RACISM
...One ever feels his two-ness, an American, and a Negro; Two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife... to attain self conscious manhood, to merge his troubled self in to a better and truer self. In this merging he wished neither of the older selves to be lost... He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.
(SOULS OF BLACK FOLK, 1903)
There is an apparent belief in America that is rooted in racial superiority. This belief, racism has been manifested throughout the history of the United States. Some would point to the arrival of slaves on the shores of the “new world” in 1619. Others might point out the arrogance of this nation’s early settler’s who assumed that because the land was not occupied by white people , it was available for those who could take it. There are others who might say that racism in America is rooted in the many atrocities of early American settlers whose behavior toward native people led to the death and destruction of cultures believed to be inferior to that of the Europeans.
This paper will not address the origins of racism in America. Instead it hopes to offer a description of American racism that will provide a means for citizens to have an open dialogue that can lead to discussions. It is believed that the discussions provided by the ensuing thoughts may help heighten understanding of racism and how it manifests itself and how it is sustained knowingly and unknowingly in the normal conduct of our daily lives. The reader will also be introduced to a model that offers a way to understand racism and why it is so difficult to eliminate as a force in American life. Finally it is hoped that the attention provoked by these discussions will lead to increased public awareness of racism by people of faith and the leaders of the citizens of New York.
WHY CARE?
Some may wonder why the New York Council of Churches has gotten involved in the dialogue about race. Others may wonder why not. There are many reasons for all of the citizens being involved in a discourse about race and racism. Prominent among these reasons is the moral imperative which gives the reason for doing the right thing in a society that is guided by Judeo/Christian principles of right and wrong. If one looks at the old and new testaments , there are sufficient grounds for taking a theological high ground and focus on the elimination of racism because there appear to be many stories and lessons that seem to value human diversity or that seem to glorify the unique qualities of human beings.
Two passages of scripture offer interesting thoughts on the dilemma presented in the ongoing discussion of racism and racism in America. In the Old Testament, the reader is informed of an attempt by a grateful people attempting to build an edifice as a monument to God, thanking the Creator for protecting them. The biblical record suggests that God was not pleased with the monument being build to reach the heavens and responded by causing the people to speak several different languages and causing them to disperse. Biblical scholars may not agree with this interpretation, but it appears as though God spoke with a powerful voice when s/he decided that difference was something the world needed and s/he made it happen.
In the New Testament, the reader is introduced to several parables through which Jesus lays principles which are believed to be the cornerstone of Christian living. In one of the parables, the reader is presented with a tale of bigotry and compassion. A man is brutally beaten, robbed and left for dead. Several people pass by him and either step over or around him, each refusing to get involved with the injured man for several personal reasons. One individual chose not to help because the injured man was not one of them. Another failed to offer relief to the injured man because it would have violated the law to work on the Sabbath. Eventually, along comes a man, a Samaritan, an outcast who is regarded as one less than worthy. This man of so-called mixed breeding is supposed to avoid contact with the people of the area in which he was traveling. This man who had every reason to ignore the injured person stopped and gave him support and paid for his lodging.
The two previous Biblical illustrations would tend to suggest that there may be a higher calling that both values diversity and demands that the ability to serve ought to not be dependent on membership in the same social group. Today the challenges of racial differences may be modified by men and women whose religious traditions permit them to use nonracial reasons to offer succor to the sick. In the last century James Russell Lowell wrote, “they are slaves who fear for the fallen a the weak. they are slaves who dare not be in the right with two or three”.
The question of “why care?” is intimately woven in ideas of right and wrong, and the moral principles which may guide life in the next millennium. Will the crisis of the twenty-first century be the same crisis predicted by DuBois for the twentieth century? The answer to these and other such questions will depend largely on the prevailing sense of social justice derived from our deep sense of caring for the idea of doing the right thing and not allowing evil to overwhelm good. So why care? One must care because it is the right thing to do and because we adhere to a religious tradition which expects no less.
