I wrote this a little while ago and thought it a good time to share here. I just took one of the implicit bias test (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/backgroundinformation.html) I was very anxious while taking this test. I was afraid of what I would find. I realize that I am, comparatively, a culturally conscious person who is loving and well-intentioned, but none-the-less am aware of the fact that I have implicit bias and because Im aware, I knew at the end of this test, some of that bias could be spelled out for me. The results showed I have a moderate automatic identification with Asian people compared to Black people. This was surprising to me at first, given how many more black folks I perceive that I interact with than Asian folks. However, after I thought about it for a minute and assessed the emotional response in my body to this result, I had to admit that I understood it. Asian people are much closer to me in skin color. As much as I hate it, I acknowledge that I hold negative bias about black folks that have been socialized into me with no choosing of my own. I see a black person and on sight, somewhere in my gut, not in my head where I may try to rationalize it away, but in my basic response, that this is a person who has less value than me in this society. I have to check that disgusting shit EVERY.SINGLE.DAY! It wasnt my fault, but it is the truth and if I want it rooted out in others I must first work to root it out in myself while realizing it will be a never-ending task. I have some black folks in my life who are very dear friends and whom I love, but that doesnt negate the fact that I was raised in a society where white people have been in charge since its inception and have built the structures that we whom are a part of the society see as just plain reality and not the social construction that it is. Its a social construction that benefits white people (amongst other privileged groups) at the expense of people of color. There have been many policies that systematically exclude people of color. Ex: ( 1930s ~ In order to spur construction and create jobs during the Depression, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is created. The FHA underwrites private housing loans, making it possible for the first time to buy a home with only a 10% down payment. The FHA’s Underwriting Manual explicitly encourages developers to include “whites only” covenants in their deeds.) The fact that white people, who are OVERWHELMINGLY in positions of authority, power, and privilege in this society prefer other white people, if not explicitly, indeed implicitly, we therefore get the benefits such as jobs, loans, exceptions made for bad behavior, etc. This also means that the negative biases of white people, whether held with awareness or without, of people of color, have and do keep people of color out of opportunity in so many ways that its almost impossible to fathom the depths of its insidiousness. It certainly can feel, as a person who is white, very yucky to look at this with honest eyes and tell the truth to myself. However, the costs are high if I put my immediate need for emotional numbness or comfort about the much greater need for justice in the lives of people of color. I also am learning to see how racism damages (not oppresses) me as a white person. My friend Aaron Wilson Ahlstrom wrote a piece entitled How Racism Damages Us As White People and I will share a few examples from it here. • We misjudge where danger really is (we fear black men coming into our neighborhoods to rob and steal; we fear black men raping our sisters and daughters, though they are in much more danger from other white men – an uncle who molests, the young man in college who date rapes) • We misunderstand freedom - thinking that privileges that our world dominance achieves on the backs of others (especially on the backs of people of color both here and abroad) is freedom. • White supremacy tells us we are superior, we have our stuff together, we have the answers to the world’s problems. This illusory sense can leave us totally incapable of sustained work to dismantle racism, where we don’t have the answers, can’t solve the problems alone, and lack the ongoing awareness and insight of how racism is impacting people of color. • The richness of our own ethnic, cultural and linguistic heritage is literally whitewashed. • We allow ourselves to be in conflict with other middle, working class and poor folks, which distracts us from changing a system which exploits us all and funnels money and resources to the wealthy.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 14:18:38 +0000
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