This is the eighth of a nine-part series exploring conversations I’ve had with my cousin about racism. Ben and I are both white; I’m progressive and he’s conservative. We’re trying to listen to each other with respect, even as we try to change each other’s minds.
What if conservatives are right—what if talking about racism IS divisive?
My cousin Ben thinks the antiracism movement is shooting itself in the foot. Talking about racism is divisive, he says, and it’s even disempowering to people of color. Why are we drilling our racial differences into everyone’s minds? Why encourage people of color to “see themselves as victims”? If we really want to reduce racism, we should be talking about it less. Then people will finally start judging each other “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
When he first voiced this critique, I thought his concerns were well-meaning but naïve. I wondered if he was really just saying that he felt uncomfortable talking about racism. It’s common for white people to have that discomfort. It’s also common for them to shut down conversations on race by bringing it up.
Ben wasn’t shutting our conversation down—he’d actually been the one to initiate it—and I knew that in his case, he didn’t shy away from discomfort. But still, it seemed obvious that he was wrong. Racism is a real problem that affects real people’s lives, so of course we have to talk about it.
Then I began noticing overlap between Ben’s thinking and that of social scientists and even some people of color. These others didn’t agree with everything he was saying about divisiveness and disempowerment. But I gradually came to see more nuance around his concerns.
I realized I had dismissed him too quickly. Talking about racism does naturally divide people, and it can sometimes lead to disempowerment among people of color, as I explain below. In recent weeks, as Republicans in many states attempt to ban Critical Race Theory from schools, they’re making Ben’s same argument. The bans seem excessive to me, but I now recognize that their critique carries kernels of truth.
I still feel certain that the answer can’t be not talking about racism. Colorblindness and silence will only favor the status quo. But there must be a way to strike a balance, talking honestly about racism while transcending our racial differences. I don’t know how to find that perfect balance, but I want to add nuance to everyone’s thinking.
Talking about prejudice CAN reduce prejudice.
First, let’s briefly visit the case for talking about racism. In a 2018 article for Vox, German Lopez describes his search for concrete data on how to reduce racism. Do all these antibias trainings really help?
And he found compelling evidence that conversations can indeed help. For instance, in one study, researchers successfully reduced voters’ anti-transgender prejudice just by talking with the voters.
In the research, people canvassed the homes of more than 500 voters in South Florida. The canvassers, who could be trans or not, asked the voters to simply put themselves in the shoes of trans people — to understand their problems — through a 10-minute, nonconfrontational conversation. The hope was that the brief discussion could lead people to reevaluate their biases.
It worked. The trial found not only that voters’ anti-trans attitudes declined but that they remained lower three months later, showing an enduring result. And those voters’ support for laws that protect trans people from discrimination increased, even when they were presented with counterarguments for such laws.
Regardless of your feelings about transgender rights, this study should be exciting—it shows that conversation and personal stories do have wonderful potential for reducing prejudice. Presumably, this is true for racial prejudice too.
And there are lots of ways to spark meaningful conversation besides canvassing door-to-door. Antibias trainings incorporate creative exercises designed to foster empathy and generate reflective conversation.
For example, one popular game is the Privilege Walk, depicted here in a video from Buzzfeed. Participants start off standing side by side on a line, then step forward or backward as a facilitator reads a series of statements, such as:
* If you almost always feel comfortable with people knowing your sexual orientation, take one step forward.
* If you feel certain that you will not be followed, harassed, or watched under close surveillance while shopping, take one step forward.
* If you have ever been the only person of your race/ethnicity in a classroom or place of work, take one step back.
(from “Privilege Walk” by Eastern Illinois University)
By the end of the exercise, the group is dispersed, and some people—usually straight white males—are far ahead of the others. The intent is to stimulate insight and conversation, opening doors to greater empathy and support for systemic change.
I’ll be returning to this video a few times in this post. It’s worth a watch here, or below if the embedding works in your browser.
