A Race Story Primer

Paper delivered at the University of St. Thomas Multicultural Forum, February 5, 2004

What is Your Race Story?
It is your personal narrative that explains how race has shaped and is shaping the image you hold of yourself, of others, and of the world as a whole. It is not static, whether it is known or unknown. Your story is an active agent in the world and has ongoing ramifications.

Why Do Whites Need a Race Story?
The ticket to get into an authentic dialogue about race, is to have a coherent narrative, detailing not only about how race affected you in the past, but how you struggle with it in the present. Otherwise you are a voyeur, no matter how good your intentions. Only whites with a conscious, on-going race narrative can communicate deeply and effectively with those who are not white.

This is where the common language of race, the cross-over language comes from—people of different races who have decided to be transparent, vulnerable, and vocal about their ONGOING personal challenges concerning race and color. Paradoxically, our own personal race story is our only bridge to the other side of the racial divide. We cannot understand what it is like to be white by listening to others talk about what is like to be black. It is not as important to know another’s story, as it is to know our own. As long as we treat the “other” as if their stories should explain the way things are with them, we are fated never to communicate authentically.

Until we can get to this authentic level of communication, there will not be the trust required to hold constructive discussions about strategic solutions such as integration, affirmative action, reparations, and reconciliation, school vouchers. For instance, we can’t even agree on the cause of the Civil War over a century and a half later.

So perhaps before we bring right and wrong, judgment, guilt, reparations and compensation, remorse, confession and pleas for forgiveness and reconciliation into the conversation, lets just lift the veil and see what our stories show us.

What Is Race?
Race is not merely an historical designation, an intellectual construct or an academic concept. Even though it is not a scientifically valid notion, race is nevertheless a real force, alive and potent. Race lives not in whiteness or in blackness, but in the space between black and white—in the relationship between the two. Neither exists without the other.

Together, blacks and whites perpetuate race by their participation, sometimes explicitly, but more often with complicity. This keeps race alive and charged. What keeps it toxic is the fact that this participation is rarely discussed across the white/black divide and remains the unmentioned elephant in the room. Secrets create distrust, suspicion and distance.

In America, there is no such thing as not participating. No one sits this one out. Our participation consists of the strategies we have employed to use Race to meet certain aims. Sometimes we exploit race consciously; sometimes unconsciously; sometimes with resignation; sometimes enthusiastically. Sometimes, either by threat of force, humiliation, or by the fear of being socially ostracized, or financially penalized, we reluctantly participate by colluding or submitting. Other times we are defiant. Sometimes we act publicly, many times privately, totally alone and unwatched. Sometimes we speak up, and sometimes we participate in race by holding our tongues. Sometimes we participate for a higher good; sometimes solely for our own interests, or for those we love. Sometimes we blithely accept the benefits race bestows, sometimes ignorantly, sometimes guiltily. Sometimes we deny ourselves privileges even when foisted upon us, albeit for a multitude of motives. In all these ways, we participate in race together—this is how we fill the gap between the “us” and the “them.”

Until the veil is lifted on all these actions, dynamics and arenas of MUTUAL participation and they are committed to language, race will be a thing that Black people are saddled with—instead of a force we, Blacks and Whites, maintain together-something that we have joint custody of. (Which, by the way, is one of the ways that whites participate in race—by insisting that race is a “black thing.” This is the cornerstone of the typical white race story—that we have no race story. Then add this interesting twist. The white person’s denial of having a race story is a very large part of the black person’s race story, i.e. they just don’t get it.)

What If You Are White and All You Have Known Is White?
Then a piece of your race story is discovering all the ways you have been removed and stay removed—whether by geography, by environment, by family, by society, by media, by institutions, or by choice—from the consequences that your being white has on the rest of the world. Remember, the fact that you are white is not a neutral event. It has its effects. (If nothing else, simply denying that it has any effect, affects others by making them crazy.)

