I’ll be honest, the readings for this week were particularly overwhelming for me. Although there was much to learn, which is a good thing, I realized that there was a pit forming along with an unsettling feeling in my stomach. Perhaps that’s why these things are tough to talk about. The nature of racism and white supremacy is one that will make any decent person feel sick. That’s exactly why we need to do something about it.
Like with any reminder of my disadvantage in the world, I felt sick the first time I tried to interpret Joseph Conrad’s “The Heart of Darkness” and argue against his claims — angry and disgusted — not shocked or confused. Achebe’s critical look at Conrad’s racist image of Africa and subsequent dehumanization of black people calls attention to something imperative. He points out that, not only is this text inherently racist, but it somehow manages to do so without being extremely obvious to some readers, even those claiming to be scholars! What an amazing feat that has allowed Conrad to gain critical acclaim in the literary world and, as Achebe notes, his work previously hailed as “among the half-dozen greatest short novels in the English language.” Ah yes, there goes my last good brain cell. Why is it that some people could read “The Heart of Darkness” and interpret it through every lense except that of racism and white supremacy when this ugly theme is at its core and so clearly evident?
If modern times have taught us anything, well, it’s that we’re not nearly as sophisticated as some would believe. For example, if prejudice and discrimination are still severe issues in today’s world as much as they were in the world sixty, or even two hundred years ago then friends, I believe we have a major problem (but you guys already knew that). Taking a look at Delgado’s introduction to “Critical Race Theory,” he poses the question of “how much racism is there in the world?” He follows this with evidence that researchers have actually found a decline in racism and acts of violence against black people and other minority groups. Here’s a question for you: If research shows that racism is on the decline, then why does it constantly feel like the exact opposite? Or better yet, why do some people fullheartedly believe that racism simply disolved into thin air on the day that formal slavery or segration ended? What’s up with this sort of Mandela Effect of racism?
Well I can say with certainty from my own experiences with racism that the struggle isn’t even close to over. I grew up in one of the most racially segregated parts of America — Long Island, NY. My school district was 100% black and hispanic as I moved up from K-12, despite my town apparently being about 30% white. I remember being a kid and playing catch with my friend outside when our neighbor’s kids came home from soccer practice. We thought that it was the perfect opportunity to invite them to play, so we cheerfully strided over to them and asked, only to have their mom give us a dirty look and quickly shooed them inside. Before going to college, the only white people I could ever interact with were my teachers. In my subsequent years at this very college, I’ve faced workplace discrimination during a summer job and had racial slurs hurled at my friends and me while walking on campus at night over the years on several occasions. I’ve had to fear for my safety in this world, not just as a young woman, but as a black woman.
In Claudia Rankine’s piece discussing class, power and race, she affirms that the greatest power of white privilege is the sense of security that it provides. White privilege is like a cloak that protects the wearer from prejudice, discrimantion and hate based violence. This is a luxury that black people and other minority groups are never afforded. It’s a sad truth but black people are considered fortunate if they can make it through life without being murdered on account of their skin color. The narrative of black people feeling that they need to be prudent in their daily lives in order to simply live to see another day is way too common. In the Boston Globe article by Aaron Thomas, he describes desperately wanting to “stay alive” while also wanting to… huh whaddya know, “STAY ALIVE.” His words are like a punch in the gut to me because I know exactly what he means as my friends, family and I all had to face the same frightening dilemma — wear a mask and risk being killed as a victim of discrimination, or don’t and face being killed by a deadly disease. No one should ever have to grapple with this “choice.”
For those out there who may want to gaslight and pretend that this isn’t a real issue, here’s a story: Three weeks ago, two of my best friends were handcuffed and detained by police in a Target on Long Island because the manager thought that they looked suspicious and claimed that they were stealing based off of video evidence. Just so you know, there was no “video evidence,” the manager made it all up. Although my friends are lucky that the situation didn’t escalate, and thankfully lived to see tomorrow, as we’ve seen time and time again, it only takes a split second for these situations to end with innocent lives being lost. Though, something was lost that day as it continues to be lost everyday — innocence, trust, and hope for a future where black people don’t have to be scared to even be alive. White supremacy is a deadly myth that still thrives in society today as it is passed on like an inheritance from one generation to the next, in other words, it’s a deadly cycle but therefore it can be broken. Let’s do that. The first step is talking about it. The rest is doing what we can to promote and support racial equality because despite racist falsehoods that people like Conrad have spread, I know that black lives matter.
Some questions for discussion…
* Why is it that some people could read “The Heart of Darkness” and interpret it through every lens except that of racism and white supremacy when this ugly theme is at its core and so clearly evident?
*If research shows that racism is on the decline, then why does it constantly feel like the exact opposite?
*Why do some people foolheartedly believe that racism simply dissolved into thin air on the day that formal slavery or segregation ended? What’s up with this sort of Mandela Effect of racism?
I want to address your question: “Why is it that some people could read ‘The Heart of Darkness’ and interpret it through every lens except that of racism and white supremacy when this ugly theme is at its core and so clearly evident?” My first thought while reading Achebebe’s article was the ongoing discourse on Lovecraft, an author so racist that many people are questioning if his work should be stripped from the shelves—I believe book burning is often suggested—and yet there is a new show built on the premises of his books. I am not yet certain if the show is promoting or subverting the ideals represented in the works though. After further consideration of the article though your question, I have thought back to Delgado and Stefancic’s article.
