Week 7 - Am I addicted to racism?

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America - Ibram X. Kendi

"The Emergence of the Written Record" - Margaret Mitchell

"The Gospel of Mark" -  Joanna Dewey

"The Sayings Source Q" - Luise Schottroff

We Should All Be Feminists - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Something isn't working. I don't want to be racist or sexist, but I keep doing racist and sexist things. I keep voting for politicians that create racist and sexist policies. I keep buying racist and sexist products produced in racist and sexist ways. I keep thinking about society, especially poverty and other "social problems," in racist and sexist terms. As Kendi would put it, I keep consuming and producing racist ideas. Surely this must qualify me to be a racist and sexist (which "intersect" with many other of my biases). Uh, what do you call it when you keep doing something even though you don't want (or think you don't want) to do it?
    A personal resolution or determination not to be racist or sexist is a good starting point, but it's not gonna cut it. It's not cutting it for me personally, and it's not cutting it for America. It's necessary but not sufficient, in other words.
   Since the political momentum-high of the 60's civil rights victories, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, and what Kendi says was the closest we've ever come to White-Black income equality during the first three years of the 70's, since then racial disparities have peaked, troughed, peaked, troughed, more or less steadily persisting. 
   The summit-achievements of Black business people, artists, scholars, and politicians have been as high as high can be - the Presidency of Barack Obama was the most inspiring political movement of my lifetime - but the overall political-economic power disparity endures, continues, lives on. When times are good for White folks, times are good but not as good for Black folks (see current unemployment figures); when times are bad for White folks, times are worse for Black folks (see Recession figures). Can't the same be said of gender disparity? The achievement list grows but the gap remains.
   The technical term for this is "systemic" inequality, right? Could we also apply the language of addiction and recovery? We all know there are race and class based obstacles, but we deny that these are really racist and classist obstacles. "Blacks and poor people just have a lot more baggage to deal with" (as if White middle class desperate avoidance of that baggage isn't also a coping mechanism). "They just need a little extra help" (re: than White middle class people; as if White middle class people don't have "extra" help). We rationalize and explain it all away. "The old racist guard is dying off; once the young people take over all the racism will go away."
   Most Americans know something about the demographically stratified outcomes of Urban Renewal (funded by both Republicans and Democrats), Suburbanization (roads and infrastructure funded by both), the ballooning Finance Economy (supported by both), the ballooning Labor-Union-less Service Industry (supported by both), the War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration (supported by Pres. Clinton as much as Regan and Bush), Standardized-Testing and No Child Left Behind (mostly Republicans but many Dem's too), Super-Agro-Business and the Packaged Food Industry (supported by both), and Automation/A.I. Development (supported by both). Oh, and of course what many people (Rep and Dem) claimed was the most advanced Health Care system in the world (which didn't cover 1/5 of American adults under 65 - see CDC statistics for 2008). If only we'd had all these single-payer-advocating Democrats 10 years ago, maybe we could have tried something close to what Obama initially proposed.
   The Welfare and Safety-net programs, whatever their original FDR or LBJ intention, seem to have been mostly after-the-fact efforts to help catch-up or "fix" the "broken" non-Whites and poor Whites that never fit into our plans in the first place.
   In my short voting life, I have almost exclusively voted Democratic, and I expect to continue voting Democratic. Democrats since LBJ have done better than Republicans at talking the non-racist talk, but when we look at the results, Democrats haven't much to brag about. Affirmative-action may be the only officially anti-racist Democratic effort of the 80's and 90's, but many White Dem's have quietly sympathized with those who label it "reverse-racism" (Kendi points out frighteningly similar statements about Emancipation, Reconstruction, 15th Amendment, and the Civil Rights Act). Electing President Obama in the 00's and the 10's seemed to be enough for us Dem's to "prove" to ourselves that we're not racist.
   Kendi doesn't describe "anti-racism" as a recovery plan, but I think that might apply. If you are addicted to something, you can't just decide to not be addicted, you have to pursue sobriety. You need a plan, and methods to stay motivated. It's a day by day, step by step struggle. It takes higher power, forces beyond the self, friends, support, accountability, hope.
   Where can I start? The first steps for me might be 1) not to be afraid to admit to being racist or being called racist, 2) partner with others in anti-racist accountability groups, 3) hold hands tightly and ideas lightly, 4) as Kendi says, fix policy, not people, 5) "find a way to get in the way" of mass incarceration (John Lewis).