WHITE PEOPLE CAN’T TALK ABOUT RACE

Nov 30

By: Corey Harris

“The very serious function of racism … is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you

explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language, and so you

spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly, so you have

scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says that you have no art, so you dredge that up.

Somebody says that you have no kingdoms, and so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary.”  -  Toni Morrisson

Can White People Talk About Race?

I am the grandson of a sharecropper on my father’s side. He had a simple philosophy

about firearms: “better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.” Racism, then

as now, represented a mortal threat, be it physical violence of the lynch mob or the systematic

violence exercised by the legal system. My maternal grandfather was raised by a single mother

who was born into slavery and washed clothes for white folks for a living. Nevertheless, she

made sure that her ten children learned to read. A few even went to college, not a small feat for

rural southern Black folk in the early twentieth century. Myself being raised by a single mother, I

grew up surrounded by two great aunts who worked as cleaning ladies for white people their

entire lives. The blues and gospel music was the first music I heard as a young boy. It was my

first reference point, the soundtrack to numerous church picnics, family reunions and house

parties. Since becoming a professional blues singer and musician, these family stories and

experiences have informed my craft since the day I first picked up what my great-aunt called the

“guit-fiddle”. Indeed, for the vast majority of Black blues musicians, their particular racial

identities and family histories feed the music that they make. It matters. However, over the

years I observed many times the minefield that when Black musicians must navigate whenever

they endeavor to talk honestly and publicly about their experiences with racism in America and

how it relates to our music making. Similar to when Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham

famously advised LeBron James to ‘shut up and dribble’ in reaction to his vocal social activism,

the Black musician is often told to ‘shut up and play.’ As in sports, any honest discussion about

race as it relates to the history of the music and contemporary dynamics is extremely unpopular

among many white folk. This essay is about the backlash that ensues when this happens.

In today’s white-dominated blues industry, the Black musician is expected to entertain,

first and foremost. However, this expectation is in direct opposition to the traditional Black

cultural imperative of the blues musician as a truth teller. As Willie Dixon once said, “It’s got to

be fact or it wouldn’t be blues” and we all know that facts never cared about anyone’s feelings.

However, offending white people’s feelings or challenging their preferred narrative is frowned

upon and is punished by reduced income and marginalization. In 2015 this became glaringly

obvious when I penned a short essay on FB entitled, “Can White People Play the Blues?” My

central premise was that in the context of systematic American racism and the history of slavery,

Jim Crow and oppression which greatly benefitted European immigrants to the United States,

the positionality of white people with regards to blues performance can not be overlooked.

Music scholar Lawrence Hoffman once remarked that “there is no white original master of the

blues on any instrument - electric or acoustic.” As Cornel West once famously declared, race

matters.

Although I clearly stated in the article that white people have always been free to play

what they want to play, and that there are many outstanding blues musicians who identify as

white, many white commentators overlooked this point and flooded my inbox with all manner of

defensive and hostile responses. Admittedly, the provocative title was rhetorically framed to

grab the readers’ attention. I immediately found out that this worked. In the pages that follow I

will examine white reactions to discussions of race in the blues and what this tells us about

white identity and privilege. Sifting through the various outraged comments to the post, four

main points reveal themselves: 1) The author is not Black enough; 2) It’s racist to talk about

race and race has nothing to do with the history of the blues; 3) Anyone has a ‘right’ to play the

blues and white people suffered, too; 4) blues is not the sole domain of Black people but is

rather the result of the ‘melting pot’ of Black and white cultures in America.

Rather than engage the main points of the essay, many negative responses took the

form of personal attacks, questioning my ‘authenticity’ as a Black person or my ‘right’ to play the

blues. Consider this emphatic response:

Harris is a joke. It's not a racial thing. Harris went to Bates College! That's a school for rich

privileged people. Harris is a phony through and through and his music and his whole style is a

joke. Some rich kid from Colorado that went to some fancy northeastern snob school. You are a

damn joke Harris. You have absolutely no right to turn it into a racial thing. I'm from Chicago.

