Protesters take part in the original March on Washington fifty years ago. Credit: Creative Commons/mikek7890.
As the events unfolded on the National Mall this past week commemorating 50 years since the March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, I have been thinking about the anniversary, trying to place it into the context of the unfinished work against racism in the U.S., which I know well from my work with the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI). The NCBI is a nonprofit leadership-training organization that builds resource teams in public schools, college campuses, governmental agencies, advocacy organizations, businesses, law enforcement agencies, and community groups to take on racism and all forms of discrimination.
I remember the heartbreak of Black/African heritage leaders in my organization in learning that in the same week that the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), it also voided parts of the Voting Rights Act, a crowning achievement of the Civil Rights Movement. As moving as it was to witness a huge victory for Gay Liberation, the Supreme Court’s rulings said to all of us, but especially to Black people, that federal protections for gay marriage – an unimaginable prospect just a few years ago – would move forward while the basic right to vote for many African Americans did not warrant similar protection. How can African Americans in the U.S. not wonder whether progress to end racism trails behind other liberation work?
Over the summer I was researching prospective funders for some of the anti-racism projects of the NCBI. I was able to find numerous foundations that would fund environmental work, anti-bullying work, and LGBTQ work.But I was startled to discover that when I searched a well-known national database of foundations, using the term “racism,” only one came up, the Kellogg Foundation, with which the NCBI has worked in the past.
Anti-racism work is essential to anti-bullying initiatives, to environmental justice, to building unity within the LGBTQ liberation movement, but why do funders fail to make the connection? My research confirmed what I already knew: you cannot mention “racism” to many of the leading American foundations. Funding anti-racism work is simply not a priority. The description of one foundation’s mission directly matched the work on emotional healing in dealing with racism that NCBI does, yet when I spoke to a program officer at the foundation, she bluntly told me, “I’d like to take your proposal to our Board but they won’t fund anything that directly talks about racism.”
Similarly, many of the clients with which we at NCBI work nervously ask us before training sessions, “Now this is about more than just race, right?” At NCBI we believe that training participants on how to be allies for all groups is a key part of combating discrimination.Yet, we have learned that schools, campuses, and other organizations are more willing to sponsor programs that deal with “diversity” or “inclusion” than programs that focus primarily on racism.
Since the founding of NCBI in 1984, the stories I hear at our workshops from Black/African Heritage participants about daily experiences with racism are not decreasing. For example, a dark-skinned Black/African heritage woman confided to me that a White woman seated next to her on a plane sniffed her and said, “You don’t smell bad. They say you people smell bad.” She said that on another flight, another White woman felt free enough to jab her in the ribs to get her attention. She recounted that just last month a salesperson in a clothing store refused to put change directly into her hands. I have listened to hundreds of similar stories about the vicious daily indignities of racism, and at the same time, I have witnessed the refusal of many large institutions in the U.S. to address racism by taking it on directly.
There is a growing disconnect between the work that still needs to be done on racism and the willingness to do the work. Last week, Ms. Kathleen Parker, in a column that appeared in The Washington Post on August 27, 2013, “President’s Remarks Fan Flames of Race-Based Animosity,” mocked President Obama by writing, “If I had a son he would look like Christopher Lane, the 22-year-old Australian baseball player shot dead while jogging in Oklahoma.” She then went on to criticize the President for acknowledging that if he had a son he would have looked like Trayvon Martin.
According to Ms. Parker, the President’s remark “gave permission for all to identify themselves by race with the victim or the accused.” She wrote, “How sad this is as we just passed the 50th anniversary of the March Martin Luther King led on Washington that even the president resorts to judging not by the content of one’s character but by the color of his skin – the antithesis of the great dream King articulated with those words.” Her twisted analysis missed not only the experiences of so many Black/African Heritage people in the U.S. who have been systematically targeted by the criminal justice system, but it also dismisses the experience of the first Black/African Heritage U.S. president, chiding him for even mentioning race.
It is the mark of a dysfunctional family to insist on secrecy, hide truths, not be willing to discuss problems openly. When it comes to race, particularly targeting people of Black/African Heritage, the U.S. is a dysfunctional family. We know racism persists, but we can’t, we won’t, we dare not speak about it openly, fund organizations to tackle it, or allow our Black/African Heritage president to refer to it. Fifty years after the March on Washington, we still have a lot of work to do.