But talking about prejudice can also backfire.
But just as Ben pointed out, conversation doesn’t always help. The full title of Lopez’s Vox article is: “Research says there are ways to reduce racial bias. Calling people racist isn’t one of them.”
After describing the study that reduced anti-trans prejudice, Lopez goes on to caution that reducing racial prejudice “will take time and, crucially, empathy.” He cites many researchers who insist that without empathy, these conversations are counterproductive.
Paramount to the transgender canvassing study was that canvassers listened at least as much as they talked. Critically, they also avoided “taking bait”—they refrained from hotly calling canvassees out for statements that sounded bigoted. Lopez concludes:
People don’t want to be immediately dismissed because they might have a view that you consider wrong or even vile; they want to feel heard. And once that happens, it’s a lot easier for them to make mental space to understand other people’s problems.
This sheds light on why some antibias trainings can devolve into vitriol, or why they sometimes seem to have zero positive effect on the people who most need them. Unlike the one-on-one conversations in the study, antibias trainings often involve larger groups. That leads to more variables, as well as ethical problems.
If someone says something bigoted in a one-on-one conversation, the listener can ethically opt to let it go for now, in the interest of trust-building. But in a group, there’s more of an obligation to correct them, in order to help marginalized group members feel protected.
Unless the correcting is done with great sensitivity, though, it won’t do anything to reduce the person’s prejudice. It might even anger them, along with any others who share their feelings.
Even seemingly benign exercises like the Privilege Walk can backfire if not done right. In an article on Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance), Jey Ehrenhalt points out that for white males doing the exercise, the reaction isn’t always empathy; it can also be defensiveness. That was his own initial reaction when he did a Privilege Walk as a white high schooler.
As the leader called out questions such as, “If you would never think twice about calling the police when trouble occurs, take one step forward,” I felt shame brewing inside me. In reaction, I only held more tightly to my narrow experience. I began to resist the exercise by taking smaller and smaller steps forward.
“The questions were unfairly distributed,” I rationalized to my teenage self. “They skipped over what’s been hard for me.”
This kind of defensiveness is a natural, human reaction. Whether white participants can move out of it and into empathy depends largely on the skill of the facilitators.
Ehrenhalt suggests that in order for a Privilege Walk to work, participants need to show up ready to examine and potentially shift their perspectives. Facilitators could prime them for this, for instance by first leading a discussion about different perspectives, or calming participants’ stress with mindfulness exercises. But if they aren’t ready, the walk might do more harm than good.
This is all part of what Ben’s been trying to tell me. He may not be coming from the same place as Ehrenhalt, but he has observed the same thing as him. There’s a fine line between challenging people in productive ways and putting them on the defensive.
When multiculturalism leads to intolerance
There’s more: highlighting group differences can even increase intolerance. As social psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes in his book The Righteous Mind, “Emphasizing differences makes many people more racist, not less.”
Haidt is drawing from political scientist Karen Stenner’s 2005 book The Authoritarian Dynamic, in which Stenner says talking about differences can actually activate intolerance in a subset of people. These are the people most prone to intolerance, but they aren’t necessarily prejudiced in their normal lives. They might have friends of color; they may have voted for Barack Obama.
It’s when they feel threatened that this subset of people circles the wagons. When they perceive danger to their group, they desire a strong leader to protect them from the dangerous “Other.”
Donald Trump wielded this phenomenon masterfully in his campaign and presidency. He rallied his base around “violent” immigrant caravans, people from Muslim countries, and Black Lives Matter protesters, whipping up white racial fears and thus ensuring support for his own authoritarian style.
Stenner says that for those prone to intolerance, the best way to cultivate tolerance is to use language that emphasizes unity, not diversity:
[A]ll the available evidence indicates that exposure to difference, talking about difference, and applauding difference—the hallmarks of liberal democracy—are the surest ways to aggravate those who are innately intolerant…. Paradoxically, then, it would seem that we can best limit intolerance of difference by parading, talking about, and applauding our sameness.
