What is wrong with saying, “We are all one race, the human race.” 
and “I don’t see race”

As conversations about white supremacy are again coming up on a national level I think it is important to look at one of the ways we white people often try and bridge communication with people of color that does not work.  Here is an example of how this “We are all one.” or “I don’t see race.” plays out. It is a just one example based on an actual experience and I think it gets to the heart of the matter.

A meeting is being held to plan resistance against the impending invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003.  It is an excellent turnout of maybe 40 woman and men eager to work together locally to protest this war.  The gathering is about 85% white.  People are going around the room introducing themselves and sharing both their despair and anger over this looming war and also ideas for protesting it locally.  The 5th woman to speak is an African American woman in her early 50‘s; she shares that she is glad to be here and her interest is on focusing efforts in the Black community especially around recruitment of African American youth into the armed services and also tying the war abroad to the racism and inequality at home. 

The next person to speak is a white woman in her late 40’s.  She states that it is important that we not separate ourselves by race.  That we are all one race, we are all one family, the human family.  That the powers that be want us to focus on our differences not how we are similar and especially as women and mothers we should come together in solidarity to stop this war.  She further states that she does not even see a persons race when she looks at them, she sees only sees a human being.

The woman who had spoken just before her interjects at this point that she does not agree that we are all the same and she will not work with white people if that is their attitude towards race. The room erupts in emotion and tension as the white woman tries to defend her position and the black woman continues to argue that she is not comfortable with the assertion that we are all the same or that it is possible or necessary “to not see race.” 

Various other people intervene some other white people trying to explain to the black woman what the white woman meant.  The few Black people, Asian Americans and the one Native man present, heartily agree with the black woman as do a small number of white people.  The black woman says directly to the white woman, “You know nothing about me and what I have been through and I don’t know you at all. For you to sit there and say we are all one is just total nonsense.” 

The white woman begins to cry and says maybe she should leave.  Some white people comfort her and insist they want her to stay.  The rest of the meeting continues but the energy in the room is  noticeably tense and the next meeting that takes place is half the size and easily 95% white and only one of the people of color present at the first meeting shows up.   

Of course race is a politically constructed category.  So truthfully we are all one race.  So why was such a comment at this meeting so disruptive?  I can think of several reasons.

1. The declaration “We are all one race.” is often used by white people to deny racism and the complexity of experience rather than to bring people together.  Regardless of the intention of this white woman.  Just because we are all one race does not mean we all share the same experiences with race, war, meetings to plan protests, living in the USA and so on.  

2. When a white person says to a person of color that they do not see race it is an empty statement. Perhaps what we as white people are trying to express in that statement is that we do not see negative things about someone else based on race or that we are working hard to see passed the socialization of white supremacy which is positive.  But as a comment it undercuts that effort by bringing up the history that white people never see our own race which is a big part of our problem when we want to deal with racism. Or ends up sounding more like, “I see you just as I would see a white person.” Which puts being white right back at the center as the norm.  You can see or know someone’s “race” without it being racist.  And to claim you don’t see race is to attempt to erase the reality of racism in our society.

3. There is often an assumption on our part that we are a blank slate to people of color.  That a white woman would state “We are all one.”  right after a black woman talked about racism does actually have a history for many, many people of color.  That history includes dealing with racist people at meetings. Dealing with white people that are very happy to have a person of color at a given event but want to be reassured that the person of color is either “like them” or “likes them.”   I am not being flippant about that what I am trying to get at is that most people of color have dealt with a lot of white people before you or I came along and some, maybe a lot, maybe most of those white people have been oblivious to the realities and complexities of racism, or oblivious to their own racism or flat our hostile and racist.     Because of that history it can be tricky to walk into a room as a person of color to discuss protesting war or anything else with a bunch of white people you don’t know. 

I have admittedly made some educated guesses as to why this comment was upsetting for the black woman and other folks in the room but I  think it is important to make some educated guesses as to what prompted this white woman to say what she said.  After the black woman had just laid out her interest in working around the issue of recruitment of black youth into the armed services and focusing on the connections of this racist war with racism at home to have a white person basically assert that race doesn’t matter, that we shouldn’t focus on race was a complete shut down of what this black woman was sharing.  Why did this white woman feel the need to express that particular assertion at that time? 
 
