People Won’t Take Responsibility For Their Racism, And I’m Tired Of It
By: Dorothy Hines, Ph. D.
Tags: BlackLivesMatter, Equality, Racism, Race, Diversity

Taking responsibility means addressing the myths

Racism is what racism isn’t. Racism isn’t sweet, innocent, or a delicacy. Racism is a fearful monopoly. Racism is durable, flexible, and resistant to outside pressure to change, and it is a costly crime. In 1987 Patricia Williams also said:

Society is only beginning to recognize that racism is as devastating, as costly, and as psychically obliterating as robbery or assault; indeed they are often the same.

There are several myths about racism that some people do not want to admit, because admitting it necessitates that it exists and that they must reform their ways. Here are a few myths about racism that some people want you to believe so that they don’t have to take responsibility.

Myth #1: Racism is accidental

Photo by Varvara Grabova on Unsplash

Can people be “accidental racists?” That’s the controversial song that country music artist Brad Paisley performed with hip-hop star LL Cool J in 2013 called “Accidental Racist.” Some of the lyrics said by Brad Paisley :

Cause I’m a white man livin’ in the southland

Just like you I’m more than what you see

I’m proud of where I’m from but not everything we’ve done

And it ain’t like you and me can re-write history

Our generation didn’t start this nation

And we’re still paying for the mistakes

That a bunch of folks made long before we came

And caught between southern pride and southern blame

LL Cool J lyrics said:

Dear Mr. White Man, I wish you understood

What the world is really like when you’re livin’ in the hood

Just because my pants are saggin’ doesn’t mean I’m up to no good

You should try to get to know me, I really wish you would

Now my chains are gold but I’m still misunderstood

I wasn’t there when Sherman’s March turned the south into firewood

I want you to get paid but be a slave I never could

Feel like a new fangled Django, dodgin’ invisible white hoods

So when I see that white cowboy hat, I’m thinkin’ it’s not all good

I guess we’re both guilty of judgin’ the cover not the book

I’d love to buy you a beer, conversate and clear the air

But I see that red flag and I think you wish I wasn’t here

Racism may be unconscious, but it is not accidental. Racism comes from a long legacy of inequities in the United States. It is not accidental it is historical and it is what this country has been made of. The racial divide that exists came from a long-thought out system of disadvantage that sought to disenfranchise and disequip Black, Latinx, Asian, and immigrant populations from having equal protection under the law.

Racism is a strong and vibrant system, and it has legacy children.

Myth #2: Racism isn’t profitable

False. Racism is a profitable industry that benefits itself politically, educationally, and economically. Darrick Hamilton contends:

Throughout our history we’ve used violence as a mechanism to impose a particular political economy and to control populations. Incarceration is a way in which we have addressed surplus populations in order to maintain a larger political economy. As horrified as we are by the murder of George Floyd, it serves as an example or a metaphor of a larger political economy context. Violence is used to fuel a system.

Photo by Frank Busch on Unsplash

There is an economic advantage to racism be it in the prison system or in education. Racism resulted in the killings and punishment of slaves who wanted to learn how to read. For example, the Alabama Slave Code of 1833 read:

Any person who shall attempt to teach any free person of color, or slave, to spell, read or write, shall upon conviction thereof by indictment, be fined in a sum of not less than two hundred fifty dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars.

Maintaining the racist system that prohibited slaves from learning how to read was to keep the economic system of slavery in tacit. Racism has played an economic toll on communities of color that can not be forgotten so that it will not be repeated. It still exists today in the criminal justice system, with incarceration, and with other social institutions that have failed to protect Black and Brown lives.

Myth #3: Racism is not racial or systematic

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

You may not have much money, but at least you’re not black. There are psychological and material benefits associated with the group position of whiteness. That’s the essence of white privilege. Identity reaps some return.

Derrick Hamilton who is an economist said this statement. Racism is racial. Racism is rooted in the social construction of race. You can’t have racism without a racial group perceiving that it is superior to another.

With that perceived superiority comes power and privileges that those in the non-subordinate group never have access to and that can never be fully acquired.

Perceived superiority has negatively impacted this country in terms of opportunities, access, and upward mobility. With that perceived superiority comes power and privileges that those in the non-subordinate group never have access to and that can never be fully acquired. Racial bondage and superiority has benefits, and that reaping has not ended yet because well, why would it?

Myth #4: Racism is only physical and/or verbal

Racism is manifested outside of what effects our bodies. Racism can be expressed through verbal assaults and actual violence, but racism is also environmental. Environmental racism is more than climate change and the lack of access to natural resources. Environmentalists have argued:

environmental risks faced by communities of color: higher levels of lead exposure, higher risks of facing catastrophic flooding, and poorer air quality.

Environmental racism is most noted in what the nation saw in Flint, Michigan with the water crisis when the municipal water was not treated for lead and other chemicals and substances. Environmental racism in Flint caused lead poisoning for hundreds of adults and children who were mostly low-income and from communities of color. Even with this case, the predominately Black and Brown community had to provide that this was racism, despite ever indicator showing that the resident’s racial and ethnic demographics played a key role in the government’s lack of response and delay to correct the issue.

Myth #5: Racism can be avoided if I am friends with a person of color

Not the “I have one friend who is a person of color” so I can’t support racism line again.

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

Having “one” friend of color will not end racism. People should consider the depth of that relationship, and seek answers to people of color’s actual experiences. But, people shouldn’t tax them to carry the burden of educating others. People should work to educate themselves. The “some of my best friends are Black” concession does not free a person from still contributing to racism. Research indicates that 3/4 of white people do not have a Black friend. Knowing people of color or even being friends with a person or two does not equate to anti-racism. Being anti-racist equates to anti-racism.

Conclusion: Take responsibility

Taking responsibility for racism necessitates that people honestly see racism in its many forms. Racism has physical, mental, emotional, environmental, educational, health, and policy effects. “The Emotional Lives of White People” outlines how people can work toward racial justice. It includes facing:

(1) amnesia;

(2) anesthesia;

(3) indifference; and

(4) denial.

These all exist conditions exist — amnesia, anesthesia, indifference, and denial — when people fail to take responsibility for their racism. With amnesia, they forget that it was ever a problem. Anesthesia is the state of knowing but wanting to forget. Indifference is just not caring about it or wanting to address the guilt. Lastly is denial where a person avoids and dismisses that it even happens in the first place. Taking responsibility requires accepting what those effected by racism have to say as valid and as truth even if it counters others' majoritarian stories about them. It requires being able to see through self-reflective practice how a person contributes to racism, but also how they can undo racism.

Racism’s victims must be believed when the facts are evident.

Taking responsibility is owning how someone contributes to racism instead of avoiding it. It is being an active agent of change instead of a distraction to social progress. When a person is responsible then they can see how racism is not accidental, it is profitable, it is racial and systemic, it is not just physical and verbal, and it can not be absolved by having “one” friend.

Being responsible requires more than that. But it can allow for accountability and transparency to foster a society that is willing to right its wrongs so that all people can ultimately be free.