By Janis Bookout
This blog was not written in isolation. These ideas (even the title) are not just my own. Credits follow the post. Please read them and follow the links. That said, I am fully and independently responsible for everything shared here. I am also not pretending to be an authoritative voice on any subject other than my own experience. This is adapted from a longer essay posted in Austin EcoNetwork called “Austin Is Charlotteville.”
This blog speaks to white people as a call to action. It is our responsibility to end racism, and we are not doing that—we haven’t come close. Since the FBI has started tracking hate crimes in 1996, approximately 151,262 hate crimes have occurred, with the vast majority based primarily around race. Most of these go unpublicized.
And when I notice my own initial shock over Charlottesville—it’s inauthentic. In the background of my concern, behind the veil of outrage, is something that stands in the way of my dealing effectively with racism—an urge to distance myself from the issue.
What happened in Charlottesville is horrific. But if you step back for a minute and listen to what a lot of white people are saying, it sounds like this: “I am so upset at what these NOT ME people are doing, and the NOT ME president’s response not only is unacceptable but makes it obvious that he is a NOT ME white supremacist.”
“Not me” is killing us, right in our own backyards.
Being Authentic
January 2017, after posting a picture of myself in the pink crochet hat, a friend of mine posted about the “white supremacy” she saw at the women’s march. I was shocked: “But I am liberal! Doesn’t that count for something?!” But why would I even ask that question unless it was to avoid dealing with the viewpoint of a black woman who is frustrated about something I don’t understand, or worse, think I already do?
This is not to dismiss feminism or marching. But when mass marches for liberal causes are not intersectional and only come together when the issue directly affects white people, is it just more of the same? Asking this question does not threaten anything I truly stand for, although it certainly threatens my ego. And exploring the answer will only empower what I stand for.
So, with the intent of discovering what I could not see, I followed links, attended meetings, read articles, explored hashtags, and had new conversations. I am not going to post those resources here. Many of them come from online communities intentionally not promoted to us because we cannot help making ignorant comments. (I am speaking from personal, cringe-worthy experience.) If you are genuinely interested in having a deeper understanding, you will find them. Part of an authentic inquiry is doing your own homework. But here’s a good keyword to start with: white ally.
So far, I have seen that, while I perceive myself as being inclusive (like a personality trait), it was out-of-sight and out-of-mind for me when it was not in my face on my screen. Nothing in my world prompts me to notice racism. Which is to say, in my privilege I miss opportunities to take action, given that they never registered for me as actions to take. I participate in a system that discriminates to my benefit—built on the shoulders of enslavement and genocide. If I move forward in my life without dealing with that, I am by definition complicit.
And, unless I wake up to what black people, people of color and indigenous people are saying, I will never even see the issue—let alone do anything about it. These voices overlap and are layered painfully with LGBTQ voices, Jewish voices, Muslim voices—many, many voices. But right now I am focusing on black, people of color and indigenous voices, because of the unique way in which hidden racism—institutional racism—impacts them in particular.
I want to shame the man in this video who speaks openly about his desire to combat the “disposition of power” for white people. But the moment I shame him, I hide from myself anywhere that I participate in the system that he advocates for. It’s pretense to hide the fear of being exposed in my own hypocrisy. Until I admit that, I cannot create anything else.
Listening
Listening (for real) is a compassionate act. And for the most part, human beings don't listen. We usually don't go where voices are saying something we haven't heard or don’t want to hear, and we especially don’t listen when the voices we can afford to ignore are yelling. But what if we did? What if we heard those voices and discovered why they are yelling in the first place? In our society and with each of us, what does it take for a voice to be heard?
For organizations, this is not an “outreach” problem. It’s much deeper. It’s a being asleep and thinking I am awake problem. As human beings, when our personal interests are at stake, we tend to stop thinking beyond our own view of what is important. And our brains are masters at finding justifications for all of that.
This is not work that can be done superficially or overnight. If you are not serious about discovering your own complicitness, you may want to stop now and resign yourself to living a comfortable life of privilege, protected by blissful unconsciousness of how your blessings are connected to discrimination.
Being Uncomfortable
If you are white, you may be feeling uncomfortable. You may know inherently taking this on means embarrassment, complaints and making mistakes. Confronting that will take courage, but will not make you or I heroic or special. To many, it will make you barely tolerable. But please remember that the temporary nature of your discomfort is a luxury.
When you do make mistakes, please do your best to keep the burden of those mistakes off your black and brown friends. It is not their job to educate you, listen to your concerns, accept your apologies or make you feel better. And being guilty is not appropriate and not welcome—it only deflects responsibility. White apologies, explanations, veiled justifications, and superficial questions are often felt as forms of micro-aggression.
