White America, Master Your Mindset, So We Can All Be Free!

(Yesterday, I gave a sermon at a Unitarian Universalist Church imploring white Americans to master their mindset. What follows is a version of what I said.)

Hello Meltingpot Community,

For the past 20 years I’ve been using my words to celebrate diversity and undo racism. I’ve been doing this work quietly without really thinking about getting famous, getting paid or really receiving any kind of recognition. I just wanted to get the work out there and hoped people would find it. So, I wrote books, articles and posts on this blog. I started the podcast in 2018 as a means of reaching an ever greater audience.  But now I feel like all of this writing and researching and talking I’ve done was meant to prepare me for this moment. Because if ever there was a moment when America needed to celebrate diversity and undo racism, it is now.

White America, This is Your Moment

So, this is my moment to speak up and share what I’ve learned. And what I’ve learned and what I know to be true about this moment we’re in right now, is that it is white America’s moment too. And if you are reading this right now and you are a white American, then I’m going to assume you want to do something to make things better. You care. You no longer want to be silent. You believe that this crisis we’re in can be a catalyst for change. Like the death of a loved one can be the inciting incident that makes you start exercising. Or losing a steady job can lead to entrepreneurial success.

Sometimes we have to be pushed to the edge in order to leap. Well, this is white America’s moment to leap. 

One Big Racist Sandwich

I had a conversation with my 15-year-old son recently.  I asked him, “Why do you think we’re still dealing with racism in 2020?” And he paused for a minute, and then he said thoughtfully, “Well, I mean after the Civil War, white people were mad about losing the war and losing their slaves and they just kept Black people as sharecroppers and stuff and kept thinking of them as slaves. And they probably taught their kids that, so their kids were mad and thought of Black people as slaves too. And they just taught their kids that through Jim Crow and throughout history until now.” 

And you know what? That pretty much sums it up. It’s kind of a simplified way of looking at things, but the truth is, this country was built in such a way that the relationship between white people and Black people has always been antagonistic, to say the least. It wasn’t a relationship that started out symbiotic and then went sour. It started with a hierarchy in place where there was a master and a slave. If that relationship were a sandwich, the principal ingredients would be fear, violence, distrust and hatred. And while that relationship has evolved over time, and those primary ingredients are not always visible, they still remain in the sandwich. They’re literally baked into the bread at this point. In fact, there hasn’t been a real menu change between Black and white for 400 years. That racist sandwich is still a major part of the American diet. 

Generations of Lies Don’t Just Disappear

Dr. Joy DeGruy, who coined the phrase, “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome” writes about the lingering trauma Black people continue to deal with as a result of the slave trade, Jim crow, the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacy writ large in this country. In her work she posits that, Black people continue to suffer from the wounds of slavery because we haven’t been given any type of global group therapy to help heal from the trauma of being wrenched from our homeland, enslaved, violated and brutalized for some 300 years. Instead, Black people were “set free” and told to simply “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”  And we know that didn’t work. 

But Black people aren’t the only wounded people in this racist relationship. White people, who have spent generations angry and ignorant about the true nature of Black people, have their own issues to process. White people at some point, maybe at the moment the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, were supposed to suddenly see Black people in their full humanity. As equal members of society. I wish that happened, but we all know it didn’t. As my son said, “White people were mad they lost the war. And they still thought Black people were inferior.” And they lived their lives with those unchallenged lies and taught their children and their children’s children and here we are today with white people never truly resolving their false images, false beliefs, and unresolved anger about Black Americans. (Note: I know not all white people have confederate roots, but the “Black people are inferior” mindset was almost universal for white Americans. Even the most benevolent abolitionists still harbored biased beliefs about Black people. So, don’t assume you haven’t been bamboozled just because you hail from upNorth.)

News flash, if white people don’t master their mindset and resolve these issues, no change is going to come. 

This is Your Post-Emancipation Proclamation Moment

So, white people, the time is now. This is your post-Emancipation Proclamation moment – just 200 years late – to not only get busy undoing the structural and institutionalized racism that holds people of color hostage in this country, but also and more importantly, this is the moment when you finally and honestly get your group therapy and realize that your understanding of Blackness is based on a lie. And these lies have benefited you and allowed you to live comfortably at the expense of others. But they’ve also prevented you from having authentic and meaningful personal and professional relationships with Black and brown people. And they’ve prevented this country from living up to its true potential. 

Group Therapy for 200 Million White Americans

Now about that group therapy. It’s not actually going to look like a therapy session with 200 million repentant white people. It’s going to look more like a self study where individuals are going to have to examine their own beliefs about Black people; read a lot of books by Black authors that challenge the narrative in their minds that trend towards Black people as inferior beings; read American history books that decenter white Europeans; watch movies, television shows, and documentaries that explore and celebrate the Black American experience (Hint: The Help is not one of those movies and just watching Roots isn’t good enough.); visit African-American museums, book stores, literary and art festivals to witness the fullness of Black humanity. Also, every time you write about Black people, you must use an uppercase B.

I know that this manner of self study works, because I’ve been through it myself. 

If You Drank the Kool-Aid, You Need Help

Even though I’m Black, because I grew up deeply entrenched in white America, I too believed that Black people were somehow inferior. I reached towards whiteness as some sort of ultimate goal of success. I believed I was some sort of articulate exception to the anti-Black rule, until a white person called me the N-word. I had to unlearn what I had been taught both overtly and covertly. I had to relearn history and see my own worth irrespective of the white gaze. Basically, I had to decolonize my mind and decenter whiteness from everything I believed to be true. From the way I wore my hair, to the way I understood global politics, I had to interrogate my every belief. So, I know it’s possible to do this. I know you can unlearn what you firmly believe is the truth. No matter how many gallons of racist Kool-Aid you’ve consumed.

Mindset Matters

Here’s what it comes down to, people. If folks are going to get out and do the work that needs to be done to fix this society, white people need to get their mindset right. They need to understand that this work isn’t being done for me. Or for other Black and brown people. They are doing this work for themselves. White people have been bamboozled and lied to and kept from the truth by their own ancestors, teachers, and government. White people are not superior to all others. Black and brown people are not inferior. The white way is not the right way, it is simply one way. 

When white people can honestly say – and I do mean honestly – that Black people are not a different species, then progress can be made in all areas of our lives. The environment, health care, the economy. All of these issues can be adequately addressed when we all see each other as equal problem-solving partners. Don’t get me wrong, we can work simultaneously on dismantling institutionalized racism and decolonizing our minds, but if we really want to see a lasting difference in society, the mindset change in white America is fundamental. 

Make the Leap!

So take a look around at the world we’re living in today, where white police officers not only kill unarmed Black men in broad daylight, but do so thinking it’s okay. We have come to the point where violent white supremacists and white racists have come so far out of the woodwork that they are occupying the White House. We are indeed on the edge of a cliff. A cliff that separates a society steeped in depravity, violence and discrimination, from a society where all people are free.  White people, are you going to take the leap to the other side, or are you going to wrap yourselves up in a fragile cocoon of lies that leaves all of us in danger?

I hope and pray that you’re ready to leap. 

Peace …and Courage!

(Featured Photo by Joshua T from Pexels)