The implication here is that the author is not to be taken seriously because education

somehow invalidates Black player’s cultural history or ethnic identity. Moreover, the fact that I

was born in Colorado and was able to attend Bates College (on scholarship) was evidence that I

was rich and privileged, thus making my chosen profession a ‘joke’. The obvious inference is

that the Black player must be poor and uneducated in order to qualify (by this white man’s

standards) as a ‘real’ blues player. Curiously, it is hard to find such challenges to the ‘right’ of

white British players such Eric Clapton, or white American blues musicians such as John

Hammond Jr. or Stevie Ray Vaughn. Harvard-educated Pete Seeger, son of the famed

ethnomusicologist Charles Seeger, is widely accepted as an authentic, traditional folk musician,

his privileged social status notwithstanding. Their authenticity is never questioned, because ‘it's

not a racial thing’ and ‘anyone can do it’...except a college educated, Black blues musician.

Socialization that is the result of the historical legacy of white supremacy dictates that the final

arbiter of who and what is blues, and who is Black enough is necessarily a white person. They

alone claim the power to name things and people, to decide what is real and what is fake. The

concluding assertion, “I’m from Chicago” implies that merely residing in a city known for its blues

music is license enough to reserve the right to have the final say on the issue. This is akin to

the author saying that he is more of an authority on Italian music than any Italian simply by

virtue of the fact that he lived in Italy for three years. Never mind the fact that I don’t understand

Italian and have no comprehensive understanding of that nation’s culture nor its history. As

generations of Mande griots’ have observed, just because a log is floating in the river does not

make it an alligator.

Another commentator’s response was so similar to that of the above respondent, that it

was as if they had compared notes ahead of time. Again, instead of grappling with the points

raised in the article, this irate writer focused on the author’s education as proof of being a

‘phony’ and a ‘joke’:

“He's turning a great American music into a race war. Good Work! Corey! Man I wish I had the

chance to go to that fancy school you did. And the guy plays Reggae! Give me a break. It's like

Donald Trump playing Reggae. You owe everyone an apology. Phony! Then get a job in a bank.

That is where your rich privileged ass belongs.”

Undergirding these biases is the idea of colorblindness: race as being insignificant to musical

expression, identity or group history. The implication here is that if we simply proclaim that we

don't see ‘color’ then racism ceases to exist. If we don’t talk about race or history then it is not a

problem. Ideas such as these masquerade as being anti-racist but in fact refuse to do the

harder work of considering the complex implications of race as it relates to the blues. Moreover,

by resorting to a personal attack, the respondent puts the onus on the author of the article who

must now apologize for offending everyone’s feelings. Talking about race as it relates to the

blues is framed as turning the blues into a ‘race war’. We are led to believe that race was never

a problem in the music industry until someone dared to bring it up. With the concluding

legerdemain, this writer transforms the author into an absurdity, invoking Donald Trump for extra

comic effect. Race is conveniently left off the table. Nevermind the elephant in the room, but

can you believe this uppity negro has the nerve to challenge white folk’s perceptions? He’s

dangerous! How dare he? As another respondent wrote, “In an age when it is apparent that

races need to understand each other, live in peace and fairness and come together, your essay

is clearly throwing fuel on a fire that needs to be extinguished. Shame on you.” Unfortunately

for this respondent, no fire was ever extinguished by simply ignoring it.

Reading comments such as this, I began to realize that many white people simply can’t

talk about race. Merely talking about race is seen as more dangerous than racism itself.

Several commentators immediately resorted to personal attacks and insults, an easier tactic

than considering the actual assertions of the article. One particularly indignant respondent

wrote with an energetic use of his keyboard’s caps lock, “Can black people play rock? can black

people play ANY OTHER FUCKING GENRE ON THE PLANET?! I guess not, you racist mother

fucking pig!” Another enraged commentator expressed his anger, also with capital letters for

extra emphasis: “ It's not about COLOR, CULTURE or RACE. IT'S about SPIRIT! ! And the cat

that wrote this dribble has the SPIRIT of a RACIST!!”

Such comments reveal that many of these writers were triggered by the title and did not

even read through the whole article. Both of the above comments betray a peculiar sensitivity

to any suggestion that racism/white supremacy plays any role in blues music history. I had

crossed an invisible line. In a situation that is as tragic as it is comical, the irony of white people

calling a Black blues musician a racist for bringing up the topic of racism in the blues was

completely lost on many commentators. Looking closely, we see the common perception in

white culture that racism is not an entrenched system to maintain white supremacy in society,

but rather a simply a question of individual acts. Reducing the problem to individual, isolated

acts encourages blindness to the repeated and systematic violence that has characterized

American history since the beginning, whether it be by the lynch mob, the fountain pen or

cultural appropriation and exploitation. If Black people have not thrived in America, it is the

result of their individual failings, and definitely not structural inequalities.