RACISM: THE RECORD, THEN AND NOW
Between 1890 and 1899, more than 2,000 African American men and women were lynched in the United States, most of them in the South. Ironically this period of American history also produced an outpouring of philanthropy and social reform throughout the United States. It was in the southern portion of the United States, however, that the progress in human services took place at the expense of men and women of African descent. It was in the formerly rebellious states of the South that the unique brand of social reform was achieved by the same forces that shaped the laws, policies and practices of Jim Crow.
As one attempts to understand the face and rationale for contemporary racism in America, it may be useful to examine the circumstances that gave rise to racial antipathies of the early years of the twentieth century. While the origins of racism in America precede the onset of the Jim Crow Laws that followed Plessy V. Ferguson in 1895, this period overlaps in interesting ways with the twentieth century.
First, the legal actions of the new South period, which were designed to restore white rule, were initiated in the nineteenth century. These legal movement were virtually concluded by a series of disfranchising maneuvers throughout the South by the end of the second decade of the twentieth century.
Second, it was not until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, that a major hurdle was removed from the path of civil rights in the United States.
Finally, it was only after passage of the civil rights that this nation was forced to also confront the racism that could not be altered by the laws of the land. It has been since 1965 that the United States has taken significant steps to rid the nation of behavior that had its roots in a tradition of slavery and genocide that was based on racial superiority. Tremendous strides have been taken since the March on Washington in 1963 and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965.
The lives of Americans are no longer shaped by the rigid laws of Jim Crow. The South no longer forces the utilization of inferior facilities by African Americans as they seek to eat, sleep, and entertain themselves across America. Throughout most of the United States children attend the public schools of the nation without being forced by laws of segregation to go to institutions that have been designed for them because of their race. So much has changed and yet so much seems the same.
According to an article in the Post Standard, Syracuse, New York. Friday, March 19,1999, (Page A-8) a resolution in the United States House of Representatives, blasted a citizens council for racism.
“A resolution condemning the Council of Conservative Citizens for `racism and bigotry’ has drawn the support of 138 members of the House….Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., have addressed the Saint Louis group which advocates an end to school busing , stricter immigration restrictions and “preserving our heritage by fighting efforts to destroy America’s honored cultural traditions.
”In 1997, the FBI reported that half of the more than eight thousand hate crimes reported were motivated by race. These acts accounted for nearly 4800 incidents. In the previous year racial hatred accounted for most of the hate crimes in that year. In this year there were nearly 8800 hate crimes with nearly 5400 of those being racially motivated. This observation was reported in JET, February,1999 (p.39).
Ironically the article describing race as a frequent motive for hate crime was nestled between two other stories. The first story noted the sentencing of Emmett Cressell, Jr., who was sentenced for his part in the murder of a Black man who was burned to death and beheaded. The article following the hate crime story related the apology of a priest, who had falsely accused two Black men of attacking him in his church residence.
The two aforementioned stories when considered with the dragging death of a Black man in Jasper, Texas in June of 1999, seems to create a time warp in which people wonder if time has been reversed and it is 1899 and not 1999. Of course it is not 1899 and yet the United States is still grappling with the problem of race. Why? It may be that the nature of racism is not so easily resolved with laws and rules of conduct as suggested by affirmative action. It may well be that the real understanding of racism and how it is challenged may lie in understanding of how it has manifested itself and how it came to be in modern America. A brief look at the nineteenth century may offer a way to begin this examination.
The nineteenth century ideas of manifest destiny and white man’s burden have contributed as much as anything to the shaping of perceptions about race in the United States. Manifest destiny put before American settlers a responsibility to acquire and develop a land that had not been adequately exploited by its original inhabitants. Rudyard Kipling’s notion of “white man’s burden” encouraged the idea that the European had some divine responsibility to look after the darker races of the world because of their innate inferiority. This idea of the inability of darker skinned people needing the guidance of whites was also imbedded in the philosophy of social Darwinism which was popularized by Spencer and some of the late nineteenth century thinkers who were offering a reason for the laissez faire policies that suggest that the federal government should stay out of the welfare business.
