Candis Watts Smith: 3 myths about racism that keep the US from progress | TED

85,648 views ・ 2021-08-13

TED


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When I’m out at the grocery store or maybe a restaurant
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or the park with my son -- he’s six and a half --
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people will stop us and mention that they think that he’s handsome.
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I agree.
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They'll use that opportunity to chop it up with him,
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and often when they're done talking with him,
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they’ll mention that they think he’s a smart and engaging little guy.
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When those people walk away, the thought that comes to my mind
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is that I hope they remember meeting him as a child
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when they see him again as a grown man.
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This thought comes to my mind
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because I’ve written two books about race and racism in the United States,
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and this kind of work can produce feelings of pessimism.
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One of the things that I’ve learned
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is that Americans have an orientation toward progress.
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In this context,
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what that means is that we often celebrate the distance between where we were
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and where we are now.
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But that same orientation can blind us from the gap between where we are
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and where we could or should be.
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The other thing I’ve learned about Americans
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is that we have a very, very narrow understanding of racism,
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mostly in the minds and hearts of people,
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usually old people --
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old people from the South.
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And this really narrow definition can constrain our opportunities
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to produce a more racially egalitarian society.
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We like to hunt for races
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and distance ourselves from people who say mean things about whole groups of people
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or who idealize the 1950s.
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But the fact of the matter is that we might just need to look in the mirror.
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Now, I'm not saying that everyone here is a racist,
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but what I am saying is that everyone here has the capacity
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and perhaps even the propensity
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to live their life in a way,
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to make decisions,
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to rely on biases
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that reproduce racial inequality.
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Some people say, “Well, you do all this work about racism. What’s the answer?”
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And I say that the first thing we might need to do
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is to come to a shared understanding
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about what racism is in the first place.
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History shows that racists have had the upper hand
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in deciding who the racists are and what racism is,
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and it’s never them or the things that they do.
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But maybe if we come together
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and come to a shared and perhaps a precise definition of what racism is,
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we can work toward creating a society
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where mothers like me aren’t in constant fear of their children’s lives.
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I'd like to dispel three myths about racism
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on our trek toward mutual understanding.
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First:
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it’s true that the South has done its work to earn its reputation
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as the most racist region.
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But there are other states and regions that are competing for the title.
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For example,
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if we look at the most segregated states in terms of where Black kids go to school,
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we'll see, sure, some are in the South.
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There are some out west,
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in the Midwest
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and in the Northeast.
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They're where we live.
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Or if we look at states with the biggest racial disparities
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in terms of prison populations,
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we see that none of them are in the South.
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They're where we live.
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My colleague Rebecca Kreitzer and I
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looked at a standard battery of racial attitudes of prejudice,
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and we found that in the 1990s,
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states in the South dominated the most racially negative attitudes.
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But this geography has evolved, and things have changed.
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By 2016, we found that the Dakotas, Nebraska,
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states in the Midwest, in the Northeast,
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were competing for the "most prejudiced population" titles.
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Now, I'm not saying that one state is more racist than another,
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but what I am saying is that every state
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might have its own special brand of racism.
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And it doesn't have to be like this.
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Most of the inequalities that we see in our day-to-day lives
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happen at the state and local level.
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What that means is that we don't have to go all the way to Congress
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to make change in our communities.
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We can simply hold our city, our county, our state legislators to task
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to produce more equitable outcomes.
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Myth two:
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we're not that good at hunting for racists.
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Remember that time when the governor of Virginia did blackface,
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and people were like, "Oh, that's bad. I need to get that racist out of here"?
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I was giving y'all the side-eye, and here's why.
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While people were going back to yearbooks
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to look for things that were obviously racist,
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fewer people were looking into the current-day policy stances
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of legislators who probably did blackface but didn't get caught.
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So, how many of us might have supported a candidate
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who is willing to let neighborhoods secede from their district
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so that kids could go to all-white schools --
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in the 21st century?
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Or how many of us might have supported a ballot measure
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that systematically reduced some groups' chances of voting?
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Or how many of us might have focused on the behavior of Black mothers
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rather than doctors or health care systems and policies
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when we learn about the huge racial disparities
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in maternal and infant mortality?
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It doesn't have to be like this.
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We could do something different.
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We could scrutinize the behaviors of the rule makers.
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We could orient ourselves toward a more just society,
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and on our way there,
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we can't mystify practical policy solutions.
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Myth three:
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If you believe that when all the grandmas in Mississippi die
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that racism is going to go with them,
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you are in for a big disappointment.
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We like to think that young people
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are going to do the hard work of eradicating racism,
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but there are some things that we should note.
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We know that young folks, young white folks especially, like diversity,
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they appreciate it, they're looking for it.
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But we also know that they don't live diverse lives.
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Research shows that the average white American literally has one black friend.
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And what that means is that most don't have any at all.
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Sociologists like Sarah Mayorga show that even when well-meaning white folks
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move to diverse neighborhoods,
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they don't necessarily have positive interactions,
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no less any with their neighbors who aren't white.
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My research with Professor Christopher DeSante shows
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that when we ask white millennials their racial attitudes
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and policy preferences,
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that they're sometimes, just as in other times,
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even more racially conservative than boomers.
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When we ask them about the things that are important to them,
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they don't have any particular sense of urgency
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around questions of racial inequality.
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How did we get like this?
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Well, one of the things we might think about is how we raise our kids
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and equip them to solve the problems that we want them to solve.
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Research shows that white parents in particular
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will either choose to not talk about issues of racism to their kids
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in order to protect them from a harsh racial reality
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or they instill colorblind lessons,
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and that can actually reinforce negative racial attitudes.
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So it's kind of like
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how some of your parents might have given you books about puberty
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so they didn't have to talk about the birds and the bees,
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and then you tried to connect all the dots and then you did it all wrong.
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It's like that.
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It doesn't have to be like this.
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We can do better.
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We can have hard conversations with our kids
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so that they don't grow up like many of us did,
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thinking that talking about racism makes you a racist -- it doesn't --
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and so that we can prevent them from making the same mistakes
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that we've seen in the past.
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Remember a long, long time ago in 2008,
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when we were all pining to live in a post-racial world?
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Well, I say that it's time for us to think bigger and dream bigger
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and think about what it would be like to live in a post-racist world.
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But in order to do that, we'd have to come together
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to have a shared definition of racism --
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not just in the matter of hearts and minds,
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but in systems, policies, rules,
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decisions made over and over again to marginalize some people --
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and agree to become anti-racists -- people who learn more and do better.
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So we could ask harder questions of candidates
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about their stances on racial inequality
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before we throw our full weight behind them.
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We could buycott or boycott businesses
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whose practices don't align with our values.
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We could talk to our kids about racism.
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We could figure out our state's special brand of racism
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and work to eradicate it.
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People made racial disparities, and people can unmake them.
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And sure, it'll be hard,
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but the fact of the matter is,
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someone is depending on us to do nothing at all.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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