How To Identify White Supremacist Sympathizers and Secret Agents Over Thanksgiving Dinner

While I worry about swastika tattooed and Confederate flag waving white supremacists, at least I know exactly where they stand on the question of racial equality and reconciliation. We hold irreconcilable views on the past, present and future of our nation.  We need not debate one another. We share nothing in common other than the pigment of our skin and the nation we inhabit. Though such people often do damage through violent acts of racism, they are not whom I most fear.

It is the secret agents and sympathizers of white supremacy that keep me up at night. Those who most concern me do not proclaim their sentiments so boldly. They argue for civility, even while sowing division. They defend the Constitution, even while attacking its equal protections. They give lip service to justice, even while chipping away at the rights of people of color.

It is family members, friends, acquaintances and neighbors with white supremacist sympathies that frighten me. They never use the N word, never blatantly attack people of color and never applaud the crazies – at least not in public. Yet time and again these people hint at a darker allegiance – one that supersedes any commitment to racial equity and national unity.

These people are the fifth column of white nationalism, blending into a multicultural society even while working for its demise. They are the pillars of white supremacy. They are talking heads on television, members of think tanks, politicians, business people and church leaders. They are truck drivers and teachers, airline pilots and grocery baggers. They exist in nearly every white family, business and organization, insinuating there is something deeply wrong with our country and that the problem is rooted in people of color. Ironically, when their thinly veiled racist assertions are challenged, they often accuse their challengers of reverse racism, offering themselves as the true victims of injustice.

Indeed, this propensity to claim reverse racism is one of the surest signs of their true sympathies. In pretending that any criticism of the assertions, beliefs or behaviors of white people is racist, they ignore and obscure vast and obvious disparities in power, wealth and status, implying an acceptance of systemic racism. For them, the problem in the United States does not reside in these inequities, but in those who identify them. Criticism of white people is motivated by hate, jealousy and resentment and not any legitimate complaint.

When Mr. Trump was recently asked by a black reporter if his use of nationalist language was divisive, he claimed her question was racist.  What made her question racist had nothing to do with its appropriateness and everything to do with a black woman audaciously challenging his superiority. White supremacists recognized what he was doing and applauded.  People of color found it familiar and gritted their teeth. Only white progressives debated the fairness of her question.

Make no mistake.  Only white supremacist secret agents and sympathizers claim reverse racism.  This tactic of accusing your victims of your propensities is time honored.  Plantation owners accused blacks of being lazy while sipping mint juleps on their porches. White mobs accused blacks of being violent while gathering in courtyards to lynch them. White men maligned blacks as sexually deviant while raping black women and girls under their power. When white people claim racial victimization, they make a mockery of any commitment to justice.

They know the system is rigged in their favor. They like it that way. They are committed to defending their privilege, even while arguing it doesn’t exist.  When they dispute the constitutionality of birthright citizenship, they are not defenders of originalism or advocates of legal immigration. What they defend is white dominance.  When they argue for a reinterpretation of the 14^th Amendment, don’t be confused.  It was the Confederate rebellion that provoked the 14^th and the KKK that most ardently opposed it.

Indeed, in highlighting and advocating for the white supremacist opposition to the 14^th Amendment, Mr. Trump may have done progressives and people of color a favor.  This Thanksgiving, ask your friends and family what they think about birthright citizenship.  Those who defend it as central to the American experiment are your allies.  Those who disparage the 14^th Amendment as misinterpreted or outdated have outed themselves as white supremacist secret agents and sympathizers.  You may not have the courage to challenge them, but at least you know their true colors.

If you do challenge them, ask if they realize such arguments have long been popular in Klan and white supremacy circles.  Ask if that makes them uncomfortable.  Ask how America would be better if we eliminated birthright citizenship.  Ask who should now be eligible.  Ask why now, when white people have the lowest birthrates in US history, that this is their priority. If they argue for some pure and original interpretation of the constitution, you will know them for who are.  White supremacist secret agents and sympathizers always look back fondly on the racist origins of our nation.