But even with our mistakes, we still need to have this conversation. Rubén Cantú, CEO of Level Up Institute and speaker at the upcoming Love Summit business & leadership conference, says that not talking about this is making things worse: “We keep kicking the can down the line, and it surges again,” he said as he was reviewing this piece. He then turned me onto Brené Brown’s Facebook live video, which makes this point so beautifully. When Rubén shares the impacts of racism on himself and his family, you can hear the dehumanizing nature of the constant demand to justify one’s existence and fit into white culture, while knowing you are not fully included.
Carmen Llanes Pulido, local social justice leader and organizer of for Undoing Racism said, “we are all dehumanized by racism.” This is a powerful statement. Hate is painful to all of us, but choosing to ignore it will deaden the soul. Because it is there. And building a bubble of superficial positive thinking (or negative thinking) only serves to hide one’s deadness from oneself.
Being Informed
Our failure to deal with climate change bears a striking resemblance to our failure to deal with racism. I volunteer as Outreach Manager for 2020 or Bust, whose mission is to mobilize humanity to end the climate crisis. We are constantly saying that to deal powerfully with the matter of climate change, we must disrupt our default business-as-usual thinking that tells us it’s too complex, someone else is to blame, or someone else (the EPA, the UN, the next generation) will handle it. Reality doesn’t care about any of that. The same is true of racism.
Out here in reality, the impacts of institutional racism are enormous. It is the epitome of un-sustainability.
- Race is the number one factor in the placement of toxic facilities.
- Climate change is having the worst impacts on people of color.
- People of color often live in food deserts and have less access to reliable transportation and are not within walking distance of fresh food.
- Gentrification pushes families into areas with fewer services. And those who stay deal with the impact of significant construction in their neighborhoods, which causes stress and health issues from particulates.
- The school-to-prison pipeline fed by unaddressed racist policies impacts whole generations, and the presence of officers in schools has disproportionate impacts on people of color.
- This article gives a great overview of disproportionate environmental impacts on people of color. And the list is much, much longer than this.
In Austin, where I am from, white people are proud of our liberal city. But that liberalism has never fully translated to equity. A 2015 study, for cities of our size, Austin is number one in the country for economic segregation, and the history of Austin’s racial segregation is well documented. I love my city, but one could ask, “How could a city full of liberals continue to have those kinds of results?” Quite simply, the collective actions are not sufficient to back the talk.
As with ending the climate crisis, ending racism begins when I say, “This is mine. I am responsible. I am the one.” I am not saying it’s my fault that the system is rigged. But when I stand behind, “It’s not my fault,” I pass on my opportunity to be part of a solution that works for everyone.
Being Accountable & In Action
One of the deadliest forms of denial is assuming that I am not part of the problem. There is an anonymous quote: “No raindrop thinks it’s responsible for the flood.” As with all systemic issues, no one individual can be blamed for institutional racism. But we are, each of us, accountable, whether we are aware of it or not. Making the choice to actually be accountable leaves you with the kind of power that does not come from privilege and does not require anyone else having less.
Meme Styles, President of Measure Austin, a company whose purpose is designing measures that build community trust, offers this: “The way in which we prioritize disrupting racism must change. Are you willing to sacrifice your privilege for the lack of my own?”
The world does not need to know who you are not. The world wants to know who you ARE. What you stand for. What we can count on you for. I invite you, whomever you are, to consider that you are complicit. Start there. At the very least, you can be a recovering jerk like me.
A funny thing happens when you awaken to the unworkability that surrounds you and you confront your own culpability. At first, if you let it in, it’s heartbreaking. But if you are willing to have your heart broken, your heart can be opened. What is on the other side of that may be nothing short of miraculous.
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Thanks especially to Ashely “Flashe” Gordon, Carmen Llanes Pulido, Meme Styles, Amy Stansbury, Rubén Cantú, Richard Franklin, Brandi Clark Burton, Bakunzi Matemane, Daniel Johnson and Olivia Overturf for their suggestions and support. Bakunzi Matemane provided the statistics from the FBI and offered support in making the language accessible to everyone listening. Olivia Overturf spent a lot of time challenging every word of mine that rang less than authentic, including owning the pronoun "I" over "we," helping me seek out and address any vestiges of my own white guilt and heroism, and acknowledging that what appears to be a growing overt hate crime has been here all along, just un-publicized. The title of the article comes from Daniel Johnson. Finally, I want to acknowledge 2020 or Bust’s Founder and Executive Director Laughlin Artz, whose ideas and passionate stand for people have influenced me down to the core.
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Janis Bookout is the Outreach Manager for 2020 or Bust, a soon-to-go-viral initiative to crowdsource the climate crisis. She is a mother of two boys, who have inspired her to devote her life to ending the climate crisis. She is also heavily involved in Austin's environmental community. She is a trained Climate Reality leader and a regular contributor to Austin EcoNetwork.
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