Out of the Woods

How to recognize racism when you see it

 After they got into a tiff with the president about demonstrations while the national anthem was being sung, the three large sports clubs in Boston got together to plan a series of actions against racism. There are plans for a some advertisements and other actions. So far the plans are pretty vague and that is an important part of my story today.

Interestingly enough, as they announced these plans with some fanfare they had an opportunity to act very concretely against racism.

Within the same fortnight Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico unbelievably. Communications are down; there is no power. Many roads are destroyed. People have no water and little food. Medicines are scare; the healthcare system not really functioning. The US government, the President, the military, FEMA, and other government agencies did not pay a whole lot of attention to the immense suffering of people on the island for about a week. It took them that long to send a general there to see what sort of military assistance would be needed.

When hurricanes had hit Texas and Florida help was on the way immediately. We might say that hurricane Maria was the third hurricane in a very short period and people were simply tired. But when Mexico City was hit by two major earthquakes we did not seem to show any interest. (Perhaps the President is still miffed by the Mexicans refusal to pay for the border wall.) It is hard to believe that if a catastrophic natural disaster hit Toronto or Montréal we would simply ignore that. Surely military planes and trucks and machinery would be on the way in no time at all.

But the people on the island of Puerto Rico are not Canadians. They are not white. Neither are Mexicans. The neglect of the tremendous suffering of Puerto Rico is not a result of battle fatigue; it is a clear manifestation of racism.

Here was a splendid opportunity for the athletes in Boston to show their opposition to racism by getting on the phone and calling the White House – President Trump is a personal friend of some of them – to urge immediate action. But nobody noticed the crisis.

There is a lot to be learned from this story. Puerto Rico was not neglected and left to suffer without help because the government “hates” Puerto Ricans. The Boston athletes did not overlook what was happening – or rather not happening-- in Puerto Rico because they hate Puerto Ricans. But white people don't pay as much attention to people of color as they do to their own kind (Unless they rape or murder). We take ourselves terribly seriously. We think we are terribly important and do not see people of color as quite as important. So what happened in Puerto Rico did not ring any loud alarm bells, it did not get the ambulances and fire trucks out, bells ringing and sirens blaring. Everybody deplored the suffering and then paid attention to something else – most likely something concerning white people.

You don't have to beat up on people of color to be a racist. You just need to not take them quite as seriously as we take ourselves.

But there is a second lesson. Racism is not a general thing which we can combat – well-meaning white folks that we are – any day in any way by showing videos and going to sensitivity workshops. Racism is like a chronic disease that flares up here and it flares up there perhaps with different symptoms. One way of being racist is not to notice what is happening. A more serious way of being racist is not noticing what you are doing.

If some persons of color in your nation are suffering grievously and you are not moved to action, if only to call your friend the president of the United States and tell him to go and do his job now, today, then you are being racist because you are not noticing what is happening and, if truth be told, you don't care.

The third lesson is this: what you can do to fight racism may not be the same thing that I can do. Each of us, as white people, are involved in the perpetuation of racism in different ways. Each of us has to find the places where he or she are contributing to maintaining present racist abuses and must then work hard to withdraw their complicity. There is no general prescription of what you can do. Advertising against racism has been tried for 50 years with little effect. Holding dialogues about race between city officials and leaders of the community is not only a waste of time but it does positive damage because it persuades white people that they are doing all they can to fight racism while, in fact, they're doing zilch.

Racism has little to do with hate. It has to do with not paying attention, with not being able to be bothered, with not taking seriously the misery of others just because their skin is darker than ours. Racism is systematic. White people work to maintain that system most often without explicitly meaning to. But not paying attention to how the system works (and doesn't), and what you and I do to promote it, is itself being racist however good your intentions might be.