11.16

Let's Talk About Race

Part II

This morning I listened to a podcast where the host (Jenna Wortham of Still Processing) goes to Monticello, the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson. She described all the anger and frustration she was feeling as she went on a tour of the grounds. She learned that Thomas Jefferson thought it would be much easier to control his slaves if he let them raise their families there. She noticed that many of the white people on the tour seemed aloof and detached from this sobering reality. At the end of the tour, the tour guide takes a moment to address how ill it makes him feel to know that one of the architects of this country, Thomas Jefferson, did not see Africans and African-Americans as human beings. Right when he expresses this thought, the white people suddenly started opening up and talking about what they were feeling. And that’s when Jenna had a great empathetic realization: it’s not that they were mindlessly wandering the grounds, they just didn’t know how to talk about race.

And of course they didn’t! While people of color have been involuntarily trained for years in matters of race, many white people were entering the discourse much later in life. They don’t have to be hyper-aware of how they are perceived, whiteness isn’t always a factor in how they move through the world, and in many spaces, they can forget that they have the privilege of being in the “main” category (and with that privilege, also forget that racism exists at all). One might say they’re essentially novices on the subject.

When I’m in those rooms of only white people, I admit I’ll often get frustrated at their sheer lack of knowledge on the subject of race, and I lose my patience with those who aren’t willing to learn. But I also want to remind myself of the kind of empathy Jenna felt. We won’t have the progress we need if we don’t share our know-how, and the topic of race shouldn’t be something people avoid. White people need to do the work of learning the material. And they’re going to need some pointers. Luckily, I know a lot of experts.

Mel

November 16th, 2019