When you encounter nostalgia for an America of the past, understand what it represents.  Unless you are a white, there has never been a time in American history as good as it is now.  There are few blacks, gays, Latinos, women of color, Native Americans, Asians, or Muslims nostalgic for the America of old.  Such nostalgia is white privilege.  Those who speak of better days in the past – if given the opportunity – would recreate its ugliness.  They yearn for a time when minorities had no choice but to silently bear their oppression.  Only white supremacist secret agents and sympathizers want to return to any point in America’s past.

Mr. Trump and his minions understood this dynamic. They intentionally crafted their “Make America Great Again” campaign knowing full well with whom it would most resonate.  It was a call for all white supremacists – the neo-Nazi shock troops, the closeted racists and the white supremacist sympathizers to unite under one tent.  That so few Republicans fled from that tent is evidence of how deeply embedded white supremacy is in our political system. That so many white progressives still argue for non-partisanship suggests how insidious white supremacy remains.  Even those of us who oppose white supremacy are still susceptible to its allures.  After all, in a white supremacist society, white progressives still benefit.

Today is not the day for less debate, less challenge and less exposure of our racial divides.  Our country – like in the days prior to the Civil War – is divided for good reason. We face the same choice our ancestors did in 1860 and 1960. Will we be a nation committed to equality and justice for all or a nation where people of color are separate and unequal?  We cannot allow ourselves to be swayed by arguments that diminish the seriousness of this moment.

As in past battles with white supremacy, we must identify our allies and our enemies. We cannot pretend there are good people on both sides.  You are either a white person wrestling with your racism and privilege or you are not. Your goodness, in our present society, must be measured by this and this alone – are you committed to justice and equity for all. You cannot be a white supremacist secret agent or sympathizer and argue for your morality. Your heroes are not Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandela. Your sympathies are with Hitler, George Wallace and David Duke. You are not a good person.

Maya Angelou famously wrote, “When someone tells you who they are, believe them.”  It is time for us to believe those who reveal by word and action that their sympathies are with white supremacy.   Whether they sit in the Oval Office or across from us as the Thanksgiving table, we can hope for their repentance, but – until that day – we must assume their intentions are for ill and not for good.  We must recognize them for who they are and oppose them in every way.

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Finding Comfort In Discomfort

Friends,

I will be speaking at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio on Saturday, November 17th. In the morning, I will speak on “How Ella Changed My Life” and participate in a panel discussion on cross racial dialogue. In the afternoon, I will lead a workshop on “The Reasonableness of Reparations.”  There will also be a workshop on Implicit Bias.  Registration is open, but limited.

If you live in Ohio, I hope you’ll register and join the conversation.  Those interested in reading the blogs that inspired this event and the workshop can do so at “How To Tell If A White Person Is Racist With One Simple Question.”

Those interested in attending the event can register at the following link…

https://diosohio.wufoo.com/forms/finding-comfort-in-discomfort/

 

 

A Terror Filled Election

We’ve seen worse.

While many rightly describe the present election cycle as divisive and hate filled, the elections of 1874 and 1876 were – without question – the most violent elections in American history.  This became painfully clear to me as I recently read a biography of President Ulysses S Grant.  Ron Chernow’s portrayal of Grant made me aware of many historic realities, including how little progress we’ve actually made around racial reconciliation.

Chernow makes a strong argument for Grant as the least racist white President in American history and a true friend to people of color.  During his administration (1868-1876), blacks had more rights and hopes than they would have for the next 90 years.  Sadly, both Grant and Lincoln – Republican presidents – would abhor the Republican party of today as an anathema to all they fought for in the Civil War. In the 1870s, Republicans were the defenders of civil and voting rights for people of color.  Tragically, in 1874 and 1876, the rights of black people, newly granted by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were besieged and systematically stripped from black citizens.

That we’ve seen worse should bring us no comfort.  In many ways, today’s political rhetoric and maneuvering is reminiscent of the racial divisions and hatreds that fueled the violence in the 1870s. Chernow spends a chapter of his book chronicling how whites organized into groups like the Ku Klux Klan, White People’s Party, White Leaguers, Red Shirts, Knights of the White Camellia and the White Line Rifle Clubs.  These groups had one primary function – terrorize blacks in order to keep them from voting.  Chernow notes these groups successfully eliminated the black vote during those elections and laid the groundwork for 90 years of Jim Crow.

