As I review my various essays distributed over the last year that constitute the “For Racial Healing” series, it becomes clear that the great nemesis to the content of these writings, which have promoted individual, Black-white, one-to-one engagement to achieve racial healing between Blacks and whites, consists of the unwillingness of many whites to take steps that lead toward a much improved, racial environment.
If and when whites finally recognize that there isn’t some great rescuer, such as the for-profit corporate world or non-profit organizations, of both our collective state of unresolved Black-white engagement and our Black-white, unenviable history, we will be then finally left only to ourselves, Black and white, grasping toward fundamental allyship that can breathe of understanding, empathy, love, healing, and co-inherence. But until then, we will remain in an inch-by-inch, ground war campaign of very marginal progress at best, and, at worst, we will, almost routinely, face the prospect of a serious regression in Black-white relations – regrettably, we are, in fact, within such a latter moment at present.
Underlying the conclusions described and examined in the “For Racial Healing” series, I have, once again, come to the definitive conclusion that the race problem in this country remains, not a Black problem, but rather, a white one. The white, continuous creation of this problem has now shifted principally, though not entirely, from one of deliberate and nefarious bias toward Black Americans, demonstrated (a) in overt acts of violence against Blacks to keep them powerless and non-competitive, (b) in organized administrative and prejudicial actions, such as redlining Blacks out of white neighborhoods and housing, and (c) in political and social malfeasance by negating Blacks’ ability to exert influence politically and governmentally within the American system.
While the era of engineered and legalized bias against Blacks has been meaningfully, but not completely, overcome although there are frequent, pernicious, and vile signs of desired returns from time to time, numerous white folks have adopted – many would say unwittingly – a formalized approach of personal “benign neglect”, harkening back to federal policy of several decades ago. Today, a large number of whites want to address the Black-white problem by choosing a course that suggests we “want to change without changing” – to borrow a phrase from the Black-white freedom writer and my good friend, Dr. Catherine Meeks, or stated a little differently, “can we be healed without healing”?
This approach of a nihilistic desire “to change without changing” leads us to believe that the immediately following declarations are both expected and sinister, but also essential to recognize in order to capture today’s mood and systemic attitude of so many whites: “I would welcome Blacks to my church if they came, or I would not have any problem filling a position with a Black person if he or she had the same capabilities, attitude, and background as my other workers, or I would want Blacks to play with me as golf partners if I knew them well enough so that we were friends.”
If one reads these kinds of statements carefully and objectively, then one will discover that there are direct implications putting the onus of responsibility on Blacks to meet white expectations – meaning, of course, that Blacks would thereby continue to be placed in a subordinate or inferior position to prove themselves worthy of white, marginal acceptance.
The immediately above examples illustrate that we whites have reached a point in this complex dynamic of Black-white relations where it is necessary to recognize and acknowledge that our white actions in this environment toward Blacks demonstrate that “the subtle can carry the same weight as the overt”. It becomes necessary for whites not only to understand how the subtle can perform this way in our Black-white relations, but also to withstand from participation in such gamesmanship and not-so-hidden racism. Relatedly, we whites should acknowledge the distinctions to ensure that we personally will not permit “the subtle to carry a similar weight as the overt”. In other words, whites need to fight knowingly and decisively against the impulse of “wanting to change without changing”.
In earlier essays, I have emphasized the criticality of authentic passion being a first step by whites toward true racial healing that incorporates one-to-one, Black-white allyship. Thus, one cannot become committed to racial healing without actually being committed to racial healing, and to be committed means to express boldly the mental, physical, and spiritual energy to the mission – in short, to quote myself as I have written: “authentic passion is that attribute we whites are able to access in order to make much greater progress as individuals in Black-white relations”.
In fact, I cannot even envision racial healing at all without foreseeing a strong dose of “authentic passion” being an early element of white participation that makes a major difference toward a break-through into Black-white, one-to-one allyship and greater love and co-inherence between Blacks and whites more generally. One cannot simply wish for a positive change in the order and progress of relations between Blacks and whites without a meaningful amount of authentic passion as the first fire that starts to burn down the tower of “benign neglect”, for most of us know rationally, if not more forcibly, that benign neglect cannot survive next to the flames of authentic passion.
I am hard-pressed to understand why it is so difficult for whites to embrace racial healing personally when it should be so obvious and necessary. Is it the codified fear of the unfamiliar, a retreat into the cocoon of filiopietism and damaged heritage, or is it more immediately dangerous – that is, can the absence of personal and positive white responses toward racial healing be an expectation among many whites that a return to some form of Black and brown subjugation will eventually occur, such as the death of reconstruction and the advent of Jim Crow, which happened in the latter half of the 19thcentury?
Are the inhumane and often illegal activities of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) against Black and brown immigrants a harbinger among the expectations of many whites that a large, institutionalized program will eventually occur to assign Black and brown peoples in this country to a status that will reflect a 21st century version of Jim Crow? This subject is far too important to launch at the end of this article. Let’s save it for a much more comprehensive examination in the next installment of “For Racial Healing”.