My guess?  She felt left out of the black woman’s comments about focusing on the recruitment in her own community and bringing the issues of race home.  Often white people want so desperately to be connected to people of color and yet we have no real vision for what that connection would look like.  It feels good to have a meeting with people of color present that is focused on a seemingly clear cut issue of a imperialist, racist war our government is going to wage in a far away place.  But when a person of color complicates that for us by bringing up the reality of racism at home which brings up the specter of racism in that room we panic, fearing we will be separated by this from people we desire to be in connection with.  And so we fall back on the pathological behaviors of whiteness and try and negate that separation. Sadly we do this in ways that usually result in separating us from other people more.  The black woman in her first comments did not say, I don’t want to work with white people, she said she was glad to be in this room.  And yet the white woman after her I believe heard something else in the black woman's’ comments.  Her desire to focus on the Black community made the white woman feel left out. 

  I know I can’t be a hundred percent certain about the twisted layers of experience that led one woman to say one thing but I am guessing from my own experience I am pretty close to the mark. Truly hell hath no fury like a white person when we are not at the center of something!  And I am speaking from experience here as well. 

What do you do as a white person when you are in a room and something like this happens?  Provided you are not the white person making the comment.  Hopefully having a more grounded idea around the problematic “We are all one.” or “I don’t see race.” can help you be clear and useful.  You could assert that solidarity must come from an understanding how different people experience race. It is another opportunity to practice the act of challenging an assumption of another white person without playing good white, bad white.  But sadly regardless of what you say these situations can ruin any potential coalitions that are just forming.  When something like war or the recent events around the George Zimmerman trial comes up and there is a lot of energy to organize the fault lines in our own understanding of white supremacy really show. This is part of the vital ongoing work white people need to engage in. 

We are all Trayvon Martin.  We are all not Trayvon Martin.       

In a world where tragedies are reported like weather it is easy to become numb or deal with tragedy in an off hand way.  I do not want to be numb to the reality or deal with the actual horror of anyones death as a metaphor or merely a jumping off point.  My own loves are a conduit to that.  Not in a morbid way but in a way that keeps me connected to my own humanity.  I let my heart rest on the notion of what I would be going through if my beloved niece or nephew were shot dead by someone and if the person who shot them were acquitted of that crime.  I carry that with me because we owe it to Trayvon Martin and to his family and friends not to merely turn him into a symbol. We owe it to all our children to dare to feel how much we truly love them and we owe it to ourselves to stay alive to our sorrow and to our love.

When I was 21 and about to attend college I went to see a professor give a talk.  He was originally from South Africa and now living and teaching in the U.S.  After the talk I found myself chatting with him in the lobby.  At 21 I was hyper aware of my identity as a white person and so our conversation from my side was going something like this.  “As a white feminist I think...” or “As a white anti-racist, anti-imperialist I believe...”  and so on.  After a few of these statements he put up his hand and said in a very clear, ringing voice, “Yes Ellen, it is good that you recognize being white in a white supremacy however, you should never align yourself with the very whiteness that seeks to destroy us.”  His words shook me up and set me well on a path to walking with more than one reality at the same time.  This is life long work. 

I think it can be positive that white people have posted images of themselves in hoodies or declared I am Trayvon Martin.  When I was in 10th grade in Dayton, Ohio I wrote Free Nelson Mandela and No More Apartheid in South Africa on my notebook in big block letters.  I knew about him mostly from bands I was into like the Specials.  I had their 12inch Free Nelson Mandela which talked about his imprisonment and I had some ideas about apartheid in South Africa from the song Sun City that came out in 1985.  The song featured many singers of the time declaring solidarity with the anti-apartheid movement and the video showed images of resistance and brutality in South Africa.  This 15 year old white girl in Dayton really had no idea what it was like to live and resist under apartheid in South Africa nor a deep understanding of the complexity of what was going on there. I also didn’t understand my countries involvement in both apartheid South Africa and the reality of white supremacy in America.  But what I did know is that when given the choice I wanted to align myself with what Nelson Mandela stood for and against what apartheid stood for.  I wanted to stand with humanity in the face of oppression even if I didn’t really get how to do that yet. 

At it’s core white supremacist patriarchy is about a complete loss of humanity. I mean our humanity as white people or the humanity of people like George Zimmerman even though he is not white but clearly aligning himself with a white supremacist ideology.  Much more has been and needs to be said about this loss of humanity but for this line of thought my point is that to align yourself as a white person with humanity is positive and against what white supremacy and patriarchy stand for.  I remember the men in Bangalore, India last year that held a protest after the horrific rape and murder of a woman there.  Someone in the Indian Parliament had made a comment about the way young women dressed being a factor in rape.  These men all put on skirts and took to the streets in an act of solidarity.