Remember also, people from places in the world where they have never met an African America often come to this country committed to avoiding them, to never being confused with them, and to never being caught in a dark alley with one of them. They already have a race story. They become participants in our toxic race relationship before they even land on our shores.
Those who grew up in all-white areas probably have the hardest challenge of all. You may have never heard a person verbally denigrate Blacks. Maybe everyone you knew actively professed a belief in equality and vehemently condemned prejudice. Your task is to discover how race sifted through such a protected environment. How did you learn that color mattered?

What If You Do Not Consider Yourself African American or White?
Look for ways that your own story has or has not been influenced by America’s Black/White dilemma; by the obsession our society has for labeling and sorting individuals by color; by its tendency to see race as primarily a black and white issue.

I recently attended a racially diverse workshop in which the presenter had all the participants answer this question: On a scale of 0 to 100, how much has race impacted your life? 0 meant “not at all” and 100 meant, “race is the most significant factor in your life.”

After each participant had privately written down a number, he asked them to share their answers and then physically line up along the wall, starting with the lowest number in order to the largest. The result was visually astounding. One could not help but notice that the whites were clustered at the low end, the darkest skinned Blacks at the other end, and in between a gradient of increasingly dark skin color extending from the low to the high.

Or you may disagree. You may see your life as completely distinct from all this talk of color. This is an important truth that needs to be a part of your story. When it seems everyone is insisting that color and race must be determining your quality of life, how do you handle this when you do not believe it to be true?

Who Creates Your Race Story?
Only you. No one can give you a race story.

Minorities are very sensitive to their race stories. For African-Americans, being black is a constant factor in their lives. They are very attuned to how it affects them on a daily basis.

In addition, racial minorities want to be in charge of writing their own stories. They are very sensitive to how others try to represent their stories in literature, film, news, anywhere in the public forum. Since so little “air time” is given to them as people of color, when they are depicted, what is communicated is of extreme importance. Considering the dearth of positive exposure, the constant drumbeat of negative portrayals can very easily solidify or perpetuate distasteful stereotypes. Perhaps that is why there is so much emotion over the naming of sports teams; over stock images and cheap shots that are readily used to get a quick laugh or make a disgusting point; over disagreements as to what to “call” certain racial minorities.

Racial minorities want to choose their own labels. They don’t want to be called anything, but they do want to be recognized respectfully. Minorities want to be in charge of their own stories. They don’t want to depend upon even well meaning white historians to get it right. They know their children’s future rests on who gets to write their stories.

In a similar vein, whites, even though many claim not to have a race story, get very angry when one is laid on them. When told they are racist by nature, that they have unearned privileges, or that they owe all their advantages to the color of their skin, whites get very defensive. It is not so much that they agree or disagree. A lot of the emotion comes from the fact that nobody—white or black—appreciates being told what their story is.

How Long Should My Race Story Be?
As long as your life. Because we live in a time when the story of Race is still being written, we are, whether we choose to be or not, active participants. We never get to the end of this story. But it is progress we are after, not perfection.

Progress is achieved by sharing our narratives with others who are different from us. As long as we keep telling our narratives, certain things happen to keep the story alive and evolving:
-We recover forgotten experiences that occurred before we had the language for race.
-We continually learn about our inter-connections in the web of race.
-We discover new dimensions to past choices that we believed were race neutral.
-We begin to think about the racial implications of choices before us now.
-We are constantly surprised at how we still participate in Race, some days more consciously than others.
-We are less shameful at “being a racist” than being a “good intentioned” person who refuses to take ownership for the way we participate in race.

What’s the Pay-off?
One of the greatest benefits of having a race story to share is that others share theirs more openly. When this happens, you find that they are holding missing pieces of your own story. When someone authentically shares their experience of race with you, your own story will never be the same. If you listen closely, they are giving you a precious glimpse of yourself.

Operating at this level of intimacy and unscripted truth telling can be terrifying. When I admitted to Sondra, an African American, that I worried about how blacks moving into my neighborhood would affect property values, her mouth dropped. She was shocked not because I felt that way, but because I broke all the rules by admitting it. My fear was that she would hate me for being such a predictable white bigot.