Although to us now, the racism in “The Heart of Darkness” is obvious, perhaps it was not so evident in the past due to the “ordinariness” of the narratives of racism in the time period in which it was written (Delgado and Stefancic 7). Delgado and Stefancic’s definition of ordinariness is that it is the inability to see racism unless it is blatantly obvious. In anthropology, I learned about “ordinariness” as “cultural blindness,” the inability to view one’s own culture though the lenses of a non-biased bystander. This cultural blindness occurs for the simple fact that people are so accustomed to certain thoughts or behaviors as being part of “normal everyday life,” they cannot acknowledge the fact that they are doing something, or rather performing in a certain way, and that it is not universal to the human condition/experience. These cultural acts are so habitually engrained in our minds and actions as something everyone does, such as crying when we are sad or laughing when we are happy, that we unconsciously assume everyone does it and so the act itself never even approaches our conscious mind as being something different from others or possibly even morally wrong. Despite cultural narrowmindedness, not all cultures cry when sad or laugh when happy and yet, because of limited awareness, any other mode of emotional expression may come across as, pardon the term, clinically insane (according to standards set by the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders).
What I mean to say is that what seems as absurdly obvious racism today could very well have been a “microaggression” in the past. Microaggression can be “unconsciously perpetrated” racism that goes unnoticed because they are “assumptions about racial matters most of us absorb” (emphasis my own, Delgado and Stefancic 2), which psychologists suggest is done primarily though learning such as scaffolding and everyday socialization. (Think of it as: “racism is a family/cultural value”). To be a bit optimistic on the topic… if what may have been a microaggression then is blatant racism now, then perhaps the unconscious microaggressions of today may become obvious racism in the future. If this is the case, then we are (slowly) becoming more aware and awareness is the first step toward change. At the very least, being able to see the racism in “The Heart of Darkness” shows that we are heading in the right direction! (Note: I do not mean this to be a justification for racism or microaggressions, I only mean to suggest a possible reason why we have not noticed it in the work before).
Thank you for this blog post! This was so well put together; your thoughts are very clear, I especially loved your conclusion. To your point about Thomas’s article, that was a moment where I had to check my own privilege. I had not even thought about that aspect of the pandemic affecting an already festering crisis. Just like I have never had to worry about wearing a hoodie in a store, or being followed because I looked suspicious, I will never have to worry that my mask will lead to my death. I wear my mask to protect myself and my family from COVID-19, but I do so with the privilege that no one is going to look twice at me in a store. No one will leave the aisle, or inform the manager, call the cops, etc. I wanted to also thank you for sharing your friends’ story. I know that I can (and always have been able to) run into a store and grab what I need and that is white privilege. As Rankin discusses in her interview, “what you actually get with whiteness is the ability to move freely, and to live” (Rankin). I have mobility that comes just from my skin color.
We all have to be open to talking about everything, rather than trying to sweep it all under the rug. I think a really simple way to start is just having honest conversations with those in our circles. Whether we like it or not, racism is our past (and present) but it doesn’t have to be our future.
Dear Lisa,
Thank you for your post! And I would like to first express how very sorry I am the racist treatment you and your friends received. That is wrong and evil.
To turn to your question, why is racism declining when it seems to be exploding? I can’t actually answer that question, but I wonder if it is related to the same causes that under lie the “Violence Paradox”, the statistics that show interpersonal violence worldwide is at an all-time low despite the rising awareness of violence. As psychologist Steven Pinker out it in Nova’s The Violence Paradox: “Violence has been in decline, but that just doesn’t count as news. You just never see a journalist saying, ‘I’m reporting live, from a country that’s at peace,’ or ‘a school that hasn’t been shot up.'” We are living through an information technology revolution, where it is easier to communicate than ever before. As a journalist in 2020, I have written about local BLM protests, as well as BLM graffiti, and swastikas painted on a local church door — none of those stories would have made it into the news a generation ago. I am not saying that racism isn’t an issue— far from it. The internet allows us to stay in private echo chambers on Facebook, Twitter and chat rooms that amplifies and reinforces hate, conspiracy theories, racism and sexism. But the fact that we are in the Black Lives Matter movement is actually a hopeful opportunity that we can leverage to address or racial divisons. Today we are advoacting for equality; in 1955 protest for civil rights started after a 14-year-old black boy named Emmitt Till was murdered for wolf-whistling at a white woman in Alabama. A white jury found his murderers “not guilty” after an hour’s deliberation.
We are not where we need and want to be as a nation. But let’s not lose hope. We’ve made changes in the past; we can seize this moment in history to make greater changes for the soul of America.
Here are links to the Nova episode on violence and the American Experience documentary on Emmett Till:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/the-violence-paradox/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/till/
Lisa,
Your post was so well-written and enjoyable that I almost did not even want to comment or respond to it in any way. Your voice can be heard clearly throughout your post and I appreciate that as a reader. On a semi-personal note, I am very sorry to hear about some of the experiences that you have had in your life as a result of racism. As a white man, I think more and more lately about how lucky I am that I do not have to face the stresses that minority groups do, even though I did not do anything to deserve that necessarily other than being born into a white body and family. I hope that many white people realize the fortunes we receive but did not necessarily earn, and use those fortunes to help out minority groups in any way we can.
In response to your second question, I think even though some research apparently shows a decline in racism, it might “feel” like the opposite because of the presence of media and social media in our modern world. However, I also think it is because people are speaking up more and more against acts of racism, and so even if some research says racism is on the decline, like you point out, that is not enough. At the very base of things, one act of racism should be too much. That ideal, of course, may be impossible, but I appreciate your call to action, because talking about these types of subjects should be the first step towards making an actual change in whatever way you can. Hope those ending sentences made sense!
Jacob Smith