You cannot fix what you will not face… or how to practice mindfulness amidst racial unrest
In light of the social unrest in America, I’ve been struggling to figure out what to write for this month’s article. In the end, I’ve decided that it’s not my voice that’s most important at the moment. I certainly don’t have any answers. Perhaps the best I can do, then, is raise a few questions — questions that you and I might use for reflection.
Maybe through a structured reflection process we can come upon a skillful path forward. Let’s see.
James Baldwin is the author of the quote I used as the title of this article. He said, “You cannot fix what you will not face.” He and the Buddha had at least this in common: a willingness to face the situation in which they found themselves honestly.
For the Buddha, that meant facing the reality of birth, aging, sickness, and death. For Baldwin, that meant facing the reality of being a black man in a society design by and for whites.
Nearly sixty years after Baldwin wrote The Fire Next Time, America remains in the same situation. We had fires the last time a young black man was murdered by the police. We have fires this time. We’ll have much bigger fires next time. Why? Because we have never truly faced the fact that our society was built upon the backs of enslaved people. Nor have we honestly addressed the fact that our approach to policing evolved out of slave catching systems.
The knee on the neck of George Floyd is shamefully symbolic of that slave catching system. Part of that officer’s intent was to terrorize. Look at me, I can kill with impunity.
This way of thinking about police goes against the story we white Americans tell ourselves about who the police are and what role they play in society. Our innocence and ignorance is part of the problem.
One of the most significant differences between South Africa and the United States of America, says Trevor Noah, is that South Africa is open and honest about its racial issues. Injustices still exist, but at least they can talk about it. At the end of Apartheid, South Africa went through a Truth and Reconciliation process. Everyone got heard. Getting heard doesn’t guarantee getting justice, but it’s a good start.
Have we in America ever had an honest conversation about our legacy of slavery?
No, we have not. And since it doesn’t look like we have the leaders we need to engage in the collective dialogue, let’s look at what we can do as individuals.
In an interview with Conan O’Brian, Van Jones said:
“These are the kinds of things I would encourage people to think about:
Is there some way I’m like that guy?
Is there some way I’m like that cop?
Would I overreact?
Am I afraid?
Am I giving enough oxygen to the black people in my community?
Do I have enough awareness of the pain?
Do I have enough awareness of the suffering?
Or am I looking away when everyone else in the world can see, man, that community in your country is suffering?”
Am I giving enough oxygen to the black people in my community?
The image is arresting.
In what ways am I (perhaps unconsciously) suffocating the people of color in my community?
One way Jones says that white people suffocate the black community is by feigning ignorance and innocence. “I don’t experience racism.” “I’m not racist.” “I’m fair to everyone.” While those things may be true, they miss the point. The point is that American society systematically treats different Americans differently based on the color of their skin.
So how can I give the black people in my community a break? How can I stop being innocent and ignorant? How can I self-educate?
One approach that comes to mind is called RAIN. It’s a mindfulness technique with four steps:
Recognize
Accept
Investigate
Nurture
While RAIN is often used in the context of individually experienced emotions, I’m betting it will provide a good structure for eliciting a skillful response in a social context as well.
Let’s have a go, shall we?
First, I can recognize the pain and suffering my black friends must feel. What if I had to justify my humanity? I can’t really even conceive. What if I was stopped 40 or 50 times for ticky-tack traffic violations by police officers? Would I be able to keep my cool and not get killed? I doubt it.
I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to even recognize this as an issue.
Second, I accept the fact that I don’t know what not having one’s humanity validated must feel like. I can accept that my black friends’ experience in America must be vastly different from my own. And that my personal experience is not a proper guide.
Third, I can investigate. I can try to see the world through their eyes. Feel with their heart.
Princeton politics professor Omar Wasow posted a few resources from his film and politics class on Facebook which I believe will help:
Netflix:
12 Years a Slave
Crip Camp
Street Fight
LA’92
Amazon Prime:
FreeMeek
PBS (maybe):
Oklahoma City
Rent (maybe):
Selma
How to Survive a Plague
Free Angela and All Political Prisoners
Another one of my friends on Facebook posted a link to this article from a few years ago about what black people mean when they talk about white privilege. It starts with a white man asking his black and mixed-race friends to educate him.
To all of my Black or mixed race FB friends, I must profess a blissful ignorance of this “White Privilege” of which I’m apparently guilty of possessing… So that I may be enlightened, can you please share with me some examples of institutional racism that have made an indelible mark upon you?
Lori Lakin Hutcherson, the editor-in-chief at Good Black News, decided to take him seriously. In her reply, she tells ten stories from her life in which she had to deal with challenges to her humanity that no white person in America would have to face. Each is moving in its own way, and I encourage you to read the whole post, but the one that really resonated for me is about getting into college.
I quote it in full:
When I got accepted to Harvard (as a fellow AP student, you were witness to what an academic beast I was in high school, yes?), three separate times I encountered white strangers as I prepped for my maiden trip to Cambridge that rankle to this day.
The first was the white doctor giving me a physical at Kaiser:
Me: “I need to send an immunization report to my college so I can matriculate.”
Doctor: “Where are you going?”
Me: “Harvard.”
Doctor: “You mean the one in Massachusetts?”
The second was in a store, looking for supplies I needed from Harvard’s suggested “what to bring with you” list.
Store employee: “Where are you going?”
Me: “Harvard.”
Store employee: “You mean the one in Massachusetts?”
The third was at UPS, shipping off boxes of said “what to bring” to Harvard. I was in line behind a white boy mailing boxes to Princeton and in front of a white woman sending her child’s boxes to wherever.