The ideas of social Darwinism and manifest destiny seem to suggest that white Americans were either destined by divine right or natural forces to control the North American continent. This racist idea found favor among many and was used to justify slavery and the extermination of Native Americans who stood in the way of progress of white people.
Later as the nation moved toward expansion in the late 1890’s, with the acquisition of Cuba and the Philippines, one American Senator commented:
“The American Republic is a part of the movement of a race-the most masterful race of history-and race movements are not to be stayed by the hand of man. They are mighty answers to Divine commands. Their leaders are not only statesmen of peoples-they are prophets of God. The inherent tendencies of a race are its highest law. They precede and survive all statutes, all constitutions...”
These words spoken more than one hundred years ago seem to express a value and attitude that still permeates the United States as we look toward the coming millennium. Therefore it may be useful to dispassionately examine racism as an expression of both the past and the present.
The racism of America’s past is manifested in the arrogance of those who believed that it was appropriate to enslave or exterminate another group[ of people as a matter of national priority. The racism of today, as the year 2000 approaches, is racism that is manifested by behavior that both knowingly and unknowingly has the power to dehumanize and devalue. Racism then, must be understood as a concept that describes a pattern of behavior which insures that racial superiority and inferiority is maintained by virtue of rules established by the racist majority in control.
An example may be useful here. Several months ago two young men were stopped in Fayetteville, New York. They were asked why they were in the neighborhood. They explained that they had just taken a friend home. These young men were all of African American descent. They were stopped and harassed because a police officer decided that they did not belong there. This kind of situation happens all over the state of New York and conveys the idea that there are rules for persons of African descent that includes restricting their movement to communities that seem to be defined as their own. Had these young men been white, and not this author’s sons, they would not have been stopped. This is the arrogance of contemporary racism.
ELEMENTS OF RACISM
It is difficult to understand racism separate from the fabric of the society. Systems theory offers one way to look at society and how racist ideology gets developed and maintained. The sociologist Charles Loomis considered the society a social system that consisted of a series of interlocking systems and subsystems that are bound together by predictable patterns of behavior. It would appear that understanding of racism may be enhanced by our understanding of systems theory.
In her 1989 publication, Elaine Penderhughes writes that "racism raises to the level of social structure the tendency to use superiority as a solution to discomfort about difference."(pp.89) As we seek to understand the systemic nature of racism one cannot help but consider the application of systems theory to our understanding of racism. It is for this reason that the work of sociologist Charles Loomis seems instructive. In his theory of social systems, Loomis has identified nine elements of a social system. The elements identified by Loomis offers a way to understand the subtle nature of institutional racism and how it has evolved and is maintained. This theory gives some credence to Penderhughes' notion that "racism raises to the level of social structure the tendency to use superiority as a solution to discomfort about difference."
The elements of a social system according to Loomis, are belief, sentiment, end, norm, status-role, rank, power, sanction, and facility. For this discussion this, only four of these elements will be briefly discussed; belief, sentiment, end and norm. This discussion may lead to a dialogue that will facilitate a beginning understanding of racism and may additionally lead to strategies that may help attack what has been a scourge of the twentieth century.
Belief is the first element and offers a look at the knowledge and ideas that shape how the world is viewed. Beliefs shape the way the world is approached. Beliefs provide a way to protect ourselves from dangers, real and imagined. We know for example that certain behaviors are inappropriate in certain settings therefore we transmit to our children the knowledge that will enable them to survive in an environment that can at times be very hostile.
If one can imagine for a moment about what children are taught about being American, Christian or Jewish, then one could begin to understand how easy it is to teach a child to be a racist. If this simple concept can be understood perhaps we can begin to grasp the manner in which generations of Americans have been implicitly and explicitly taught to be racist. It is important to note that sometimes the most important lessons are those learned by children as they observe daily interactions which consciously and unconsciously convey how people and groups are valued or not.