After reading his accounts, I have concluded that if you have a white male ancestor who lived in the South during those years, you are probably descended from a murderer. Though I had read of the reign of terror of the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1860s and early 1870s, I had not made the connection between these domestic terrorists and voting rights. This terrorism was not the acts of some fringe movement. The majority of Southern white men actively participated in the murder of black men and women during those years.

While the examples of this terror are numerous, I want to highlight the most grievous:

• In April of 1873, in Colfax Parish, Louisiana, a majority black county, a white mob surrounded the courthouse, targeted black office holders and killed 73 black men in a single day. If you have a white ancestor from Colfax Parish, you’re likely descended from a murderer.
• In August of 1874, six black leaders in Coushatta, Mississippi were drug from their beds by mobs of white men and murdered. If you have a white ancestor from Coushatta, you’re likely descended from a murderer.
• In September of 1874, White Leaguers stormed the New Orleans City Hall and Louisiana Statehouse, killing more than 20 public officials and insisting a white supremacist be seated as lieutenant governor. Over several days, hundreds of blacks in New Orleans were killed and thousands fled.  The segregated schools and police force of New Orleans were disbanded.  Five thousand federal troops had to be sent to restore order. If you have a white ancestor from Louisiana, you’re likely descended from a murderer.
• In December of 1874, the White League seized the Vicksburg, Mississippi courthouse, ran off the black Sheriff and office holders. In the course of several days, over 320 black men were killed and their bodies were allowed to rot in the streets. If you have a white ancestor from Mississippi, you’re likely descended from a murderer.

A subsequent Federal investigation would document over 2000 murders of black men and women in Mississippi and Louisiana in 1874 alone.  These efforts to terrorize blacks were so successful that in the 1875 election in Yazoo County, Mississippi, a county with a majority population of 12,000 blacks, only eight votes were cast for Republicans.  In 1876, there were only two votes.  In early 1876, John Lynch, one of the last black Mississippi congressmen, wrote, “The Democrats (the white supremacy party of the 1870s) proposed to carry every Southern State as they carried Mississippi last year – not by power of the ballot – but by an organized system of terrorism and violence.”

He was prophetic.  What succeeded in Mississippi and Louisiana spread throughout the South.  South Carolina, which had been one of the most integrated governments in the South, completely changed in racial composition in one election cycle.  On July 4, 1876, whites gathered outside Hamburg, SC – a strong black community – and demanded the black militia in that community disarm.  When they refused, they attacked the town, killing dozens and pillaging every black home.  This initiated a reign of terror than virtually ended all black voting in South Carolina for 90 years.

Why are these stories important?

Elections matter.

White racists, then and now, fear them.  They consistently do all in their power to obstruct and suppress the votes of people of color.  Democracy is not their friend.  These stories also remind us that civil and voting rights – though we may take them for granted – can easily and quickly be removed when whites decide to use their privilege and power.  Progress is not inevitable.  Our nation has and can regress.  When white people look back nostalgically to the past, when they wax poetic about the Confederacy and the Southern way of life and when they suggest they want to make America great again, don’t be confused. These are the descendants of murderers.

For these reasons, I am less and less concerned about whether the Russians colluded with the Trump administration to assist in his election. The greatest threats to democratic elections are not foreign agents, but white strategies to disenfranchise people of color. Indeed, I’ve begun to wonder if the whole Mueller investigation is a distraction intended to focus our attention and energy on the trivial while the terrible takes place.

The American election system – rather than Russia – is to blame for our present plight.  Trump energized white fear and exploited racial divides. He was assisted by an electoral system designed and controlled by white people. That is what should most concern us in 2018.

What should outrage us is Republican states purging their voting roles, invalidating thousands of registrations on technicalities and demanding Native Americans have a street address in order to vote.  What should dismay us is how racial gerrymandering has allowed many states to be overly represented by white men.  What should worry us is that predominantly white rural states will send 70 senators to Congress while predominantly minority urban states will send only 30, even though these minority states vastly outnumber the rural states in population.  White men in Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Idaho, Wyoming and Oklahoma, as the system intended, will continue to be overly represented and empowered.