This is reminiscent of the NRA’s typical reaction to the repeated mass shootings over the

years; it is only a deranged ‘lone wolf’ that is the problem. The system is never at fault. Forget

the national glorification of gun culture, extreme violence or the lack of any serious gun control

laws. By this same line of reasoning, if we ignore racism and don’t talk about it, it simply goes

away. Thus, the real racist is the Black blues artist who dares address the pink elephant in the

room, while the white people objecting to any discussion of the matter position themselves as

noble champions of anti-racism. Not only is race avoided, but the concept of white innocence is

reinforced. What is fascinating here is the arrogance displayed by those who benefit from

racism as a group, enabling themselves to claim a moral high-ground while attempting to

silence any debate on the matter. Ironically, although their assertions are framed from a

standpoint of colorblindness, such attitudes only reinforce the work of white supremacy by

denying Black people’s very real experiences with American racism and reifying white people’s

definition of racism above that of non-whites.

Others sought to educate the author by linking the article’s assertions to ‘nationalism’:

Mr. Harris you are recycling 19th century concepts of cultural exceptionalism and superiority that

led to the facist and totalitarian regimes in Italy, Japan and Germany. You are attempting to

create rigid racial discrimination requirements for legitimate entry for cultural "authentic"

expression. This is entirely wrong, morally.... Mr. Harris [owes] every decent person, white and

black, an apology. Americans of all colors will not tolerate racist ideologies to prevail.

As another respondent wrote, “this article represents black nationalism of the worst kind.” The

article is characterized as unpalatable, immoral and downright dangerous, bordering on

totalitarianism and fascism. This person apparently ignored the part where I write that anyone

has the right to express themselves in the genre of their choosing. The main point is that the

positionality of a Black player can never be the same as that of a white player. Eric Clapton is

not Otis Rush, John Mayall is not B.B. King. This commentator’s seemingly willful

misunderstanding permits him to pass over the main thrust of the argument and continue with

his own socialization unexamined. His conclusion positions himself as the ultimate anti-racist

crusader who then demands an ‘apology’ from the author for the transgression of talking about

race. His response makes it clear that his perception of racism (i.e. talking about the

implications of racism) is the only acceptable one. The arrogance and superiority displayed in

dictating to Black musicians, who have historically been on the receiving end of systematic

racism, is quite stunning. Having constructed his straw man (the affront of the author pointing

out race), he grants himself the agency to denounce it and knock it down.

Another commentator linked the contentions of the article to ‘nationalism’ identifying it as

The author’s primary motivation:

All nationalists have the same mentality and narrative. They claim they hail from a noble race of people and possess extraordinary powers that no other tribe, race or nationality are capable of. I know because I come from a country that disintegrated in a civil war as a result of different nationalisms. Nationalism is an archaic way of dealing with one's psychological hangups, a method of self-aggrandizement at the expense of the "other" and the "uninitiated", and it runs contrary to all notions of contemporary ethical behavior.

Here again the straw man rears his shaggy head, enabling him to ignore the issue of race. Now

our attention is turned to the evil spectre of ‘nationalism’, leading us to believe that merely

discussing race and blues music can possibly lead to racism and even war. Having thus

detoured the discourse onto a path of his own device, he is free to declare any engagement with

the issue as being downright ‘unethical’, claiming the moral high-ground. Bias, positionality, and

the topic of racism is left untouched, and now we find ourselves talking about some unnamed

civil war in a foreign land combined with a diagnosis of the author’s psychosis motivated by

‘self-aggrandizement’. To do all this work requires a considerable amount of bending and

twisting, yet I found that these men consistently proved themselves up to the task. However,

unlike concrete, building with straw requires much less heavy lifting.