Cherie R. Brown is the founder and executive director of the National Coalition Building Institute. She is also an adjunct faculty at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.
Too bad “shorty” Belton won’t be around for this.
Why on earth is there no mention here of the overt racism paraded proudly on a regular basis by Blacks towards Whites?
What we call Racism is, to my mind, just part of a much more basic human dysfunction, which is the tendency to fear that which is different, and then let fear direct our thinking. Racism to me is a fear of what is perceived as “other,” coupled with the belief that the obvious differences among people equate to something substantive, qualitative and hierarchical. By this definition you could be a member of a minority community but still be a racist.
Sadly, racism will persist as long as human beings are mostly governed by a tribal, us/them, fear-based mentality. The move away from racism will not happen overnight, obviously. We will make progress, and suffer regress, but I believe Martin Luther King was right when he said that though the arc of the moral is long, it bends towards justice. I think on a deeper, more psycho-spiritual level, what that means is that the process of cultural evolution is slowly seeking to achieve unity. It is slowly widening the circle of what we consider “us,” to include more people, more races, more religions, more lifestyles, more sexual preferences; in short to include ALL of life, not just me and my family (tribe, race, nation, etc.) The real question to me is, what is the most effective way to help this process. Unfortunately this is an aspect of the human psyche which is not easily amenable to political and legal approaches. It will not be expunged just because we create laws against it. Like a child growing through stages of cognitive development, we cannot skip stages and we cannot rush the process. I am open to suggestions.
Peace, Lee
Dear ms. Cherie Brown,
what do you suggest to be done? This has been on my mind for quite a while too. I would very much like to be part of a group or coordinated effort-if possible-also with other Jews. I am a former civil right worker in Mississippi and part of the sit-ins on Auto Row. CORE, SNCC.
I’ve thought of writing to John Lewis -years ago-actually, as this stuff has been in the works-as you know, but i don’t think even my going South now would be effective.
Hope to hear from you!
Maam, You going SOUTH isn’t going to do any good, the problem is people like you and YOUR president why don’t you try going to Detroit, or Chicago, try telling your beloved street thugs you appreciate how much they HATE WHITES ! Then sympathize with them when some of their “Bros” are killed by others who belong to another black gang, you can BOTH blame it on whitey “in the SOUTH” . BY your own references you are part of the problem! If you want to know why “racism is still rampant in the black community? People like you encouraging blacks to kill real children like Antonio West, Or Joshua Chellew, or another of the 200 whites murdered by black “Children” the total is over 500 assaults so far, COMPLETELY ignored by the ?? controlled media! I imagine you carrying a sign saying “Justice for Trevon Martin” while you know full well he got justice for attempting to kill the watchman.
The book “The New Jim Crow” shows how racism has been institutionalized in our policing policies for the “war on drugs”. The predominance of black young men in prison because of drugs is the result of policing in black communities, rather than white, where drugs are probably even more prominent. I had thought I was up-to-date on racism as it manifests itself, so I was astonished by the analysis of this issue. We need to continue work on eradicating racism, rather than hiding it.
The predominance of blacks in prison is because of the predilection of blacks to engage in violence! Not just here, look at all other countries they have immigrated to, and in the countries they have been given! The hated whites have been moved out or murdered, the country then reverts to traditional tribal murdering, and the benefits of civilization fall apart! Electricty, telephones,Hospitals, railroads, highways airports, none maintained after whitey was murdered! Did you EVER THINK YOU MIGHT BE WRONG? Wild uncivilized AFRICA was backward because of it’s own people! A fake “black history” doesn’t change the facts!
Chuck, there’s no way to nicely say what you’re full of, so I won’t try beyond what I just said. If you didn’t have your head so firmly jammed up your butt you might be able to see something beyond the immediate symptoms. So when I said above that “What we call Racism is . . . just part of a much more basic human dysfunction, which is the tendency to fear that which is different, and then let fear direct our thinking . . .” you came along to provide the perfect example. You’re a racist Chuck, thanks for reminding us all of how much work there is to be done.
Beatrice, please write to John Lewis. What have you got to lose? It could be a win-win for all of us.
Racism is prejudice, and personal, but also systemic It is political, societal, psychological, etc. and we all need to still work at it. Education and reparation are needed for years of systemic racism.