Owning Whiteness and Ousting Racism

Philadelphia has been rioting for four consecutive days in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, a black man pinned down by a white police officer in Minnesota. The streets are full of protesters, looters, shattered glass, boiling anger, and fragile hope. The sound of sirens and helicopters has become our lullaby. People are tired, frightened, nervous, righteous, fed up, grieving, and demanding justice. Black Lives Matter. 

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church just celebrated the feast of Pentecost on Sunday: the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, the birthday of the church. Pope Francis articulated in his homily that the apostles “were all different. Jesus did not change them; he did not make them into a set of pre-packaged models. He left their differences and now he unites them by anointing them with the Holy Spirit.” What if we applied this to our country? We are all different; what unites us? How do we use our differences for good? How do we treat those differences as good, not as a basis for injustice?

On Pentecost, Catholics also celebrate the gifts of the Holy Spirit. “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same spirit. There are different forms of service, but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone,” Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians. What does this mean at this time of reckoning our country’s legacy of racial injustice? Perhaps there are those who march in protest, and those who sweep up; those who donate money, those who donate supplies; those who report news, those who pray at home. Different forms of service, different working, different gifts, but the same spirit.

Which leaves me wondering: what is my gift, my service, my working?

I believe that’s education and engagement.

For several years now at one of my jobs, we’ve been actively taking part in racial competency trainings. As a majority white staff teaching majority non-white students about American history, we found ourselves unprepared for questions like “Is Trump going to send me back to slavery?” or “What do you people have against my skin color?” Racial competency trainings provide a space to explore our own experience and history with regard to white racial development, and to learn about racial and cultural identity development for people of color. We get to face our biases, challenge the status quo, and be honest and vulnerable about where we were and are in our racial understanding. We start by thinking about how race was (or was not) talked about in our house growing up, and what ideas we internalized about race from our families, schools, TV, and other exposures. We think about power - when we have been in the majority, when we have been in the minority. The goal is to develop a positive racial identity which allows us to work towards anti-racist relationships, learning environments, and communities.

At this critical moment, I want to engage with this even more. Does it immediately solve police brutality? No. But police brutality is a symptom of hundreds of years of messed up relationships between white and black Americans. It’s a symptom of white people refusing to acknowledge how they have benefited from racist systems. It’s a symptom of white suburban families never having to look someone in the face who looks differently than they do. It’s a symptom of white friends making racist jokes because a black person isn’t there to hear them. I am not exonerated from this. I am a part of the virus of racism. We all are. Racial competency can help us say that out loud. 

Here’s what that work could look like:

In my household, welfare was the abused, not a symptom of those abused.  My friends and I did a project in 5th grade on slavery, and though our intentions were innocent and educational, my teacher didn't take the opportunity to address the problematic history of black and brown face or correct our behavior. I was told to have babies who look like me.  As a kid, my social circles talked about PG County Maryland as if it was the slum; it’s a large, relatively well-off, majority black county. When I started to learn more about race and inequality, I boastfully thought I was more aware of communities of color than people who lived in new developments because my neighborhood was right across the train tracks from the historically black neighborhood; I didn’t stop to think about why exactly that was. While I could acknowledge oppression, I still compared it to others: “the Irish suffered too.” I’ve thought just individuals are racists, and it would always be obvious when they are, instead of thinking about systems and complicity. I still catch myself sometimes locking my car doors, or tensing my shoulders and avoiding eye contact upon sight of a man of color. Lately I’ve been working to value code switching, and not just defend the English language “as it was meant to be spoken.”

This is just a snapshot, a start, and my work is not done. Racial competency is having the courage to say these things out loud, reconcile them, and then move forward with greater justice, equity, and understanding. According to Ali Michael of the Race Institute who taught our training, there are 6 stages of white racial identity development: contact, disintegration, reintegration, pseudo-independent stage, immersion, and autonomy. A person can move through these non-linearly, bouncing around depending on the day, time, or situation. The goal is to find yourself usually somewhere in the latter three, but the key is to always check in with yourself, interrogate, fix, and move forward. Anti-racist work is never done.

I invite you to join in this work with me. It is hard work, especially amidst a pandemic and worldwide protests. But it is necessary work. We need to understand ourselves so that we can understand others. The time is now. Too many lives have already been lost. Too much fear has already ruled. The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost to send us out of the upper room, away from fear, into the mess, to be united towards good. He is still here. We have been given the grace and courage to be one body. Let's be it. 

*It’s helpful to have a safe, open environment for this work to happen. If any one wants to think about this more, I’m here with resources, plenty of time, and a listening ear.*