Several respondents complained that the author made ‘skin color’ a litmus test for blues

authenticity, as if ‘color’ and ‘race’ were essentially the same. Here we see working class white

people from broken homes being magically transformed into an oppressed class. The point of

the article is missed entirely:

“You're a joke, man. I know a lot of white people that were raised in single parent families that

worked menial jobs. But those people can't play the blues because of the color of their skin,

because it happens to be white? You just proved that you're a damn racist, man. Thank you. You

proved it all by yourself with what you said. Man you are a phony and a disgrace to your race,

man.”

Again we see a glossing over of my explanation that yes, white people can and do play the

blues. The fact that white people have suffered at all is offered as proof enough for the above

writer to claim their ‘right’ to play the blues. Since blues is equated with suffering one can easily

skip over thousands of happy blues songs about love, joy, hope and triumph. As bluesman

Brownie McGhee once declared, “the blues is not a dream, the blues is truth.” The common

trope of blues as being essentially the pitiful lamentations of poor, illiterate southern negroes

lurks just beneath the surface, only to be transformed into a universal right for suffering white

folks to claim as their own. Anyone can play it because it is really just ‘sad’ music. Any deeper

engagement of these underlying assumptions is painted as ‘disgraceful’ to the entire Black race.

Another commentator wrote,

It isn't about skin color at all. It's about what experiences one brings to the table. Do we think that

a prisoner in solitary confinement doesn't know the blues? How about the 9/11 widow? Note that

color of skin or ethnic history has no impact on that. Was this spectacular art form started by

people of color in the fields and in bondage? Yep, without question.

It is notable that while denying that ‘skin color’ (i.e. race) has anything to with historical issues of

power dynamics in the blues, this respondent avoids using the words ‘Black people’ or

‘African-Americans’. By using the currently accepted term, ‘people of color’, we are now led to

re-imagine the slave plantation as being populated by indeterminate ‘colored’ folk of vague

origin. Black people, racism and white supremacy is taken out of the picture, being replaced by

the nebulous concept of skin color. Ironically, this peculiar manifestation of colorblind ideology

allows this writer to deny the implication of race as it relates to blues history.

Yet another category of responses denied that Black culture was the sole progenitor of

the blues. In this reading of blues history, Black musicians only came up with the blues

because of European influence. Here we have a response which attempts to minimize the

Black genesis of the blues, while simultaneously invoking the well-worn ‘angry Black man’ trope:

This music was completely American in every sense of the word.... the product of a melting pot.

Socially and culturally the blacks brought their own experience to it, and their voice, there's no

denying that. But remember that the blues, as we have heard it for the last 85 years, uses the

musical harmonies of the European culture. To call it purely the product of just one culture,

especially with the anger that Corey is using is superficial.

In this response we are treated to a re-writing of history that denies the intense segregation of

American society by invoking the tired metaphor of the American ‘melting pot’. Obviously, Black

musicians did learn Black repertoire as well as white musical styles, given the financial needs of

many professional Black musicians who entertained whites in social settings. However,

individual cases notwithstanding, there is no historical record of widespread blending of Black

and white communities in the United States. The ‘melting pot’ is simply a comfortable myth.

Segregation against both African slaves and free people of color was the order of the day, and

the United States is still highly segregated. The author of the offending essay is reminded that

within the various styles of the genre in the twentieth century there are definite influences of

European harmony. Yet at the same time, the above commentator refuses to acknowledge any

African influences. Here it is useful to briefly turn to the history of the banjo.

A wholly African instrument, the earliest depiction of the banjo was first depicted in the

painting, The Old Plantation , from the end of the 18th century. Its widespread use among the

African enslaved in the Caribbean and the Americas was the basis for its entree into blackface

minstrelsy, that well-known mockery of Black culture for white amusement. The first form of

mass entertainment in America, touring medicine shows featuring blackface comedians

exposed rural white Americans to what had previously been solely a Black instrument. As a

symbol of blackface minstrelsy, the instrument began to fall out of favor with many Black

communities around the time of Reconstruction in the aftermath of the Civil War. Guitars

gradually replaced the banjo in many quarters as Black folk sought to move beyond the pain of

slavery that minstrelsy represented. At the same time, rural whites ‘discovered’ it and adopted

its tunings and playing techniques (‘frailing’ and ‘clawhammer’ styles) to fit their repertoire.

