Unlearn Your Racism, Part 1: A Few Basics

Over the past five years, I've begun to study racism as one of my core personal and professional activities. I conducted a large study of an urban high school where race, racism, and race relations heavily influenced decisions throughout the school, often overriding decisions that should have also been informed by sound pedagogy, nuanced educational data, human rights and the law. If interested, you can read about it in a forthcoming book, Racism and Educational (Mis)leadership, which should come out from Teachers College Press in late 2011 or early 2012. I've also written a few articles based on preliminary findings from the study, but enough about my research...I give that only as a means of communicating a bit about my background.

Let's talk about unlearning racism.

To be sure, the first question anyone should ask--the question I ask--is "can you unlearn racism?" You can reflect and answer that as you like, but since this is my blog I'm going to first give you my answer and then explain a few reasons behind my thinking. 

My answer is, "yes," but it's a qualified yes. I need to unpack a few basic points about the phenomena that undergird my understanding of learning, race, racism, and race relations. 

First, I believe that learning is a process. As such, anyone can certainly begin the process of unlearning racism. I am not as certain that it is possible for anyone who was raised in the United States to completely expunge all racist assumptions, thoughts and behaviors. Racism takes many covert and overt forms. There is in-your-face racism, subtle racism, implicit racism, and a racism that lies deep in our assumptions about people and society. Good people with good intentions (that judgement of course being relative) have racist thoughts and (un)intentionally behave in a racist manner at times. Given this, I do believe that it is possible to educate ourselves toward a more enlightened understanding of the way racism shapes our worldview, compels us to behave in a particular manner, and make sense of what other people are thinking and doing.

Second, I believe that educated people interrogate their assumptions, increase their knowledge and change their behavior. People who take it upon themselves to learn and grow must reflect on their assumptions, thoughts and behavior. They are critical of what they "know," how they "know what they know" and how their ideas about what constitutes legitimate knowledge is shaped by racism. Educated people are skeptical--constantly challenging their ideas and other's ideas. They scrutinize not only the message, but the messenger. To be sure, when I say educated people, I do not mean "schooled" people. Schools and universities can (and do) teach and unteach racism in a variety of ways, but since they seldom do that in an intentional manner, much of our education about racism takes place outside of formal institutional settings. We learn (and unlearn) much of what we know about racism in non-school settings.

Third, to unlearn racism you must be critical of everything, all the time. We have all been acculturated, assimilated and indoctrinated into US society (though to be sure we have each experienced said society in a discrete manner) and as such have been taught racism since we were young. Racism is individual, institutional and historical. It is manifest in social, economic, political and cultural ways that permeate all aspects of US culture, from television programming, to the food we eat, the way we speak, the way we dress, the way we think about time, spirituality, sexuality, etc. What's more, racism is intersectional, meaning that it is in constant reciprocal influence with all these things and more--it does not exist as an isolated or controlled factor--rather, it is constantly interacting with myriad personal, interpersonal, institutional and societal dynamics. Racism is not monolithic--it is dynamic, and if we want to unlearn it, our learning must be equally dynamic.

Fourth, we must increase our knowledge to unlearn racism. While I take full responsibility for my shortcomings, I have learned a great deal from insightful scholars, artists, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances who have both taught and challenged me. We must seek out and critically evaluate books, blogs, films, programs, podcasts, research reports, articles, speeches, plays, novels, and music that offer fresh insights on issues of race. We must constantly evaluate this new affective and cognitive information and compare it to our extant assumptions, knowledge, beliefs and behaviors and allow ourselves to evolve and grow. Vulnerably sharing our ideas with others who respect and care for us is part, but only part of this process--it is ultimately up to EACH of us to take charge of our education--importantly, it is NOT the responsibility of people of color to educate others, particularly white people, on issues of race. This is a persistent and widespread mistake, which I will explore more fully in subsequent posts about white privilege.

More later in Part 2, but this is a beginning...