But she did not hate me for it. In fact, she said that her trust for me increased; and my truth telling made her want to become closer friends. She said she felt “less crazy” around me.

“Why is that?” I asked.

Then she shared her piece of the puzzle. She told me blacks know that whites feel these things, but everybody (blacks and whites), out of “politeness,” pretend otherwise. Out of social necessity, blacks often feel that they have to take care of whites in their ignorance.

“You have no idea how many feelings I have to suppress just to get through the day with white people.” She said that’s what makes African Americans feel so crazy around whites. “We feel like we have to grin and bear it.”

Hearing that was like having cold water thrown in my face. It explained so much about the superficiality of my past relationships with African Americans. No wonder we could never get close. My trying so hard not to come across as racist was driving them crazy!

My friend Jim has recently developed such a relationship across race lines. He was born and bred in the whitest part of white Minnesota. Only recently did he even think that he had a race narrative. But since listening to others’ stories from across the race divide, and then awkwardly sharing what he thought and felt, struggling to find a language for the unnamed experiences and events in his past, all kinds of lights went on for him. It’s like he got a huge chunk of his life out of cold storage. It has transformed his work (he is an artist), by giving him new eyes, along with his self-image, and even his politics.

Jim lives in South Minneapolis, in a relatively well-to-do (white) area where the big problem is spoiled white kids spray-painting graffiti on garages. A mayoral candidate came to Jim’s door promising to crack down on all the rampant neighborhood “crime.” He had his spiel well tailored to the area.

Without blinking, Jim said, “I’m not as concerned about that as I am about all the black kids getting shot on the Northside. What are you going to about that?”

The politician did a double take—I’m sure wondering momentarily if he had misread his map and got himself lost. There was this white homeowner not sticking to the script and pushing for more city resources nor for HIS area, but for a beleaguered part of the city that is not tied to his property values.

In Jim’s “day job” as a corporate executive, he is able to see subtle racism more clearly and is now willing to go against Minnesota nice and “call it.” He can’t help himself. Jim’s race narrative has evolved to include more than him and his immediate circle of white friends. His life is bigger. His citizenship is bigger. His vision is bigger.

Each time we share authentically across the racial divide, our stories evolve. Now we include the other’s story as well. This is not always easy. The fact is, we may have become resigned to seeing all blacks or whites in a certain light. In some ways, we may have written off “people like them” as not worth investing in emotionally. Not taking a risk on. Then we meet a person who breaks the mold and ups the ante on us. They have the courage to tell us a risky truth. It then becomes difficult to fall back on our old assumptions. We have to ask ourselves, do I just nod my head or do I match her vulnerability and engage at a deeper level of truth?

Some Questions That Can Help You Get Started on Your Race Story:
• When did you first discover that color mattered?
• How were you told to act around whites, blacks, handicapped, disadvantaged, others who were different? {Even through good manners, was superiority or inferiority implied?)
• Who were you “warned” about?
• Where did you see blacks/whites? Not see blacks/whites? Can a child deduce value from the absence or predominance of color/race?
• Look over Peggy Macintosh’s White Privilege and see if anything jumps out at you.
• Look over “Statements White People Make” and “Statements Black People Make” and see if you can identify yourself.

Overheard in Passing: Statements to Ponder
“I cannot be blamed for the sins of my father. I never owned a slave or participated in a lynching.”

“We blacks do not live in isolation. We did not inflict our history upon ourselves. We are not crazy. White people are a major part of out story, no matter how you deny it. And them not knowing is what allows our history to continue.”

“We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.”

“Segregation was in part a societal arrangement by which whites attempted to isolate themselves from black behavior patterns that they regarded as distasteful.”

“We are more segregated in this country today than ever before.”

“When people say, ‘I’m colorblind,’ I’m afraid what they mean is that they are blind to prejudice and discrimination in the world. To a person of color, that is not helpful.”

“I think of Latinos as a group of immigrants who got to America and had to encounter this thoroughly absurd system of classification of positively charged whiteness and negatively charged blackness. And they don’t fit either one. They are people of color who are forced to deal with their blackness—whiteness.”