DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert on these topics and may not always say the “right” things, but hope this content can provide some introspection and resources for us to do better. Feel free to reach out if there’s anything you disagree with or want to discuss.
The battle for equality and justice is far from over and we must continue to challenge ourselves each day to create lasting change. You’ve probably seen the quote above by Desmond Tutu, South African anti-apartheid and human rights activist, several times on your timeline and Instagram stories, but I wanted to take some time to explore and discuss how active, consistent introspection and learning is essential to create the change we need.
On the first day of my freshmen Social Psychology course, my professor, a Black woman, asked the class “What are the stereotypes of a Black / African American women?”
Timidly, a couple students raised their hands and responded with answers like “strong” and “powerful.”
After some nervous responses from the audience, my professor addressed the elephant in the room, “Okay, I know no one wants to say it, but what about angry, aggressive, or lazy?”
The truth is, although we may feel uncomfortable blurting out racist stereotypes, we are constantly passively reaffirming these beliefs through the media we consume and the norms we accept in society. You may get defensive when you hear the term racist, but racism goes beyond alt-right racist slurs. Ask yourself, how often have you walked into an all White room and accepted this to be the norm? How many times have you watched a reality tv show / crime show / the news and a Black person is portrayed as being aggressive and combative? How often have you been told not to go somewhere or to be careful in a Black neighborhood?
Racism is judging and making assumptions about a person solely based on appearances. It’s your brain playing tricks on you, telling you that you know something about someone before you even know them. Whether you’re aware of it or not, your brain likely has made several associations and stereotypes about people based on aspects such as race, gender, age, religion, and more. If you think you “don’t see race” or “treat everyone equally,” try out Harvard Implicit Bias test and see if that’s true. The test evaluates a person’s implicit social cognition, thoughts and feelings outside of conscious awareness and control, so even if you may not be actively discriminating someone, your brain may have already made negative or positive associations about some groups over others.
The amygdala is the fight-or-flight part of our brain that allows us to make quick decisions based on heuristics and biases. This was helpful during our caveman days before modern weapons and tools, but now with the combination of issues such as lack of gun control, police brutality, and racial discrimination, it can cause more danger for some than it protects us from. Discrimination exists throughout basically every aspect of society, just to name a couple examples:
These aren’t mere coincidences or random correlations, but the result of centuries of systemic oppression. In the documentary 13th, the film explores the history of mass incarceration in this country since the 13th amendment, that abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In the early days of media, films like Birth of a Nation aimed to create an image of the Black man as a criminal and person to be feared to perpetuate the oppression of Black people. In 1989, Donald Trump took out a front page ad promoting the death penalty for the Central Park Five, the teen suspects who were falsely accused of assaulting and raping a woman as a result of racial discrimination.
bell hooks, author and social activist, coined the term the oppositional gaze, conceptualizing the idea that a Black person must take a critical view to the stereotypical representations in media to construct their own dialogue of the events. However, today the ownership is on all people to take an oppositional gaze and actively combat the stigmas that are perpetuated in society and media. It is not enough to view the world as it is, but instead it is necessary to recognize the wrongs and injustices and look within ourselves to change the dialogue around us.
In the article “Living to Love,” bell hooks writes:
“When I told a group of black women that I wanted there to be a world where I can feel love, feel myself giving and receiving love, every time I walk outside my house, they laughed. For such a world to exist, racism and all other forms of domination need to change. To the extent that I commit my life to working to end domination, I help transform the world so that it is that loving place I want it to be.”
As a Black person, you are not alone in creating this change. It is the responsibility of people of all colors, to support and work to make this world a place where everyone is able to feel that love. With the efforts in the past week, change is already happening at an astounding rate.
However, there is still a lot of work to be done. Barack Obama wrote in the Medium article How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change,
“The point of protest is to raise public awareness, to put a spotlight on injustice, and to make the powers that be uncomfortable; in fact, throughout American history, it’s often only been in response to protests and civil disobedience that the political system has even paid attention to marginalized communities. But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices — and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.”
For all the non-Black readers, take a moment to understand how you can transform the world to make it a loving place for everyone. Couple of exercises and resources for you to get started:
💗Personal Introspection: take a moment to write / think about the following:
- When have you racially stereotyped someone? Examples from the NYTimes in 9 People Reveal a Time They Racially Stereotyped a Stranger
- What adjectives come to mind when you think of different races?
- When you think of your wedding and who will be there, how diverse is the list of your closest family members and friends?
- What did you score on the Harvard Implicit Bias test?
🧠Learn: educate yourself through books, movies, tv shows, podcasts, and more!
- Open Yale course on African American history
- Comprehensive list of Resources for Change
- Some of my favorites include
- 🎬Movies / TV Shows: 13th, When They See Us, Dear White People
- 📚Books: So You Want to Talk About Race, The End of Policing
- 🎤Podcasts: 1619, Pod Save the People, The Diversity Gap, Okay, Now Listen, Still Processing, Codeswitch
❤️Support & Donate: protest, donate, and sign to support change
- Protest toolkit at Defend Black Lives
- Links to petitions and organizations to support in the Anti-Racist Starter Kit App
- Mental health resources for Black people to support
- Templates to email government officials at Defund12
🛍️Black Businesses: support Black-owned restaurants and stores
- Google map with Black-owned restuarants around the country
- Black Wall Street app connecting you to Black-owned businesses
- More Black-owned businesses and bookstores here
A couple images / videos below as a reminder of why we must keep learning, working, and fighting for the love, beauty, and equality that people deserve:
Wedding in the middle of protests (@meetthegordons)
Hear the voices of these incredible students speak on what it means for them to be Black in America #heartheirvoices
Love always,
