Individualism Obscures Insidious Racism

“The Myth of Systemic Racism…”  This title, of a racist propaganda YouTube video, haunts me now.  How is it that some people simply “don’t believe” that systemic racism exists?  We can all see it everywhere now.  Not that it has ever disappeared, but Trump has recently empowered white supremacists and reignited our culture of violence and blame.  So the silent American masses, both Black and white, have to make a choice.  Continue to deny that systemic racism exists, perhaps while befriending and acting kindly toward individual Black people and people of color.  Or admit that you’ve silently and maybe unknowingly benefited from racism, give up those benefits and sacrifice to live in an actual just, fair, antiracist society.  The majority silence around this issue is what allows it to proliferate, seeping into every nook and cranny of our world, poisoning ALL of us. 

What has allowed this ignorant silence to lull so many of us into a complicit stupor for so long?

Here’s one theory: Racism is baked into our collective consciousness, our culture, the stories we use to explain social ills and make our individual selves feel good.  I am white.  My father was an entrepreneur.  I just assumed that if I worked hard enough, I could be successful.  And this is part of the American myth of individual bootstrap success; one that actually obscures the racial and economic advantages that middle class white people have.  Sure, I had to work hard.  But I went to a good public school growing up.  One that was not hurting for funding and well-trained teachers, and one that my parents didn’t have to work an extra job to pay for.  This is because school funding is significantly tied to real estate taxes.  Redlining of neighborhoods and discrimination in mortgage lending CREATED economic, property-ownership and now educational disparities between otherwise equal Black and white neighborhoods.  I got an excellent, free education – just because I’m white. 

Why did I assume I could be successful in the world?  Other than always being heard, seen, taken seriously, and protected – simply because I am white – I also had my parents as role models.  And why was my father successful?  Yes, he did in fact work hard.  But he also had access to loans – both from family and from the bank.  This means his parents were able to amass just enough money to pay the bills AND help their children.  This would have been in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.  A time when Jim Crow laws were explicitly DENYING Black families access to transportation, jobs, safety, basic human rights, education, loans and the ability to amass wealth. 

There is a myth that all of us like to invoke.   A large, brash, loud, gun-toting myth: that in this country – the land of the free and the brave – anyone can pull himself up by his bootstraps, use his own two hands, and through sweat and perseverance do anything he damn well wants to do.  The hardworking individual is on a pedestal.  The “self-made man” is revered.  The tired, sick and oppressed of the world, we believe, have flocked here to stand on the ground of equality and build their fortune. 

This is bullshit.  I mean, yes, both my father and I have worked very hard to create successful businesses.  But we had so many advantages that are completely unacknowledged!  And the Black and brown masses, who have NEVER experienced “the ground of equality” and specifically were used, exploited, denied access, stripped of wealth, killed, and handicapped are BLAMED, personally, for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and sweating enough to create their own successes.  In reality, policies were explicitly designed to strip Black communities of all bootstraps, in all arenas.  Individuals, like myself, have relied blindly on advantages that we never admit, and are, in most cases, completely unaware of. 

Racism exists.  It is built into our laws, our economy, every social system I can think of, and the cultural ether we breathe.  Why does the media try to highlight that George Floyd allegedly used a counterfeit $20?  Why does the media try to smear Breonna Taylor’s name by saying she was fired for stealing prescriptions?  Because it makes it easier for white people to go back to thinking, “They deserved it.  They were not good people like me.  They are to blame. ”  I want to vomit.  Adding these alleged “crimes” to the narrative further feeds the racist idea that Black people are often criminal. 

LaQuan McDonald, unarmed and shot in the back 16 times by Chicago police, was supposedly “agitated and unpredictable.” The entire defense of the officer who murdered LaQuan was based on LaQuan being violent and on drugs.  This was hammered in the stories about his death, instead of the institutional training, and “agitated and unpredictable” state of the officer who shot him.  What effect does this have on the general public?  It makes it easy to once again, add “evidence” to the belief that Black people are more likely to use drugs and are violent and criminal.  UNTRUE!  Instead, it deflects our common sense HORROR at police who are scared, threatened and believe their lives are in danger when confronted by a Black man.  Further adding fuel to racist ideas about individuals, deftly deflects our recognizing the systemic part of the problem.

Once again, racial stereotypes breed their own grimy and evil little children of poverty, crime and violence.  Our blind ingestion of the stereotypes leads us to revile and pull back compassion and care, which CREATES more poverty, crime and violence.  This is a circular monster, feeding itself and producing more and more of its own stink.  STOP!  WHO is actually violent, criminal, lazy and feasting on his own greed?  The obese, ubiquitous, smoke-veiled white machine.  From the back room, it pumps out racist propaganda, creates racist institutions, infests good white and black individuals who blindly do its dirty work, and then rakes in the wealth, feasting and gluttonous. 

Here’s another thinly veiled racist idea that we all just breath in from the white machine: “Okay, sure, there are a handful of ‘bad’ cops who are responsible for these murders and assaults, but most cops are ‘good’ and not racist.”  Racism is not about individuals.  It is not about George Floyd’s individual circumstances, or Breonna Taylor, or Derek Chauvin, Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankinson or Myles Cosgrove.  The idea that racism is an individual problem obscures, INTENTIONALLY, its long, insidious and pervasive evil.  It short-circuits everyone’s critical thinking about such questions as… WHY do so many police officers overuse force toward Black people?  WHY do so many of their partners say and do nothing about this?  WHY do so many officers fear for their lives when confronted with random, innocent, Black people?  WHY do so many officers exhibit symptoms of traumatic stress – adrenaline and cortisol that cause impairment in decision-making, agitation, gross misperception of danger, and a host of chronic health conditions?  Racism is bad for individual police too.

Focusing on individual circumstances and blaming individual Black people also short-circuits people’s critical thinking around these types of questions: WHY is the poverty rate higher among Black Americans than white Americans?  WHY is there a lower college graduation rate among Black Americans?  WHY is there an enormous and gross disparity in Black versus white incarceration rates?  Without really thinking about these questions, most people (silently) come to the conclusion that Black people don’t work as hard, don’t value education as much and commit more crime.  NO!  WRONG!  These are the old, tired and patently evil racial stereotypes that allow policy-makers to continue to quietly funnel funds to majority white neighborhood schools, keep Black families explicitly limited and crippled in their ability to amass wealth, take out mortgages, and live near desirable jobs.  These racist stereotypes are exactly what allow lawmakers to pass egregious sentences for petty crime, keep the cash bail system in place (which privileges those with wealth), and make billions of dollars for white corporate owners and investors in for-profit prisons.

Individual bad behavior is still individual bad behavior, but racism is not about individuals, as much as we in this country continue to want to believe that those of us who are white can INDIVIDUALLY take credit for our success, and those of us who are Black can INDIVIDUALLY take credit for any failures.  Take off your blinders.  You’ll see white privilege and racism EVERYWHERE.  Don’t fall back on apathetic and evil propaganda around individualism.  Look!  Listen!  Feel!  It takes each of us, individually, to stop investing in, and stop benefiting from racist policies and institutions, admit our culpability and level the playing field – for the benefit of us all.