Though I do not think our present elections will descend into the violence of the 1870s, I worry that the elections of 2018 and 2020 could be as damaging to our democracy.  Whether we realize it or not, we may be voting on what kind of country we will live in for the next 100 years – one where people of color are empowered or one where the progress of the past 50 years is destroyed and people of color are disenfranchised.

It happened in 1876.  It can happen again.

Now, while you can, get out and vote.

The Burden Of Being A Black Women

During the week of the Ford/Kavanaugh hearing, I heard a black male comedian joke, “This was one of those few weeks when it was better to be black than a woman.”  The crowd laughed, but I didn’t.  His comment was more emblematic of a problem than it was a mockery of one.  I wondered if he and his crowd were aware of the misogyny and racism hidden in his remark.

The categories of his joke – unstated, but clearly implied – were black men and white women.  According to his quip, it was better during that week to be a black man like himself than a white woman like Dr. Ford. Though I am not sure the diminishment of one marginalized group ever makes things better for another, that his joke excluded people who inhabit both of his categories suggests a blind spot on the part of our society. We too often ignore black women.

Don’t think black women aren’t aware of this common slight.  I follow enough women of color to know last week was especially difficult for them.  The seriousness in which the Democrats responded to Dr. Ford was in striking contrast to how Democrats treated a black woman, Anita Hill.  While black women were mostly sympathetic to Dr. Ford, they were also aware of the privilege she brought to her testimony.  They had to wonder how much of her credibility was connected to the color of her skin.  One woman of color noted that many of the white women who were most enraged often tone police black women when they voice their anger about racism.

Though we are beginning to talk about intersectionality and the need to recognize various types and kinds of discrimination and oppression, we seldom acknowledge that two of the deepest blights on our society – racism and misogyny – intersect in women of color.  Heaven forbid a black woman should be a lesbian – the trifecta of intersectionality.  This is why I am especially impressed with black women like Dana Black.

My wife and I recently hosted a small gathering in support of the efforts of Dana Black to make her name and way within the Democratic Party.  Dana, a black lesbian, most recently ran against a long time and powerful Indiana Republican State Representative in a district where the Democratic Party had allowed his election to go uncontested. Eternally optimistic, Dana ran even though the Party offered little support and people mocked her naivete.  Dana says, “Did I lose?  Yes.  Did I fail?  No. I gave 38% of the people in that District another option, a vision of what could be.  That so many in that district voted for a black female lesbian is nearly miraculous.”

I am amazed by that kind of thinking, of those who understand racism and misogyny will not be quickly routed, that defeating them is trench warfare where the deeply dug lines are moved slowly and with many losses. This is why my wife and I became monthly donors to The 10/100 Committee, an organization with the goal of seeing 10 US Senators of color and 100 US Representatives of color in the Congress in 2050.  Notice the target date.  I am supporting an organization with a goal that I will never see, but perhaps my black daughters will.  Indeed, my hope is that when we meet that goal that at least 5 of those Senators and 50 of those Representatives will be women of color.

This generational shift is what I hope for in my writing, my giving and my advocacy.  I understand many of my white peers will die with their hearts permanently hardened by the racism and misogyny in which we were immersed. A few of us will change, but most will not.  The death of systemic racism and misogyny will be a lingering death.  Old white men will cling to the reins of power with their dying breath.  If the arc of the universe bends toward justice, those climbing that arc know how steep the incline.  Like Sisyphus, they push the great rock of white male privilege up that hill, knowing full well that they are always at risk of being crushed by it.

Certainly, white women and black men share this danger, but it is the blood, sweat and tears of black women like Vivian Malone Jones that most oil those efforts, making it possible for us to inch the rock upward.  The lead picture of this blog is of a 21 year old Vivian Malone Jones being escorted into registration at the University of Alabama in 1961.  Her family was threatened with violence and the governor of Alabama – George Wallace – stood in her way on her first attempt to register.  What is often forgotten is that once the federal marshals left, Vivian had to endure blatant and systemic racism every day of her education.  Every day she persevered, she inched the rock forward.

