Unlearn Your Racism, Part 3: Look Around You

Look at your city, then look inside your city.

I live in Columbia Missouri. A town of 108,500 people, according to the 2010 Census. Wikipedia describes my city using 2000 census data, and claims that the "racial makeup of the city was 81.54% White, 10.85% Black or African American, 0.39% Native American, 4.30% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.81% from other races, and 2.07% from two or more races. 2.05% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race." Yet, when I used the NY Times Mapping Race Tool (which uses updated 2009 data) to look in a little more detail at my community I found some interesting things. The racial distribution of Census Tract 12 (where I live) is 88% White, 3% Black, 1% Hispanic, 4% Asian, 4% Other Groups. Other tracts are even more white and there is in fact only one that approaches white/black parity, a single tract on the North Central side of the city, where Whites make up 45% of the population and Black/African Americans (sic) represent 44%. When you click on the "View Other Maps" icon and consider the distribution of wealth and the educational attainment data, you get a more complete picture. I also had a google map open that showed me the P-12 schools in each census tract, and I already know how they fare on various educational indicators. In many ways, it's a little micro-map of the United States. In fact, the demographics aren't far off those for the country, which you can take a look at here.

But here's the bottom line--it's a segregated city, and these are only looking at race as phenotype, they only hint at the cultural segregation in the town.

Look at the people around you, then look inside the people around you.

I forgot where it was, but a few years ago I read that you should stop, look around and take note of your environment several times a day. As someone who's constantly sprinting from meeting to meeting and from one of my kids' engagements to another, if I wasn't intentional about this, I would likely only do it once or twice a week. As it is, I do it about 6 times a day, but always in meeting rooms, when walking across campus and when I'm in a restaurant or other service industry business. I'm serious, I just stop and look to the left, look to the right as far as I can scan and see with whom I'm sharing space.

I am struck by how many times everyone around me is White. I'm a coffee shop guy, and it's like that in the coffee shops I frequent, it's like that when I go to most faculty meetings, it's like that when I'm eating my lunch, it's like that when I'm teaching, and it's like that when I'm at the grocery store. That isn't the case when I'm playing soccer, my other great passion beyond education. More on that in future posts.

My point is that it is important to pay attention to the company you keep, but it is equally important that you don't make judgements about them until you come to know them more intimately than Payam the midfielder or Zakaria the playmaker. People are not defined by the way they look--that's essentialism, defining someone by only one characteristic--and it is an incredibly ignorant way to look at the world. Ask people around you what they think about life, about love, about people, about policy, about education, about leadership, about schools, about human rights...and they will tell you what they think about race, if and when they (and you) are ready to speak and listen.

What's the point? The people around you are not having the same experience as you with racism. In my town, the color of your skin goes a long way to determining the kind of social experiences you will have, where you will live, and how much money you will make.

Some white people are allies and some are evil; some black people are allies and some are evil. Of course I'm even oversimplifying things by setting up that dichotomy. But still, all can unlearn their racism, but some want to and some don't.

Look at the ideas around you.

What books are on your shelf, and when did you last open them? Was it last week or twenty years ago? If you haven't opened them yet, why not? What was the last thing you read about racism? A lot of people I know still talk about Cornel West's Race Matters, which is a great book, but was published in 1994. A few things related to race have happened since then. Likewise, Tim Wise's White Like Me (though updated a few times) isn't the last word on white privilege. There are incredible books coming out nearly every week, there are brilliant blogs, research and journalism flying through cyberspace, yet we often rely on a dated foundation to inform our understanding. What happens to foundations over time? They crumble. Keep seeking, challenging yourself and creating your new understanding by challenging what you knew, with new information. Being a dynamic learner--of your own life, and maybe others--is the only way to unlearn racism. In a previous post I asserted that I believe learning is a process. I mean it--it doesn't end, and that should inspire us all.

Look in the mirror.


None of this matters if we don't reflect on our assumptions and knowledge, challenge them and create a new knowledge. This begins with long, hard looks in the mirror and reflections on who we are, who we aspire to become--what good works we do and what good works we hope to create. What do you know, and what do you not know? When are you silent when you should speak? When do you speak when you should be silent? How will you answer the mirror's questions?