Ending American Apartheid — #Dismantle It Now
I don’t recall many folks using the term Apartheid for what happens here. But I’m a somewhat oblivious white woman, and it seems as though the term systemic racism has only recently become part of the everyday lexicon, too. Yet for those of us who aspire to be allies, there has always been something troubling and unspoken. Which, quite frankly, if this country is so great and American liberty and freedom is what we’re all about, then why are black people being treated this way, and why are they expected to continue taking it?
About fifteen years ago, I began attending a church where the congregation was a genuine mix. There were people of color, people who were gay, Asian people and every day white folk, just like me. There were families with two moms and a couple of families with two dads. I had recently moved to town and had seen, quite by accident, a news story about a boy who was gunned down just five blocks from my house. After reading this article, I attended a meeting at the library for a discussion on violence and the local community. The local community, I should add, is predominantly African American and Hispanic.
The boy who’d been murdered was in his teens and knew his assailant. It turned out to have something to do with drugs. Why this matters, is because he was killed outside of Grace Episcopal Church. The priest at the time was a white woman, originally from Kansas. She was tall and smiling and had a sort of aw shucks, guffawing style about her. But she also had keen discernment and when she gave communion, one could see the Holy Spirit flash through her in a fraction of a second. During her tenure, several people from the congregation entered the priesthood and she inspired others to be of service. She also inspired me to reclaim some sort of faith in God. But that’s not what this story is about. It’s about my first Black History Month and what happened afterwards.
I used to work in show business, and found the prospect of Black History Month at Grace absolutely fantastic. When an announcement was made looking for volunteers, I jumped right in with all my naïve, white privileged gusto. I thought, we can do shows and have a cabaret! With enough entertainment, all ills would be assuaged. The future would be transformed. Within hours, I managed to piss off one of the elders and probably estranged a few others, too. When I was puzzled by their resistance to my gung-ho approach, the priest pointed out, “You’re there to bear witness. That’s all.” But those of color forgave me. They did not check my white fragility, but rather brushed over it and led us in fellowship. During that month, I grew to appreciate Dr. King as an American prophet, if not a saint. That month also brought home the truth, that if we have any chance, any hope at all, then the United States in general, and white skinned America in particular, needs to take a cold, hard look at itself.
In Where Do We Go from Here, David Oyelowo said, “Ask for redemption.” Reader, please, peel our history back. Remove its skin. Now, take a look. Look at the brutality, cruelty, and exploitation. The entire construct of this country was built upon the backs of people who were kidnapped from another continent and enslaved. It has been built upon the backs of indigenous people whose land we co-opted and then banished to parts west, encircling them in barbed wire while systematically destroying their culture and their livelihood. This is nothing to say of the indentured servants our ancestors brought with them to work off their servitude and thus buy their freedom.
But it is our history. Our collective history. It’s time to throw out the textbooks which talk about happy slaves with kindly masters. It’s time to stop brushing off this notion that these problems are not our problems. We are all in this struggle together. Everything is linked. And it will take more than several lifetimes to get the work done. It’s time to get with the reality that so many of the ills which plague people of color are because of white America’s lasting economic oppression of them. It is impossible to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps if one doesn’t have a pair of boots. The perpetual exclusion of opportunity, the withholding of social safety nets, compounded by law enforcement’s continued harassment and persecution of people of color must stop now.
To that end, as of one of the sniveling white women in the room, I propose economic divestiture of any and all organizations that perpetuate the continued oppression of people of color, or profit from the enforced labor of those incarcerated. Politicians receiving contributions from private penal corporations such as CoreCivic and GeoGroup should be exposed. In 2019, Vanguard and BlackRock had both prison systems in their portfolios. All corporate investment (including the retirement portfolio of the policemen’s union) must be divested of any companies which participate or have participated in the sustained oppression of people of color.
If you are an ally, get ready to testify, but only when asked to do so by the emerging black leadership. For nearly half a millennium, white people have deluded themselves into thinking that racism is about being mean. It is not. Racism is a system which protects those with power (or wealth, or privilege, and yes, white people, go ahead, use the term white skin) at the expense of those who are not white. Being white, I have operated within the confines of a racist system. I am now humbled and privileged to say I am antiracist. As a member of an AntiRacism Commission [of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey], I have struggled with the ‘Anti’ part of the term- “It seems so negative! Who wants to be anti- this, anti-that?”
Well, I get it now. I do. I want to be antiracist. I hope if you’re reading this, particularly if you’re white, that you do, too.
