Editor’s Note: This is the first column in a three-part series discussing racism in America. This column contains language that may be offensive to some readers.
Maurice Williams’ participation in a class community service project at a local thrift store came to a halt when a worker at Connections for Life accused him and his friend of stealing.
After several conversations, the owner of the store apologized and allowed the two students to return to finish their community service hours. But that didn’t erase the racial bias that Williams continues to experience.
“The woman had no proof that we had taken anything,” Williams said. “All she had was the color of our skin and a bias against black people.”
Racism is no longer tied exclusively to hatred or violent attacks against members of a race. It has become a system in which one race triumphs over another. It is a learned system that has led me to become a 19-year-old, southern Louisiana racist.
As I talked to Williams, a general studies senior, I felt ashamed of being white, but I realized my individual apology won’t help anything. When prejudice has gotten to the point of political and economic oppression, those things won’t change because individuals claim not to be racist.
Claiming race is biological and unchangeable assigns characteristics to people based on things they can’t control. And it has helped to rationalize white supremacy.
In the time of slavery, we developed a system of meaning to rationalize identifying Africans as property. The same rationalization contributed to the brutal genocide of Native Americans.
These factors explain why racism doesn’t work both ways. While any individual of a different race can hold a prejudice against me for being white, their opinion does not hold power over me. It doesn’t make it more likely for me to be arrested or not to get a job.
My personal prejudices accomplish that and more. It’s a mistake not to be critical of all forms of racial prejudice, but it’s an even bigger mistake to assume that all forms of racial prejudice are equal.
We claim to live in a post-racial America, but we live in an America where Sarah Palin can post to Facebook on Martin Luther King Jr. Day that President Obama should honor the civil rights leader by no longer “playing the race card.”
It’s funny, however, that no white person claims the race card in times when it’s convenient to be white. Would a white student complain about flying under police radar? No, we only claim that the race card exists when it negatively affects us.
Bryan McCann, assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies, researches and teaches crime and public culture. And he wishes the race card would be played more. The more people who point out every instance of racial inequality, the more attention is brought to the issue.
McCann cited LSU emergency alerts as an example.
“If you’re a black male on campus when that text goes out, it might not be talking about you explicitly, but it’s talking about you,” McCann said. “If LSUPD drives past you, they’re probably going to back up. You can’t say that about other students,”
We have coined the term “race card” as a way to avoid listening to a black individual’s protests to how society treats them, which is something we should all be ashamed of.
When I spoke to Williams about racism and how it affects him as a black male, it quickly became apparent that the young man’s anger was centered around one factor — a lack of communication about racism.
He said it’s necessary, first and foremost, for people to see this is a discussion worth having. We’ve all seen the Confederate flag. We’ve heard derogatory language. And while we may not mean it in the same way slave owners meant it in the 17th to 19th centuries, it doesn’t change the fact that at one point someone created these symbols of oppression.
“We’ve decided that only black people can say nigger,” Williams said. We’re not going to say you can’t raise the confederate flag, but we’re not going to have either on the front page of the school paper.”
It’s time for us to put aside the personal integrity that we cling to when we say “not to be a racist, but…” and admit that yes, I am a 19-year-old learned southern Louisiana racist. But I will actively fight that miseducation. We all have to actively fight this learned system.
To stagnate in this fight is to remain a racist America.
Jana King is a 19-year-old communication studies sophomore from Ponchatoula.