The Black Lives Matter protests have been likened to the civil rights movement. (photo: AP)
Ending Our Own Racism
03 January 15
have heard many claim they do not have a “racist bone in their body.” Technically that is true, bones can’t be racist – but people who say they are not racist are in denial. Prejudice rooted in fear of what one doesn’t understand is present in us all. The key to ending or not acting on that fear is knowledge drawn from life’s experiences.
Fear itself can be healthy. Fearing someone waving a gun, or threatening people with violent behavior, is healthy. What isn’t healthy is fearing people based on their race or appearance. It is understandable that, when in a new environment, people experience fear based on the stereotypes they have learned watching television or reading stories influenced by the authors’ prejudices.
That is why it is so important to diversify your life experiences. If you live your life on your side of the tracks and don’t experience how others live, fear will be present when you encounter the unknown. There are many things you can do to to keep these fears from being expressed in racist, sexist, or bigoted manners.
The first is to acknowledge them. I live in a diverse neighborhood in Washington DC. I feel safe when walking home unless I’m confronted by behavior that warrants healthy fear. I have long acknowledged that there are thugs in every race and class, but that was not always the case. There was a time when I feared black men because I thought they were more likely to mug or bully me.
I grew up in a very white neighborhood in a small town in upstate New York. My father is Puerto Rican, so I was one of the few minorities in the town, but I never experienced prejudice based on that, since I looked white and was middle class. I went to a public school that was 98% white, and the 2% who weren’t were brought in by a program to give them a better chance to succeed. There was also my best friend Alex. His parents were from Ethiopia. Alex was born in the United States and grew up in our small town. He was one of us. He didn’t act like the blacks we saw in the movies or on television. I never feared Alex or his family.
When I was 16, I ran away from home. The reasons for that are for another story. I hitchhiked south, spending my first night on the streets of Scranton, Pennsylvania. The streets late at night were a scary place. I tried to avoid all interactions. It was the early eighties: the only reason a middle-class white boy could be walking the streets late at night was to score pot.
Of course, I was scared of anyone who approached me at 3 a.m. It was a healthy fear, but I learned that night that it wasn’t right. One of the dealers even told me where to go to get breakfast and find a place to sleep the next night. Some of my prejudice was chipped away. I was home a few days later, back to white middle-class America. Well, that was about to change.
I wasn’t getting along with my father, so at 17 it was off to the Army. My two-year stint in the military was uneventful. The Army life was still segregated. I hung out with white guys, and the blacks hung together. It was the military, very different from interacting as “civilians,” so I don’t think much progress was made. I imagine I became more comfortable around people of color, but no one event stands out to me like the events that would happen on my college campus.
It’s 1983, and I’m using my GI bill money to go to college. I’m on the campus of Syracuse University, walking past a divestment rally. On the stage is a young black boy in a wheelchair. As he was describing what it was like to grow up in apartheid South Africa, my life changed forever. I became an activist that day. My work against apartheid, and later other causes, did not make me a non-racist, but it did chip away and make me less racist. I learned about other cultures, I worked with African Americans, and it had an impact on me, but I still was influenced by racist thoughts and fears.
After college I moved to Washington DC. I remember walking through Lafayette Park for the first time and a hippie named Sunrise calling out to me. He said my mind was too closed to listen. I turned around and ended up spending my first night at the “Peace Park Anti-Nuclear Vigil.” I was fascinated that people were dedicating their whole lives to rid the world of nuclear weapons. After talking to Sunrise, Philip, Concepcion, Ellen and Thomas, I found myself in a sleeping bag being awakened by a policeman who handed me a ticket for “camping.” I was outraged – with all of the people forced to live on the streets, it was illegal to stay warm in a sleeping bag? I later learned it was the actual sleeping that was illegal. I was hooked, I was a full time activist again. I was mentored by people like Phil Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Roger Newell, and Lisa Fithian, to name a few.
Of course, they taught me that racism was wrong, but that knowledge does not erase the prejudice and fear engrained within us. I was mugged twice during those years in Washington, but my eyes were opening. It wasn’t that the young black men who mugged me were black that caused them to act, it was that they were poor and victims of their environment. I was making lots of black friends, many of them homeless and with reason to be angry. But like me, they chose a different path. My time with the antinuclear vigil and later working and living at the largest homeless shelter in the country taught me that it wasn’t race that led to a life of crime, it was one’s environment.
On the streets, in the shelter, and later in jail, I realized that violent behavior was for survival. Racists equate behavior with race, while it is clear from my experiences that behavior is taught and influenced by one’s experiences. People are not born gang-bangers. People are not born racists.
Racism is taught, and develops from ignorance and fear. It is the same with the behavior that makes us fear others. What we fear is a by-product of the environment we grew up in. When we acknowledge this, we achieve the first step toward ending racism, sexism, and bigotry.
It will still be there. I still catch myself fearing people based on their appearance, including skin color. I am less likely to fear a white person that approaches me than some black people. But my life experiences have lessened that fear and made me less prejudiced. So here are some steps you can take to become less racist.
- Volunteer at a homeless shelter. During my time living in community at the Community for Creative Nonviolence shelter in Washington DC, I saw the other side of those who thought they had to be a thug to survive. Don’t just serve the soup but talk to people who you would otherwise avoid contact with. You will find they are not any different than you or me.
- Volunteer at an inner city school. You will learn that kids are victims of their surroundings. As I’ve said, people are not born violent, violence is a product of the environment they are raised in.
- Don’t avoid neighborhoods of color. Diversity will do more to end racism than any laws or programs. Understanding each other will break down the walls that divide us.
- Travel. Visiting other cultures is another way to eliminate the fear we have of what we don’t understand.
- Education. Take classes that teach from a non-Eurocentric viewpoint. Learn foreign languages so you can better understand people from other ethnic groups.
I hear some of you saying, “What about reverse racism?” Well, my response is simple. Any race can take my advice, but the bottom line is: ending racism begins in your own heart.
Scott Galindez was formerly the co-founder of Truthout.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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