Moreover, the music was already in existence prior to the standard I-IV-V chord progression that

characterizes the genre today. The popular Memphis bandleader WC Handy is widely credited

for this innovation in the early years of the 20th century. As the electric bluesman Little Milton

explained in Debra Desalvo’s book, The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu,

“W.C. Handy created sequences — verse, chorus, et cetera. But the old timers didn’t really play

that way. John Lee Hooker, he didn’t play by bars, he didn’t count — he just made a change

whenever he felt like it. He didn’t necessarily rhyme all his words, neither. Whatever he was

thinking, whatever came up, that’s what he was singing. I think Handy was trying his best to make

the songs seem as professional as possible, yet also simple to play, so he put bars to the music

where you could count. Twelve bars with a turn-back.” (17)

The blues was fully formed within Black culture before the introduction of chord changes. Any

attempt to erase the African foundation of the music necessarily ignores the true history of race

relations in America and Black agency in the birth of the blues.

Similarly, yet another commentator resorted to his own re-telling of history when he

responded,

There would be no blues or jazz as we know it without black slaves living in the U.S., using

"white" instruments and assimilating folk and popular music elements of other cultures that live

here. The proof of that is that nothing similar to American blues existed in Africa. B.B. King said

that a lot of white blues guitarists can run circles around black ones, but they can't sound as

authentic as black singers. Well, he's wrong about the second part of the sentence since Jack

Bruce and Joe Cocker certainly sound better and more blues-authentic to so many listeners than

B.B. King himself.

Yet again, we can detect not a small amount of ignorance and arrogance in the declaration that

“nothing similar to American blues existed in Africa”. It is doubtless that this self-appointed

expert had ever seriously listened to the music of Ali Farka Toure, Lobi Traore or Bassekou

Kouyate. Similarly, he seems unaware that the music of Skip James, Robert Pete Williams, RL

Burnside or Otha Turner did not strictly adhere to the widely vaunted I-IV-V chord changes

introduced by W.C Handy. His conclusion that the Scotsman Jack Bruce or the Englishman Joe

Cocker sound “better and more blues-authentic” than the Mississippi-born and bred B.B. King is

nothing short of astounding. Overall, his response betrays an astonishing ignorance of Black

history such as his assertion that ‘black slaves’ used ‘white instruments’ and merely assimilated

the music of other cultures to create the blues. Black agency is simply erased, while the

influence of white culture is glorified as an improvement upon anything that even B.B. King

could come up with.

Another response indulged in the ‘melting pot’ metaphor to compensate for his lack of

comprehensive knowledge on the subject:

[The] blues as we know it is a conglomeration of so many influences, black, white, brown, red,

yellow, purple etc.. Old American was a gumbo of diversity and archetypal human experience and

for anyone to stake ethnic exclusive claims to the root of a folk music form can really lead us all

into a dead end corner. All are welcome and entitled.

The main intent here is to educate the author and minimize any Black claim to blues as being

the product of Black culture. Curiously, he invokes a range of colors (even purple! ) in his

clumsy attempt to discuss the impact of different cultures in the development of the blues. In

this creative re-telling, segregation and race and class differences did not exist, being elided by

the nebulous concept of an ‘old American gumbo’. To him, the blues is universal and can not

be characterized as essentially Black. As such, anyone can do it and anyone is entitled. Again,

a strange colorblind ideology combined with historical ignorance is presented as a perfectly

reasonable explanation for denying the essential nature of the genre. We are instead subjected

to another artful denial of Black agency in the production of Black culture in the name of

preserving a white supremacist reading of blues history. Race is such a vexing concept that it

must be removed from the equation to mollify white feelings of superiority. If we don’t

acknowledge it, it ceases to be a factor. With race and Black people removed from the picture,

he is free to declare that ‘all are entitled.’ Like a homesteader who must do the hard work of

hacking away the underbrush, cutting down trees and burning out the stumps, he strikes his

claim and prepares it for exploitation by the dominant society. Sadly, he would rather do this

work of verbal gymnastics than attempt to explore the implications of racism and the Black

foundations of the blues.

🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶

The fact is that all people bring their specific ethnic group histories to their musical

practice. Yes, all people suffer, yet we all don’t suffer in the same way from the same problems.