To be American, and patriotic, requires that one be armed with a common understanding of this country and its origins. Americas have learned that George Washington is the "father" of this country. They have learned by Washington’s example that the native American was an undesirable people that required extermination in order for this country to be safe for civilized people. Americans have learned that “Old Glory” waved heroically as Francis Scott Key coined what was to become the national anthem. As children we all learned the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance to the flag. By way of the lessons imparting these and other beliefs we have learned to be Americans and or patriotic. If we can understand this principle then we can begin to understand the manner in which racism and racist behavior has been transmitted since the first slave ships arrived in the so-called new world.
In fact if we can understand how we have become American or patriotic then we can begin to understand the arrogance of the explorers of the so called new world as they determined that the way of life of the native Americans was uncivilized or primitive. Thus, the racism that I am suggesting you understand is the result of lessons systematically taught us during the past several hundred years.
The settlement of this country by the European was predicated on a number of variables which collectively result in racist behavior—behavior which is based on the Europeans' belief in their inherent superiority. This belief was founded on several principles that rejected anything that was not European in its origin. Thus we have subsequently learned that the lifestyle and culture of the Native American is primitive. We have learned that people who were not Christian were heathen and were something less than human. Consequently the Africans were enslaved, for their own good; and Native Americans could be exterminated because they were not Christian, primitive and uncivilized. The simple point being made here is that we have created in this country a belief system that historically has only valued that which is European in origin.
It is interesting to note that the entire premise of the movement to desegregate American public schools was based on the idea that if black kids were in schools with white children that they would get a better education. Little did we know that teacher expectations for the learner would play as important role as it does in the education of African American children. Now nearly forty years after Brown vs. the Board of Education we find ourselves still trying to wage a war against unequal educational opportunity because we have yet to fully understand the damage done by a belief system that does not equally value all people as human beings who have basic human rights. Instead we live in value system that defines all that is good and decent as being white .
Sentiment is the second element that we will discuss. Loomis has used sentiment to denote feelings. If we can accept the earlier example of being American as illustrative of the manner in which beliefs are used to create a particular reality, then we can talk about specific feelings or sentiments which are generated because one is a good American. I like to talk with students about what it is like to see the American flag raised at a ceremony. I suggest to them that good Americans have chills running up and down their spines. For those students who were not particularly patriotic there was some identification with being American when they watched the American flag being raised during the Olympic ceremonies this past summer. I wish to have you understand this feeling because I want you to understand that this sentiment can be used negatively as well.
This element, sentiment can be explained as one considers the manner in which lynch law was regarded at the beginning of the twentieth century. One has only to see photographs of smiling children at a lynching to ascertain the sentiments attached to the value of the life of an African American. In his poem BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME Richard Wright Describes a lynching in the following words:
There were torn tree limbs...
A vacant shoe, an empty tie, a ripped shirt,
a lonely hat, and a pair of trousers stiff
with black blood.
And upon the trampled grass were buttons,
dead matches, butt-ends of cigars and cigarettes,
peanut shells, a drained gin flask, and a
whore's lipstick:
Just imagine the scene, a lynching a black man has just been hung, burned, tortured and or shot—and his death is cause for a celebration. His death was an event that has been documented as an occasion where men, women and children participated in an activity that was no more than a night on the town. Indeed this atrocity is not a prevalent occurrence today. on the other hand the circumstances which gave rise to the inconsequential regard for the black man still survive, but in very different forms.