The Authoritarian Dynamic by Karen Stenner
Of course, never talking about racism is impractical, as I mentioned. And these conversations do have great potential for good. So what I take from Haidt and Stenner is not an either/or, but a both/and. We can’t avoid talking about racism, as Stenner is suggesting. But we can make sure to additionally talk about the ties that bind us as a larger, unified group.
As we delve into tough conversations on privilege and systemic racism, we need to recognize that in doing so, we’ll inevitably be divided. It will thus be important to reach out across those divisions, reminding ourselves also of what binds us together: our school, our team, our workplace, our nation. This will hopefully ease the tensions and the intolerant tendencies of some group members.
Conversations on racism can disempower people of color.
Another potential hangup in antiracism work is the possibility of inadvertently disempowering of people of color.
In a blog post called “Why ‘The Privilege Line’ is a Frustratingly Unfinished Exercise,” teacher Christina Torres describes the vexation she and many people of color feel with this game. There’s a paradox to it: the Privilege Walk is effective for illustrating privilege to those with more of it, but it’s only effective if those with less privilege play too.
And for them, winding up at the back can reinforce frustration with oppression that they were already aware of.
Essentially, when you’re a PoC [Person Of Color] or from another oppressed background, you inevitably end up in the back.
And you know that you will.
Lack of privilege, for those who experience that, isn’t new. We don’t usually need that constant reminder– we know… The exercise itself centers on whiteness, and the PoC often end up as props to help White people see how privileged they are. (Emphasis in original.)
Torres feels so frustrated with the Privilege Walk that she suggests revising the whole concept, perhaps creating a new kind of walk that empowers people of color:
1. Step forward if you have a strong understanding of your family’s history and culture.
2. Step forward if you speak a second language.
3. Step forward if you have a specific community of people who share similar familiar and cultural contexts with you.
This would, of course, change the exercise from an antiracism game designed to educate the privileged to an empowerment game designed to uplift the marginalized.
Here, again, there’s overlap between what Torres and my cousin Ben are saying. What’s the point of telling people of color they’re victims of oppression? Torres says it’s not useful because it’s so obvious to them. Ben says it’s not useful because it can make them feel that success is impossible. Both are pointing out that it’s just not motivational to be told how hard your road has been or is going to be.
There are key points of disagreement between Ben and Torres. He wouldn’t agree with her basic premise that most people of color experience oppression. And she isn’t voicing a problem with white people learning about racism—she’s just saying people of color shouldn’t be forced into the role of props. (From what I’ve observed, even most Black conservatives seem to agree that white people have more to learn on this topic.)
Still, the overlap between Torres’s and Ben’s thinking forced me to once again check my dismissal of him. There is potential for disempowerment here. He wasn’t totally wrong about that.
The case for being thoughtful
It seems there is a strong case, not for scrapping conversations on racism, but at least for being exceedingly thoughtful about them. What’s appropriate will depend on the situation and the people involved.
These conversations are a crucial way we can potentially reduce racism, but to help them succeed, white “racism skeptics” need to feel heard and not put on the defensive. Since people of color shouldn’t be burdened with listening to or teaching about racism, it’s white antiracists who need to have the most patience with the skeptics. (The White Ally Toolkit is an amazing resource for developing this patience.)
And because racism is a necessary but divisive topic, and a topic that activates intolerance in some white people, the need for group unity shouldn’t be overlooked. There doesn’t have to be an either/or between teaching antiracism and teaching unity. Both can and should be taught.
My long conversations with Ben have taught me far more nuance than is usually portrayed in the news. Antiracism’s “divisiveness” is a hot political topic, but getting away from polarized thinking, it turns out there’s overlap between what conservatives, social scientists, and people of color are saying. We can explore these concerns thoughtfully, always striving to find the right balance.