She did what black women before and after her have done – women like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Ida Wells, Mary McLeod Bethune, Rosa Parks, Shirley Chisholm, Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors.  If you don’t know of them, you should.  They are the ones who have shouldered so much of the burden of changing our society for the better.  Black women like these women continue that legacy.  I have the honor of knowing and sometimes working with incredible women of color.

Today I celebrate black women like Dana Black.  I marvel at Teena and her incredible strength.  I appreciate Nichelle and her work to highlight black literature and culture.  I’m thankful for LaShawnda, who has worked so tirelessly to remind us of the horror of lynching.  I respect Patrice and her perseverance in community development.  I remember Val and all her many community organizing workshops.  I honor Alyson who spends her “free time” advocating for the ethical treatment of orphans.  I treasure the friendship of Cherie and her work on cross racial dialogue.  I am in awe of Mashariki and understand why many call her “Queen Mother.” Each of these women has accomplished great things despite the many ways our society diminishes their value and ignores their efforts.

For me, they are the canary in the mine.  They are uniquely positioned to experience and know whether we are making any progress in our struggle to end misogyny and racism in America.  When they tell us the work is done – then and only then – can we rest.

In Support of White History Month

I once scoffed at white people who complained about Black History Month, who demanded white people have their own month.  I’d respond that every month was White History Month, a celebration of white culture and people.  I’d point out how American history, as we teach it today, centers on white heroes and heroics, seldom mentioning people of color or acknowledging the long history of white savagery and oppression.  While I still think all of that is true, I’ve begun to think white people do need a month focusing on their whiteness.

Recently, a woman of color asked me, “What do you know about whiteness?” I stumbled through a response, offering some abstract thoughts about white supremacy and privilege.  She was not impressed.  While she could quickly articulate the black experience in America, detailing significant moments and people in the history of the black resistance to slavery, racism and discrimination, I was mostly ignorant of the other side of that story, specific moments when white people oppressed and terrorized people of color.

The history I’d been taught in school, while mentioning the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, was largely an account of white accomplishment and nobility.  We were taught the first Thanksgiving rather than Wounded Knee, the Revolutionary War rather than Nat Turner’s Rebellion and the Oregon Trail rather than the Trail of Tears.  Any story that cast white people in a poor light was a footnote – at best – in most history books.  The racism so foundational to our nation and its history was whitewashed away, hidden in the margins and written between the lines.

Equally problematic, white history ignored or misrepresented moments and white people who were truly heroic, who spoke out and stood up against racism at nearly every point of American history.  This omission allowed white people to think of slavery and Jim Crow as unfortunate but understandable; the accepted practices of a less enlightened day.  While our history books reluctantly acknowledged people of color like Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., they seldom mentioned the white people who were their accomplices or allies.  In so doing, our history lessons reinforced the idea that racial justice was never a white concern.

James Loewen, in his book Lies My Teacher Told Me, details one such glaring example of this tendency to ignore, diminish and even demonize moments in history when white people stood up against slavery and racial discrimination.  Most white people know very little of one of the most significant historic figures of the 19^th century.

On October 16^th, 1859, John Brown led a small group of abolitionist white men and freed slaves in seizing the federal armory in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.  With control of the 100,000 weapons stored at the armory, they hoped to create an army of enslaved men who would use these weapons to defend their right to freedom.  While they successfully seized the armory and did arm a small group of enslaved men, the US Army under Robert E. Lee soon surrounded the armory, attacked and forced Brown and his allies to surrender.  While his rebellion was unsuccessful, most historians acknowledge his raid and subsequent execution as the event that galvanized both opponents and defenders of slavery and sparked the Civil War.

In 1859, every person in America – black or white – knew of John Brown.  He was loved or hated, but taken seriously by all.  Today, if Brown is mentioned in history books, his heroic attempt to free millions from slavery is misrepresented and his character diminished.  In 1859, luminaries like Henry Thoreau wrote admirably of his actions and principles.  Union soldiers marched off to war singing “his truth was marching on.” Frederick Douglas called Brown, “one of the greatest heroes known to American fame.”  Today, as Loewen details, Brown is often represented in history books as crazy.  He is portrayed as fanatical, deranged, gaunt, grim and terrible.  One textbook – without any support – stated, “thirteen of his near relatives were thought insane.”  None reference his deep religious convictions, his articulate writings and the admiration and respect with which he was held in 1859.  Indeed, in his day, Brown was considered a rational and articulate opponent to slavery.

