The Promised Second Installment

So I did go to Dr. Trepagnier’s lecture last Thursday. Ryan, Devin and I thought we had the best seats when we grabbed the front row, only to be pleasantly surprised later that 5 more rows were added between us and the podium. The turn out was unexpectedly overwhelming.

Dr.T, the way most of her students address her since almost no one can pronounce her last name correctly, shared her thoughts from her book for about an hour and fifteen minutes. The gist of her thesis argues that everyone has racist ideas, including well-meaning white people. The core of her strategy to take on racism is to educate people that “heightened race awareness is more important in changing racial inequality than judging whether individuals are racist”. Check out http://silentracism.com to make sure I didn’t misquote her. When people are more “race aware”, they will be more likely to identify racism, their own and institutional racism.

Dr. T also suggests that the question, “Am I racist?” shouldn’t be the one we ask. Instead, we should ask ourselves, “How am I racist?” Dr. T contends that unlike 5 decades ago, the notion of either one is racist or not racist doesn’t work today. Rather, she proposes that racism should be seen as a spectrum, where silent racism overarches this spectrum. On one end are those who are “less racist,” who are “race aware” and strive to combat racism. On the other end of that spectrum are those who are “more racist,” those who ignore racism or are overtly racist. Therefore all people are on this continuum.

If silent racism is silent, then does it still matter? Dr. T’s answer is an affirmative yes. She considers silent racism “instrumental in the production of institutional racism” and believes that if thoughts are how we see the world, then they will likely one day spill out through our words or actions. At that stage, I think, the damage could be too great to clean up.

What should we do to contain, and then reduce, racism? Dr. T thinks that “race awareness” is the start to countering racism. To tackle racism, we need to do it without guilt. To interrupt racism, we need humility and courage. The last two ideas mean we should speak up in whatever way and action against racism, and that it is not alright to be racist.