During the period that Wright has described in BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME, Senator Ben Tillman of South Carolina spoke out against granting the franchise to African Americans. He did so in part because of what he described as the highly sexual nature of African American women who were not only responsible for the un-American activities of Black protestors, but who also because of their nature would corrupt the minds of white men as well. I share this thoughts with you now because our sentiments cannot be seen directly. However we do tend to behave in a manner that reflects our feelings about particular set of circumstances. Wright's poem, a smiling child at a lynching and Tillman's statement, collectively have conveyed a depreciated sense of worth of the African American and other people of color as portrayed by the conscious and unconscious proponents of racism. This behavior at its best is racism at its worst.
For those who regard this discussion of lynch law as out of our past and not as appropriate today, we must consider our recent past and the responses of angry parents who resisted the desegregation of Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. President Eisenhower had to send in several thousand troops to protect those children from white parents who were acting out their sentiments toward black people. Lynchings in Benson Hurst and Brooklyn, New York in the late eighties and early nineties, were episodes which reflected sentiments about the African American. And more recently, in fact last June, we were reminded of the existence of lynch law in Jasper, Texas.
Before we all become to comfortable with the fact that racism is something that other people do or that racist sentiment is only reflected by members of fringe groups, we must note that many well meaning whites engage in behavior that reflects sentiments that are derived from misconceptions, fears and thoughts of superiority about their relationships toward African Americans.
For example there are many persons who believe that this author does a disservice to his sons because they were encouraged to attend historically black colleges. The audacity of those persons to assume that the only way that black youth can get a good education is to attend a white school. The audacity of those persons to think that the only way this writer’s sons could learn to live in the real world is for them to attend school in settings in which they are the minority. I have yet to hear the other argument, that perhaps it would be good for white children to attend historically black colleges in order that they may learn how to live in the real world. In other words the survival of racism is dependent upon us accepting the idea that positives are associated with that which is white or European and negatives are associated with those things that are not white.
The third element in the Loomis theory of social systems is "end." In the Loomis theory the end represents the goal or objective. The institution of racism that is being described has as its end, racial superiority or maintaining a status quo that is both consciously and unconsciously racist. Thus far, we have attempted to disclose, that our system of beliefs have conveyed a set of messages that suggest allegations of racial superiority by the European. In addition we have also described the sentiments which accompany the beliefs. The fundamental question however still remains. This question has to do with why racism. The why has to do with the maintenance of power. This writer would like to suggest that the problem of racism its continuation, its persistence and pervasiveness is in part a consequence of a system working to maintain itself. In UNDERSTANDING RACE, ETHNICITY AND POWER Elaine Penderhughes has made an eloquent case for the fact that racism is sustained by power.
Racism is difficult to fight its ideology has established power relationships that depend on racists ends or objectives. We all have at some point have heard views expressed for and against multiculturalism. For many the idea of multiculturalism is anti -white or un-American. Perhaps it is. But it appears that when this system we live in is threatened by the outcome of multiculturalism, a ideology that values or embraces something that is more inclusive than white racism, there is resistance to change.
Seeing this resistance to multiculturalism helps us to understand the real reasons for its opposition. And why is there opposition? The real reason for the opposition to multiculturalism lies in the fact our language would have to change. We would have to change our beliefs. We would have to believe that black people are equal in intellect to whites. We will have to regard with greater respect all people, especially those who are not white or of European descent.
The racist system we now are a part of is built upon knowledge and feelings that have been based upon the belief that white people are smarter and more civilized. We live in a world that is based on the belief that African Americans, Native Americans and other like groups have contributed very little to the development of this part of the world. It appears as though that we have learned that in order for the system to remain racist and in the best interest of white people that it must maintain knowledge, feelings and objectives that are in the best interests of white people.
As we reflect on these thoughts one must try to step outside and look at the world as though we are different from what we actually are. In order for us to view the world in a way that allows us to understand its racist subtleties we must view the world as though we were African Americans whose colleges and universities now face the threat of extinction because state governments no longer want to support a dual system of higher education and have chosen instead to support only predominantly white colleges and universities.