John Brown was not crazy.  He was anti racist.  It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that most modern white histories ignore or demonize him.  Make no mistake, the equating of anti racism and insanity is intentional.  Most history books imply and teach that slavery and racism were rational, defensible institutions and those who opposed them were unhinged outliers rather than moral champions.

This is why we need White History Month.  The history we are taught the eleven other months is really an admiring history of white supremacy; excusing, diminishing and sustaining racial injustice.  We need a month that documents the Middle Passage, Nat Turner’s Rebellion, the Trail of Tears, Wounded Knee, Jim Crow, Rosewood, the Tulsa Race Riot, the MOVE bombing and countless other significant events in racial terror. That most white people know little to nothing about these events is inexcusable. You cannot understand whiteness until you understand the events that have sustained it.

The history we are taught the eleven other months does not extol resistance to racism. We need a month when white people learn about Benjamin Lay, John Woolman, Lucretia Mott, Willian Lloyd Garrison, Graceanna Lewis, John Brown, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and Will Campbell.  That most white people don’t know who they are is damning. You cannot dismantle white supremacy without examples of resistance. That most of the white heroes of our history books ignored racism, teaches our children to do the same.

As one person of color recently told me, “John Brown is so important because he was our first accomplice; someone willing to shed his own blood for our freedom.”  That making such a sacrifice has been represented as crazy is racist.  It allows many white people to justify their apathy and inaction, to see those who stand with Black Lives Matter as suspect. We need a month to challenge this indoctrination, when white people can focus on both the ugliness of racism and examples of white people who stood against that ugliness.  We need to understand whiteness – the good, the bad and the ugly.

Next time someone advocates for White History Month, I’m going to agree with them.  I’ll ask them to tell me what moments in white history they think have been ignored.  What historic white people have been neglected? Since nearly every significant white moment and person has already been highlighted, I suspect they won’t have much to suggest, but I will.  I’ll begin by telling them of a white man named John Brown.

The Invention and Protection of Whiteness

Let me be perfectly clear.

A white person complaining about identity politics is like the CEO of McDonald’s complaining about the presence of fast food restaurants on every corner.  In both cases, what they’re really complaining about is not the presence of identity politics or of fast food restaurants, but the loss of a monopoly they once enjoyed.  When it comes to fast food, Ray Kroc invented the concept.  When it comes to identity politics, Benjamin Franklin can probably add it to his resume.

The founding fathers of the United States were some of the first to advocate for a category of people defined by their whiteness.  Benjamin Franklin, famously said, “In Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russian and Swedes are generally of what we call a swarthy complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who, with the English, make the principal body of white people on the face of the earth.  I could wish that their numbers were increased.”   To be clear, in 18^th century usage, swarthy essentially meant “dark-skinned.”  Franklin was arguing for the superiority and exceptionalism of Anglo-Saxons – the white people – as the primary citizens of the United States.  More importantly, what he expressed as a wish very quickly became the law of the land.

Ironically, the same Congress that passed the Bills of Rights with all of its noble sentiments on freedom and liberty also passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 which established that United States citizenship was reserved for “free white people of good character.”  That this definition of whiteness initially excluded so many who would today consider themselves as white should expose whiteness for what it has always been – an arbitrary invention intended to reserve certain rights and privileges to a limited number of easily identified people.

Initially, whiteness was largely reserved for people of English descent. Franklin and his peers were as suspicious of non-English speaking immigrants as many white supremacists are today. Only gradually were people of non-Anglo-Saxon origin assimilated into whiteness.  Countless Jews, Irish, Italians, Slavs and other European groups were rejected as immigrants and citizens for not being sufficiently white.  Repeatedly, the US courts defended narrow definitions of white exclusivity.  A single drop of non-white blood was damning.  Congress consistently passed immigration and citizenship laws designed to protect whiteness.  Below are the most blatant examples…

• The Immigration Act of 1882 excluded all people of Chinese descent as non-white.
• The Naturalization Act of 1906 made it illegal for anyone who “does not speak English” to become a US citizen.
• The Immigration Act of 1924 set quotas for different countries and ethnicities, allowing significant numbers of immigrants from England and the Nordic countries and small numbers from Eastern and Southern European countries. It also classified Asians, Indians and Arabs as non-white.