The white experience is not the same as the Black experience in America, and it never has

been. When a white performer performs in a Black musical style, it is impossible to check his

positionality as a member of the white race at the door. The same goes for the Black performer.

Though no one needs a permission slip to play music from other cultures, we each take our

personal and family histories with us whatever we do. We can’t run away from ourselves.

Writer Paul Garon asks,

“ Is it the same when a black man like Chuck Berry sings that he went ‘across Mississippi clean,’

as when a white man like Elvis Presley sings the same lyrics in the same song? Hardly! Getting

‘across Mississippi clean’ has a whole accumulation of meanings when sung by a black

[performer], meanings that just don't exist for a white performer.” (1)

Musicking in America has never existed in a vacuum, insulated from the realities of racial

oppression. In the context of a deeply violent system of historical white supremacy that is

enshrined by law and interpreted by the courts in ways that serve to protect white economic and

social privilege, the positionality of the white musician is a determining factor in how they

approach the social, economic and historical issues surrounding the performance of blues

music. American racism and its impact on white people’s socialization is as natural as water in

the ocean. However, simply saying it doesn’t exist won’t save one from drowning. It is a

foundational reality that we ignore at our peril..

There is an apparent confusion - whether legitimate or deliberately artificial - between

race and skin color, even though this distinction is not supported by history or popular opinion.

The ‘one drop-rule’ that forms the baseline of racism in the United States dictates that one need

not be phenotypically Black in order to be considered as a Black person in terms of the law or

societal perception. American slave plantations were filled with people who were phenotypically

‘white’ but whose ancestry was not ‘pure’ by the rigid standards of white supremacy (Sally

Hemmings can you hear me?). In a slavocracy in which political and economic power was

based on racial identity, such designations were essential to the continuation of white

domination over land, property and resources. Cheryl Harris writes in “Whiteness as Property”

of Homer Plessy, the plaintiff in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson , whose plea stated that "the

mixture of African blood [was] not discernable in him."' (41) This case took place against the

backdrop of a long history of New Orleans’ racial admixture between African, European, and

native American populations, such that skin color alone was never a reliable qualifier for

whether or not a person could be seen as Black or white under Louisiana law. Simply put,

Black folk have always presented in a variety of colors, from ‘high yella’ and ‘redbone’ to

‘chocolate brown’ and ‘blue black’. What we know as ‘the Black race’ can never be reduced to

simply a matter of skin color. It is more than skin deep. Simplifying the argument in this way

again serves to deny the reality, impact and complexity of racism’s effect on socialization. The

straw man of skin color is a convenient way to brush away a deeper consideration of the issue,

transforming the author’s argument as being about an obsession with ‘color.’

Even today there are white people in America who would be considered legally Black

according to the restrictive definition of racial/genetic heritage constructed over time in the

ultimate interest of consolidating white social and economic hegemony. In my own family, there

are people who could have passed for white but because their ‘blood’ could be legally verified

as being ‘mixed’ were subject to the same restrictive laws, covenants and social conventions

that served to oppress the blackest Americans of African descent. Of course, they could have

chosen to move away, eschew any family ties with their darker kin and begin life anew as white

people. However, they chose to be identified with the group into which they were born, even if it

was against their self interest. It seems inconceivable that white Americans are completely

unaware of this. Conflating race with skin color is a classic red herring - a convenient way to

sidestep the deeper questions of heritage and identity. The dominant discourse is thus

protected from any challenges.

For a sizable portion of blues-loving whites, Black musicians’ questioning of white

people’s unquestioned liberty to appropriate traditionally Black musical styles is racism. There

is also the assumption that white people’s positionality as offspring of broken homes or as

members of the working class are enough to qualify their ‘right’ to play the blues. Such

assertions serve to minimize the unique nature of the blues as a cultural product of Black

history, ignoring any differences between Black pain as a result of racism and white misfortune

in a society where they are the dominant group. Whenever Black folk have dared to speak up, it

is often called ‘pulling the race card.’ However this is exactly what these respondents are doing

in their objection to a Black musician talking about his experiences and observations of racism.

DiAngelo’s concept of white fragility is in play here, demonstrating why it is often extremely

difficult for white people to talk about racism. The socialized arrogance of white dominance is a

barrier for white peoples’ understanding of Black perspectives about racism.

