By Mildred C. Fallen
How many times have we heard someone say something like, “Oh, I don’t see color; I don’t care whether people are black, green, purple, white, orange?” The irony is that most people would care if they saw an orange or green person, but it’s this sort of cognitive dissonance that makes many of us defend our stance on racism, and it keeps us from acknowledging disparities—and that to me is symptomatic of racism.
At a recent BRIDGE Builders discussion held at BRIDGES for a Just Community’s office, the focal point was Dr. Joy DeGruy Leary’s book, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, in which she boldly asserts that Americans are sick with racism because of cognitive dissonance that plagues us all. “The nature of this work,” Leary writes in her prologue, “is such that each group first must see to their own healing, because no group can do another’s work.” A few years ago, Leary did an interview with writer, Silva J. A. Talvi, and my favorite quote from it is when she says, “We have to recognize that remnants of racist oppression continue to impact people in this country.”
Some scholar sociologists such as John McWhorter, who is African-American, believe that blacks born after 1960 have less of a right to blame systemic racism’s inequalities for their shortcomings because of desegregation and opportunities that became more apparent to all people by way of affirmative action. I disagree with McWhorter, because the Civil Rights Movement did not mark the emancipation of humankind. Schools and communities may have been desegregated, but people still face challenges from systemic inequalities that make it possible for racism and classism to be legal and seem fair. In many cases, people of color are told to “Get over it” when they express cognizance of racism. But in order to heal your mind, body and spirit have to grieve and purge. It’s like bereavement after a loved one dies. Imagine if your supervisor told you that you couldn’t go to your spouse’s or child’s funeral and to “get over it.” It’s a human right to want to acknowledge and heal from a painful experience.
Growing up in the inner city in Cincinnati where different races rarely intermingled, racism was often acted out through suspicion. One time as a child, I was accused of stealing a purse that was actually the one I walked in the store wearing on my shoulder. I was embarrassed when the Asian woman behind the counter rushed toward me and tugged the cheap pleather strap from my arm because I felt like everyone watching thought I was guilty of theft. When the clerk unzipped the purse, what she found were some used tissues, a small wad of dollar bills and penny candy. Probably mad that she was wrong about what she assumed, she tossed my purse onto the counter, still open. I gathered my things and vowed I’d never set foot in that store again. For years, I thought that all Asian people were racist because of what happened to me in that store.
My steps toward dismantling that belief happened in college when I began meeting Asian people who were at least cordial, and some that were very friendly. Eventually, I became friends with an Asian-American woman who was very open about race, maybe because her boyfriend was African-American. When I shared my purse-snatching story, she didn’t placate me with well-meaning promises of “I don’t see color,” nor did she tell me to get over it. Instead, Anna listened and said she imagined how hurt I must’ve felt when it happened. Her willingness to hear me and accept my story felt like salve on my blistered perspective. I also began looking at ways I projected racism and began to imagine pain I may have caused someone else by being ignorant.
Here are some tips on having open dialogue on race: More listening than talking helps. Ask open-ended questions that don't lead with assumptions. And accept that one conversation won’t change everything—you may walk away frustrated, confused, enlightened, or you might leave with the desire to educate yourself on a culture other than your own. But we should never say we don’t see color because color-blindness doesn’t remedy racism. Color-blindness enables it.
If you would like to participate in challenging conversations on race and class, join us at the next BRIDGE Builders session at BRIDGES offices on May 17 at 6:00pm. For more information, visit: http://www.bridgesfjc.org/programs/bridgebuilders.html to view our flyer, or contact Shawn Jeffers at shawn.jeffers@bridgescincinnati.org.