The impulse to claim solidarity with Trayvon Martin and with all victims of white supremacy can be part of a rehumanizing process for white people.  Staying clear about standing on the side of humanity but also recognizing you have a different experience is the nuanced approach necessary to deal with being white in a white supremacy.  To this point it is also positive that white people are declaring how our experiences in a white supremacy are so different from what happened to Trayvon Martin and other victims of white supremacy.  It is just as important to highlight the insanity of racism and racial profiling and to ackowledge who is directly harmed by that system.  

For many white people around the country especially younger people the horror and injustice of this murder might be their first experience with how truly evil white supremacy is.  We as white people should support them as they find their way and also learn from them as they bring new ideas and approaches to the struggle. Engaging with other white people around the complexity of being white in a white supremacy is not the same thing as throwing our energy down the abyss of arguing with white people pursuing white supremacy.  Choose your battles wisely especially on line with anonymous racists.  They thrive on conflict. Call something out as racist but then move on. Our energy is better served engaging with other white people that are maybe confused or even defensive but trying to figure it out, even as this can be painstaking work.  
And there are real concrete things we can work for in our country.  An end to stand your ground, an end to stop and frisk, a call to challenge racial profiling and to change our prison and justice system just to name a few. None of these are easy or quick struggles but they are possible and vital. Trayvon Martin is sadly far from the only victim of white supremacy and patriarchy in our current time.  I can name two in my own community just this year.

CeCe McDonald http://supportcece.wordpress.com/ 
Terance Franklin https://www.facebook.com/JusticeForTerranceFranklin

As white people working to challenge white supremacy as an institution, as an ideology as well as working to heal from the pathology of white supremacy and to be of use to the struggle for justice we must be honest about our experiences being white even as we reclaim our humanity.  It is not one or the other but both together that can bring about clarity and action from white people.  

Life in marvelous times.

I have been edgy this fall, after a summer of drought and polar ice melting and politicians talking in empty platitudes about job growth.  As if we can grow jobs without clean water, clean air and life in balance.  You can't grow jobs let alone food without an Earth that can sustain us.  I don’t want to make any more lists of the ways it is done, the killing of bodies, hearts, mountains, streams.  It all swirls, it is all real, all connected. Greed, ignorance and hatred. The world is complex and fragile and we need to bring our best selves to all we do.  I’m not afraid of my anger or despair but it needs to be connected to my love. 

My worry for the world has been waking me in the depth of night.  That worry which usually manifests as worry for children: both the small circle of children that are my very personal heartbeat and for all the circles of beloved children all over the world.  An hour or so before dawn I lay in bed listening to the wind and everything swirled in my head and my heart beat fast and I felt panic and terror wash over me in sickening waves from the belly through my chest to clamp around my brain.  I tried to breathe deeply and find a place of power in myself not just distraction or rationalizations but something to strengthen me. 

I thought of Snake in the sun, yellow and black, her small beautiful head raised above fall leaves.  I sat across the path from her in a timeless experience as she bathed in the sunlight that fell in small pools among gold and red leaves.  The simple experience of sitting with snake, the softness and quietness with which that moment both required of me and gave to me has remained. It washes over me in times of stress and both gentles and strengthens me.

Here we go into the election (finally!) I think Obama will win.  It will be close and voter suppression looms large in my mind.  But hopefully on Tuesday we will reelect Obama and then for anything to come of four more years he must be pushed from an empowered, visionary and courageous people’s movement. The amount of money and time spent just to hold on to this moderate democrat as well as working to defeat ridiculous amendments to make voting harder or marriage something only available to some people feels maddening but necessary.  I have my eyes open, I am not in love with the idea that a president can save us.  I am in love with the idea that we can save ourselves, save each other.  And we do, all the time!  No matter who wins we need new/ancient ways of thinking.  We need strategies and both immediate action and a long term vision to meet the changing times. 

So hell yes I am voting but it is what we do after the election that matters most.  We are here at this time as the Earth is in great transition and we are Earth and we are changing. What an honor, what a responsibility, what a possibility!  There have been many turning points and I think we stand on the edge of one now. John Trudell assures us, "We are in the right place at the right time." This song by the amazing Yasiin Bey (who used to go by Mos Def) carries me forward.

It's scary like hell, but there's no doubt

we can't be alive in no time but... NOW!

...All over the world, you can feel it

All over the world, feel it

Spirits rise everywhere

It's just a sure shot to the heart

It's just a sure shot in the dark

It's just another place in the stars

Wonders on every side, life in marvelous times

Life in marvelous times...now, always.

Now more than ever we must walk with the complexity of our situation.  The politics, the strategy, the facts and figures but also the spirit realities, the joy and love for people and the knowledge that snakes elegant head rising above the leaves is also power, is also happening, is also now.  Always. 

Thank you. 

Listen to "Life in Marvelous Times" by Yasiin Bey