Several years ago I was asked to participate in a collegewide panel on racism. My initial reaction, based on innumerable experiences, was to decline. Too many such events are slanted in one direction: Members of minority groups talk about racism they have experienced; white participants are expected to respond with guilt, empathy, or something in between. Nevertheless, the organizers of the panel, both of whom I respected, argued that it was important that my voice be heard. So, with some reluctance, I agreed to participate.
My panel began with a white colleague delineating the racism within the criminal-justice system, followed by more-personal statements by black and Latina colleagues. Then it was my turn. I suggested that such dialogue worked best if we all agreed on several axioms. First, there is more racism in America than most white people are willing to admit. No controversy there; lots of uh-huhs and smiles. Second, over the past 40 years, since the civil-rights revolution, there has been considerable progress in diminishing racism; less uh-huhs, but no hostility. Then the third axiom: Some black people see racism when it doesn’t exist. Now the room, filled to capacity with more than 100 students and a few faculty and staff members, remained civil, but there were more furrowed brows and rolling eyes.
It was the fourth axiom that brought the house down on my head: Because of the progress noted in axiom two, and the complexities of axioms one and three, it is becoming increasingly difficult to assess when an allegation of racism is true. In fact, I added, because there are now so many divergent voices within the African-American community -- a measure of the partial success of the civil-rights revolution -- no one can claim to represent “the black voice” in defining racism. I gave lots of examples, bringing in the experience of women and a number of ethnic groups, to suggest that the dynamics addressed are inherent in a certain degree of progress.
Then came the last panelist, who expressed contempt for my argument, returning to what was clearly the dominant narrative of the conference: that racism is alive and well, indeed as bad as 40 years ago, perhaps even worse. Only now it is hidden, covered by a gloss of liberal sentiment.
The moderator opened the panel to questions from the floor. One undergraduate directed her query to me: If she felt that I had engaged in a racist act in my classroom and came to me to complain, what would I do? I told her I would take her allegation seriously, consider whether I thought it valid, and give her my most honest response. She was unhappy, even agitated, as were many in the room.
The student asked why I wouldn’t accept the truth of her allegation. Wouldn’t not doing so be racist? The atmosphere was getting heated, but I tried to answer her, believing her question sincere. I told her that I thought it harmful to automatically accept any allegation about my behavior, or anyone else’s. It risks corrupting people, since, given human behavior, it would lead to some false charges. True respect includes disagreement. If the student still wasn’t satisfied, she had other remedies, such as complaining to higher academic authorities. The session ended with several people, including one white colleague, screaming that I was being patronizing.
Interestingly, over the next several days, I was asked by several of my African-American students what had happened (there had been a buzz in the hallways). That led to some fruitful conversations about how one can determine the existence of racism. I also received two notes from colleagues -- both white -- expressing admiration for what I had said and done, but confessing that they were too cowardly to do the same. That depressed me even more than the hostile behavior. Had we come to this: faculty members, even tenured ones, afraid to speak their minds for fear of being charged with racism? One junior faculty member told me that he never goes near certain hot-button issues -- affirmative action, the racial gap in test scores -- lest it cost him his job.
I am not a great fan of those who see political correctness running rampant on college campuses. Although there is certainly more conformity than those people left of center are willing to admit, charges of political correctness ignore forms of right-wing conformity at some conservative institutions and, like charges of racism, are often leveled unthinkingly.
What I want to argue is that playing things straight, and teaching honestly about racism, diversity, multiculturalism, and tolerance, is not only our responsibility -- it happens to work. In all my years of teaching, my students have shown the maturity to deal with nuanced and complicated analyses of race and ethnicity. They have been able to recognize that being victims does not inoculate them from becoming victimizers; they have been able to see that none of us is reducible to singular categories such as race or gender -- or age, lifestyle, nationality, or religion.
Let’s begin with the obvious. I am a white guy teaching about race and racism. No matter how you slice it, that makes a difference. For me to be effective, I have to demonstrate that I can be trusted to be fair-minded toward all my students, but especially my African-American ones. I tell my students to keep in mind that all of us are human beings -- and individuals.
As a historian, in most of my courses I have the opportunity to frame considerations of race and racism within the narrative of American experience, the coming together, involuntarily, under the domination of one group, of the peoples of Europe, Africa, and the Americas. I urge my students to think of American history as shaped, to a considerable extent, by that interaction, which included genocidal policies toward Native Americans, slavery, and Jim Crow.
I do not lambaste all dead white men as hypocrites or monsters; in fact I pay special attention to the ideals and the promises of our founders, to the ways that notions embedded in the Declaration of Independence have become the basis of all the claims to freedom and social justice that have been mounted by the propertyless, African-Americans, women, and, indeed, people around the world.
I want my students to understand the unique promise of the United States -- and how that promise has too often been unfulfilled. I note that many other nations have not shared our democratic assumptions and do not set the bar of inclusion as high as we have. And over time, Americans have widened the arc of freedom to more and more of the oppressed. That is not to say that we can be complacent. One of my central themes is that in becoming more ethnically inclusive we have remained blind to many of the injustices rooted in social class.
A moment of truth arrives when we discuss the complex issues associated with the rise of the Black Power movement and the ghetto riots of the 1960s, busing, affirmative action, white backlash, and welfare reform. Throughout I offer multiple perspectives, presenting key events and periods almost as theatrical productions -- how they were staged, who the leading performers were, the sideshows, the audience responses. I want my students to examine the human drama from the inside.
For example, how would a white policeman serving during the riots feel as black protesters gathered outside his precinct? Is he to blame for his nation’s and city’s policies? Is he a racist? How does he feel when some of his comrades charge out of the precinct to beat any black person in sight? Does he join in? Does he stop them? Report them? Such scenarios become the heart of classroom analysis. How would you play such a person? By helping my students understand the poignant human drama of such moments, I hope to show them the inherent complexities. At the same time, I don’t want the complexities to be an excuse for not rendering moral judgments about human behavior.
I tell my students to keep in mind that everything they see is a snapshot. That guy drinking from a bottle in a paper bag, he’s a photograph. How did he get to where he is? From there, we can share some of the rage at the inherent injustice that awaits so many of our poor children as they grow up. As we examine people, the snapshots become a motion picture that links the past, present, and future -- what was, what is, what can be.
Many of the students at a nonelite college like mine have surmounted extraordinary barriers to make it here. Many have experienced for themselves the capriciousness of human nature, family support, neighborhood context, sibling order, good and bad luck, second chances, redemption. They have much to be proud of. I hope that my pride in them -- which includes pushing them to excel, prodding them to resist stereotypes about policies or research -- comes through in the classroom.
Most of my students will succeed; they’re already halfway there. But I want them to understand those people who are left behind, those who are failing in our schools and who have the odds stacked against them from birth. That’s the fundamental shame of our nation; that’s what college students should never forget. That’s the point of teaching about racism.
Paul Lyons is a professor of social work and history at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. He is the author of The People of This Generation: The Rise and Fall of the New Left in Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003).
http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Volume 51, Issue 32, Page B5