It was not until the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that racial determinations for immigration and naturalization were eliminated.  Even then, President Truman, initially vetoed the act with words reminiscent of Benjamin Franklin, “I believe that this nation is the last hope of Western civilization and if this oasis of the world shall be overrun, perverted, contaminated or destroyed, then the last flickering light of humanity will be extinguished.”  Non-whites were the perversion and contamination to be feared.

For most of US history, there has been only one kind of identity politics – the white kind.  Understanding this is vital to understanding the racial tensions we’re experiencing in 2018.  The strong response by whites to the identity politics of ethnic, cultural and racial groups – though often presented as a defense of unity and justice – is usually a complaint about a loss of exclusive power.  It is not an objection to promoting or defending the rights of an identified group of people, but of having to compete with those groups for rights that have so long been exclusively or primarily white.  Once we understand this complaint for what it is, we can also see the racism upon which this politic was founded.

The identity politics that Benjamin Franklin and the founding fathers invented, institutionalized and protected was built on certain assumptions that any modern moral person should reject…

1. That race is a biological reality with white skin pigment as an indicator of superior intelligence and character. WHITE IS BEST.
2. As superior, white people have a right and responsibility to subjugate and rule those of “swarthy” complexion.  WHITES SHOULD RULE.
3. As the purest form of humanity, intermarriage and integration with people of color is degrading, lowering the strength and cohesiveness of an elite society. DIVERSITY IS EVIL.

Essentially, Benjamin Franklin and the founding fathers would have seen little wrong in the ugliest expressions of white supremacy today.  Indeed, white supremacy was the foundation on which this nation was formed.  While the David Dukes of today may find this gratifying, for most of us this should be embarrassing and reprehensible.  It should be a reminder that what was invented can be abandoned, especially when we know better.

Today we know these things to be true…

1. Race is a political construct created, promoted and sustained by white people in order to subjugate and oppress others. The genetic differences between people with different skin pigments are infinitesimal and irrelevant.
2. The dominance of white people in government, religion, business and society has nothing to do with superiority or character and everything to do with systems that continue to unjustly favor and reward white people.
3. Diversity, rather than homogeneity, makes for a more vibrant society. Excluding vast numbers of people based on arbitrary characteristics like skin pigment is indefensible and counterproductive.

Whenever we hear politicians and pundits arguing against diversity, for inherent racial distinctions and for protecting Western Civilization, we need to hear it for what it is – a call to protect white identity politics and white supremacy.

One of the more recent manifestations of this defense is the RAISE Act being promoted by the Trump administration.  The Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act prioritizes wealthy, highly-educated, English-speaking applicants.  While it does not specifically exclude non-white applicants, its proposed requirements would essentially restore an immigration and naturalization system that rewards those of Anglo-Saxon heritage.  Making America Great Again looks suspiciously like a return to 1924 and some of the most racist immigration policies in American history.

If the CEO of McDonald’s really hated the presence of fast food restaurants on every corner, he could go a long way toward ending that problem by closing all of the McDonald’s restaurants.  If white people hate identity politics, we too have the power to end its ascendancy. We should stop complaining about the MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter and Pride Parades.  We should refocus our energies on the greatest obstacle to national unity – the concept of whiteness.  Until we do, we’re not all that different than Benjamin Franklin and David Duke.

Racism Sweet Racism

True or false?

Property values usually decrease as a neighborhood becomes more racially diverse.

If you’re white like me and you answered with true, you and I are with the vast majority of white respondents.  We’re also wrong.  The statement, as written, is false.  Changes in racial demographics can both decrease and increase property values.  In cases where white people are gentrifying traditionally minority neighborhoods, property values usually rise.  Of course, if you’re like me, you didn’t read it that way.  Your judgement was clouded by certain racist assumptions.