To understand the ends or objectives of racism we must come to understand the world that requires that beauty be defined in terms of European standards. Far to many people view beauty in terms of women who have light skin and long flowing hair. Some African American men have resisted having their wives cut their hair. To understand this idea is to also understand that racism not only does damage to some people as a result of racist acts by white people but it does damage to black people as well. Such is reflected in a statement once made by a prominent black athlete who stated that he no longer dated black women because it did not work out, they were not interested in the things he was interested in.
The final element that discussed here is norm. Norms constitute the rules of the game. To be an American requires that one plays by the rules of the game. We pay taxes and celebrate the fourth of July. In times of a national crisis we express the appropriate indignation if the situation warrants it and if it requires that we make some necessary sacrifice it is done. Being An American has certain unique advantages if we play the game. When we fail to adhere to the rules of the game we often find ourselves suffering some sort of penalty that serves as a reminder for having stepped out of boundaries established to maintain order in the system.
My beginning understanding of institutional racism suggests that there are norm which govern the way black and white people play the racist game. To sum it all up, racism cannot continue to exist if we did not know and follow the rules of the game. They are simple rules as we can see from a careful examination of both recent and past American history. This history has shown that Americans have the ability to force adherence to racist themes. Violations of these themes have in the past resulted in severe sanctions.
Gunnar Myrdal in his AMERICAN DILEMMA explained how lynch law was used to control African Americans in the South. In more recent years the lynch law of yesterday has reared its head again as African American youth apparently violated the turf of Benson Hurst and Brooklyn, New York. This of course is nothing new. The fact that this author’s sons were stopped because they “looked” as though they did not belong is another illustration of how norms have been able to shape behavior. Always the message is that same black people must state in their place.
Frequently these themes have played themselves out in the every day life of other African Americans. Several years ago, the son of the African American superintendent of schools was stopped by a police officer for being in the wrong neighborhood. Gavin was two blocks from his home. His mistake was living in a community that was believed to not be for him. Shortly after this writer moved to Syracuse his wife was stopped in DeWitt, New York for a similar reason. For many persons, these incidents are isolated ones and could happen to us all. This is an unacceptable idea. The idea that is acceptable is that these two American citizens given messages that they have violated the norms. They broke the rules for being in the wrong place. This occurrence is no different for the African American Male who is followed around in a department store for fear that he might steal something. Again the message is the same black people steal. It is this kind of knowledge that establishes the values and the sentiments that lead to behavior that we now must contend with as racism.
CONCLUSION
This writer remains convinced that in order to combat the problem of racism we must begin to understand it from a theoretical perspective that examines it as a function of power and control. Racism must be understood as phenomenon that is a function on norms beliefs and values that are reinforced by societal behaviors and beliefs. To combat racism we will need to re-educate ourselves to the behave differently in a society that will value difference rather than punish it. If the United States is to continue to progress as a nation that values freedom and dignity, it will need to embrace a knowledge base that redefines difference and establish rules that rewards people for being inclusive rather than exclusive. This can happen if people in a faith community will adopt a position that will resist further expansion of language and customs that reinforce beliefs in racial superiority.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Professor William L. Pollard was Dean of the Syracuse University School of Social Work beginning in 1989. He received his Ph. D. From the University of Chicago in 1976, his M. S. W. From the University of North Caroline School of Social Work and a B. A. From Shaw University. Prior to his tenure at Syracuse University, he was the Coordinator of the Community Organization Skills Set at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Pollard went on to found and serve as Dean of the Grambling State University School of Social Work from 1984-1989.
In 1997, Governor Pataki nominated Dr. Pollard to the Mental Health Services Council of New York State. He was reappointed and confirmed by the New York State Senate in December, 1999. Among his many honors and awards are the First annual Governor’s Award for African-Americans of Distinction, New York State (1992). He is listed in Who’s Who in Black America and various other bibliographies.
Dean Pollard is the author of a Study of Black Self Help and has lectured extensively on cultural and racial diversity. Professionally, Dr. Pollard has served in leadership positions in numerous national social work organizations.