Woman to the boy: “What college are you going to?”
Boy: “Princeton.”
Woman: “Congratulations!”
Woman to me: “Where are you sending your boxes?”
Me: “Harvard.”
Woman: “You mean the one in Massachusetts?”
I think: “No, bitch, the one downtown next to the liquor store.” But I say, gesturing to my LABELED boxes: “Yes, the one in Massachusetts.”
Then she says congratulations, but it’s too fucking late. The point here is, if no one has ever questioned your intellectual capabilities or attendance at an elite institution based solely on your skin color, you have white privilege.
I really can’t fathom anyone ever doing that to me. And if they did, I’m pretty sure I’d have answered with my inside voice. Or smoothed it over with a bit of snark. In no way would anyone expect/assume/demand that I take this indignation lying down.
I am so thankful to Lori for sharing her post publicly.
It gives me a small window into her world, enabling me to put some context around the accumulation of deferred dreams that power the Black Lives Matter protests.
Whoa… white privilege?
That said, I want to pause and run my own experience through the RAIN framework, because, like the white man in the post, I too feel a bit guilt-tripped by the term “white privilege.”
I recognize that the term is coming from the perspective of someone who doesn’t automatically get treated with the dignity I get treated with. And yet, I also recognize a certain twinge in my chest, a certain sense of resistance at being told I’m privileged. Maybe a touch of anger. A hint of resentment.
I accept that that’s how I feel. Those are the feelings that arise when someone applies that term to me. The feelings don’t last. And they’re passing away as I type. Which helps me move on to the next step.
Now that I’m not enmeshed in the feelings of forced shame — or perhaps I still need some time to process that… With a certain amount of emotional space, I can begin to investigate the experience.
Why do I resist being labeled in that way?
What is it about the term “white privilege” that upsets me?
What I think it is is this: by labeling being treated with common decency a privilege, it implies that it’s something I shouldn’t have. It pairs something I didn’t choose and have no control over — my whiteness — with something that validates my worth as a human being.
Why would I ever want to give up the presumption of being intelligent? That doesn’t feel like a privilege to me. It feels more like a right.
I have a right to not be judged, or questioned, or assaulted because of my race. Doesn’t everyone? Apparently not. Mind blown. Well, that shit’s wrong. I’m so sorry that’s happened to you, Lori.
Now that I reframe it as a right rather than a privilege, I can feel the righteous anger arising. I will fight for your right to not to be judged, or questioned, or assaulted because of the color of your skin. But there’s no way in HELL I’m ever gonna give up that right for myself.
Lori addresses this dynamic at the end of her post:
As to you “being part of the problem,” trust me, nobody is mad at you for being white. Nobody. Just like nobody should be mad at me for being black. Or female. Or whatever. But what IS being asked of you is to acknowledge that white privilege DOES exist and not only to treat people of races that differ from yours “with respect and humor,” but also to stand up for fair treatment and justice, not to let “jokes” or “off-color” comments by friends, co-workers, or family slide by without challenge, and to continually make an effort to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, so we may all cherish and respect our unique and special contributions to society as much as we do our common ground.
So yes. If we frame it as a right, then I want to fight for your fair treatment. But if you continue to guilt-trip me about being privileged… I simply don’t feel any energy around that. I’m not motivated to take any action that’s going to take away my privileges. I don’t think that’s a white thing. I think it’s a human thing.
Which brings me to step four — I can nurture a new way of being.
In so doing, I can attempt to enact a new outcome in my life and the world. What I’d like to do is to work with people of color to articulate these kinds of rights and to pair them with personal stories that persuade. Let’s take steps to ensure that everyone has the right to be treated with basic human dignity.
With that personal pass through the RAIN framework over, I want to return to the societal scale.
In what ways can I nurture a new state of being for myself and a new state of affairs for others?
Well… knowing what I know now about the origins of our police system, I can start asking questions.
Do we really need a slave catching system any more? It would seem that’s it’s past time to end that institution. Who knows, perhaps there’s a better way of policing? Perhaps we can end the militarization of police departments in America and run experiments with alternate ways to keep society safe? Why not? What we have isn’t working for all Americans. And that’s fundamentally unfair.
I bet we can do better. Don’t you?
How might we do that?
On June 1, 2020, President Obama wrote on Facebook that …
It’s important for us to understand which levels of government have the biggest impact on our criminal justice system and police practices. When we think about politics, a lot of us focus only on the presidency and the federal government. And yes, we should be fighting to make sure that we have a president, a Congress, a U.S. Justice Department, and a federal judiciary that actually recognize the ongoing, corrosive role that racism plays in our society and want to do something about it. But the elected officials who matter most in reforming police departments and the criminal justice system work at the state and local levels.
It’s mayors and county executives that appoint most police chiefs and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with police unions. It’s district attorneys and state’s attorneys that decide whether or not to investigate and ultimately charge those involved in police misconduct. Those are all elected positions. In some places, police review boards with the power to monitor police conduct are elected as well. Unfortunately, voter turnout in these local races is usually pitifully low, especially among young people – which makes no sense given the direct impact these offices have on social justice issues, not to mention the fact that who wins and who loses those seats is often determined by just a few thousand, or even a few hundred, votes.
So the best way I could begin to bring our present police system to an end and to experiment with alternative approaches to public safety is to make sure that we elect candidates who will act on reform.
Or I could become one of those candidates.
Food for thought.
How about you? In what ways might you give oxygen to the black people in your community?