 still in many respects holds true today. A major reason that millions of white Americans remain detached from the terrible reality of 1 million black people who are currently incarcerated in this nation's prisons is the unspoken assumption that they belong there. The lower life expectancies, high infant-mortality rates, higher rates for hypertension, diabetes, and most other diseases, are largely caused, it is assumed, by poor health habits and a "culture of poverty."
The fact that black unemployment rates remain twice as high as those of whites in good times as well as bad is attributed to the absence of a work ethic and to welfare dependency. If we are less than human, then our pain is not the equal of white pain; our hunger is not as severe; our imprisonment is not as cruel; our denial of voting rights not a violation of democratic procedures. As Du Bois reminded us of the legal basis for this ideology of white supremacy: "A white man is always right and a black man has no rights which a white man is bound to respect."
One of the great paradoxes of being black in a racist society is that we must become preoccupied with understanding, as thoroughly and completely as possible, the very thing that we are determined to destroy: racism. In our daily lives, racism presents itself as a virtually endless series of "racialized moments," in which part of our humanity is stolen or denied. Du Bois described the problem of everyday racism as a sequence of terrible events in which "you are losing your own soul."
Du Bois's vivid description of racism, written more than eighty years ago, still strikes home for me today: the denial of a home mortgage or a car loan, and wondering whether race played a factor in the decision; the whites who refuse to sit next to a black person on a crowded bus or subway car, even when the seat is vacant; the taxicabs that speed past my outstretched arms, but cruise to a halt half a block later to pick up whites; the state highway patrol officer on the New Jersey Turnpike who pulls me over to do a "routine check" of my license and registration, even though I am driving under the speed limit; the restaurant delivery dispatcher who curtly informs me that take-out service in Manhattan is unavailable above 120th Street. The fundamental challenge to the existence of democracy in America was, and still remains, white racism.