The statement is only true if we, like most white respondents, assume whiteness as normative.  Most white people subconsciously read, “White property values usually decrease as a white neighborhood becomes more racially diverse.”  This misreading is sadly true.  Today, after decades of anti-discriminatory housing policy, the United States still remains highly segregated.  This is not difficult to explain.  It is not the result of “people wanting to live with their kind.”  Rather, it is one of the clearest signs of the continued power of white privilege.

Jane Hill, in her book “The Everyday Language of White Racism,” highlights this and many other linguistic signals of systemic racism.  While racial slurs are the most visible manifestations of white dominance, they are hardly the most important. Hill makes a compelling argument for how racism is sustained and re-codified in the seemingly innocent assertions of white culture.  Indeed, how white people discuss and justify the places we choose to live abounds with racist assumptions and justifications.

Hill points out that, when it comes to property values, it is always the property values of white people that are of concern and deserving of protection.  White flight, though almost always racially motivated, is justified as a wise economic decision rather than a racist act.  Most white people ignore the obvious – it is not the color of our neighbor’s skin that reduces our property values, but the latent racism of us and our neighbors.  If we were not racist, property values would remain static.

While many of us would find it detestable if someone said, “I’m moving because I dislike black people,” we find it perfectly acceptable to use economic justifications – better schools, more amenities, greater security, and higher property values – for seeking segregated neighborhoods.  Most white people ignore the obvious – white neighborhoods have better schools, more amenities, greater security and higher property values because our culture has systematically funneled an unequal amount of resources to predominantly white neighborhoods.  While moving to or protecting one of these white enclaves may seem innocent enough, it is one of the most insidious ways for us to sustain white privilege.

Indeed, we have designed a system that rewards whites for living together in newly constructed communities with all of the modern amenities and forces people of color to live in formally white neighborhoods with declining housing stock, obsolete school buildings and crumbling infrastructure.  Additionally, we give businesses, factories and football stadiums – that primarily benefit and employ suburban whites – tax exemptions and reductions that inhibit the ability of these older neighborhoods to address these deficiencies.

Adding insult to injury, we negatively compare the quality of these minority neighborhoods with our white enclaves and imply the difference is a matter of white virtue rather than inequity.  Our neighborhoods are beautiful and clean because we’re more responsible rather than because we have more resources.  We argue people of color don’t take care of their property, even when what they own is what we abandoned.  These racist rationalizations perpetuate our justifications for continued segregation.  Even when our racist stereotypes are challenged, we resist any change in thinking. When a person of color moves into our neighborhood and keeps their property pristine, they are the exception to our rule.

Sadly, this segregation in housing – which even progressive white people generally obey and tolerate – is one of the primary pillars of systemic racism.  It keeps us separate and unequal, removed from the stereotype breaking influence of integration, of living side by side.  Our neighbors remain people who look and act like us.  People of color are alien.  Our judgments of them are based on racist stereotypes rather than lived experience.

Housing segregation also keeps people of color down economically.  When people of color attain some level of affluence and buy homes in our neighborhoods, we sabotage this attempt at wealth accumulation by moving away and leaving them financially upside down.  When we decide we want to live closer to the center city, we buy up their homes at basement prices and push them out, often into the very suburban neighborhoods we once desired and protected.  Whites can live wherever we desire.  Our property gains value simply because we’re white.

Unfortunately, deconstructing this mechanism of systemic racism will not be easy.  It will require white people to choose to live in integrated neighborhoods, even when this is not economically wise.  It will require us to welcome new neighbors of color and intentionally incorporate them into our neighborhoods.  It will require us to abandon the coded language of “good neighborhoods, good schools, and good communities” when the subtext is really “white neighborhoods, white schools and white communities.” Finally, it will require us to identify and deconstruct tax policies that continue to funnel unequal resources into white neighborhoods and communities.

This is our responsibility and not theirs.  They can never end segregation.  Only white people can.  Only we can change the system.  Only we can abandon the language and the assumptions that under gird that language.  And we will know when we have succeeded.  The end of systemic racism will come when property values are no longer correlated with the color of our skin.  Our homes will no longer testify to our privilege.

Until then, when it comes to racism, where we live will always speak louder than what we say.