When racism is called out, anger and defensiveness is the predictable result. DiAngelo

asserts that the main concept driving white people’s reluctance to acknowledge racism is the

racist = bad/not racist = good binary. Indeed, no one in any society wants to be seen as being

‘bad’, so white people can absolve themselves from having to do the work of being truly

anti-racist, since ‘they are not racist.’ In this way we can see this cry of ‘racism’ as simply a

rejection of any opinion that upsets the dominant group discourse. The entrenched legal and

social realities that reify whiteness are not dealt with. Individualism also plays an important role.

In her essay, “What Makes Racism So Hard for White People to See”, DiAnglo writes that white

people are socialized to think of themselves as individuals and not members of a group. This

means that if they do not deem themselves as participating in individual racist acts, then racism

is necessarily absent. The pervasive effect of segregation can not be understated. Growing up

in an all-white environment normalizes whiteness as existing outside of race, i.e. “we are all just

human.” By this logic, if ‘people of color’ are not present, then race is not present. Thus, there is

no racism. Therefore race is something, ironically, that is brought to white spaces by ‘people of

color’ since it is they who ‘possess’ race and white people are ‘just human’. In this highly

controlled and heavily sheltered environment, it is racist to even talk about racism. Overall,

DiAngelo contends that white people’s socialization and lack of experience with racism

conditions them to expect and demand racial comfort. When this expectation is compromised,

reactions such as anger, defensiveness and hostility can ensue. As a result we have the irony

of white people who feel qualified to declare the presence or absence of racism when they as a

group are the least qualified to ascertain what racism is or isn’t. These conscious and

unconscious behaviors and modes of thought ensure that Black attempts at self-determination

and valorization are effectively nipped in the bud. The end result is the continuation and

strengthening of white supremacy, which emerges unscathed every time.

But whose definition of racism are we using? We need a deeper examination of what

racism is and how it operates. Is it merely an individual occurrence, or is it a social structure

that affects all relations between different racial groups? Is racism a phenomena that

specifically upholds white supremacy, or can Black people use it as a tool to dominate another

group in the same ways that it is wielded by whites? Consider Omowale Akintunde’s definition:

“Racism is a systemic, societal, institutional, omnipresent, and epistemologically embedded

phenomenon that pervades every vestige of our reality. For most whites, however, racism is like

murder: the concept exists, but someone has to commit it in order for it to happen. This limited

view of such a multilayered syndrome cultivates the sinister nature of racism and, in fact,

perpetuates racist phenomena rather than eradicates them.” (168 )

Since whites as a group have never been subordinate to Black people, they have never had to

develop strategies for dealing with racism. Additionally, living in an intensely segregated society

means that most white people can go their entire lives without really knowing any Black people

or how racism affects Black lives. This is the basis of the fragility that they demonstrate when

they are called out on racist behavior. In White Fragility, Diangelo writes that “racism is a

society-wide dynamic that occurs at the group level”. (22) Racism is a team sport. Any cursory

observation of how the system of racism operates in society reveals the ultimate objective: white

domination. Black people have never possessed the property of whiteness, so although it is

entirely possible for them to hold prejudices or in certain circumstances even discriminate

against an outside group, they do not have the power to oppress any group in the ways that

they themselves have been historically restricted from property ownership, legal rights and civic

participation due to their racialized identity imposed upon them by the dominant power structure.

This power only resides in those who possess the property of a whiteness that was violently

established through conquest and domination and codified by law. Indeed, as the example of

the one drop rule shows us, to be white is to be absent of any provable trace of Blackness, this

being the ultimate prerequisite for group success.

This conceptual system is so pervasive and powerful that even though exceptions to the

rule do exist and are constantly held up by the white mainstream as advancement for the entire

race - the election of Barack Obama or the existence of numerous rich Black athletes and

entertainers come to mind - these isolated, individual examples of success do nothing to upset

the status quo nor do they liberate all Black people from racism/white supremacy. This is not to

say that all whites are automatically members of an elite class solely by virtue of their

possession of whiteness. As Harris asserts, it means only that “whiteness retains its value as a

‘consolation prize’: it does not mean that all whites will win, but simply that they will not lose, if

losing is defined as being on the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy - the position to

which Blacks have been consigned.” (53)