- Mar 11, 2015
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"It’s a widely known fact that if you bring up racism enough in public a white person will materialize to tell you that race simply isn’t a major factor in our lives in 2016.
Sure, racism was real way back when, but not now, they’ll say. Nobody alive today owned slaves, they’ll say. I never see racism, they’ll say. We have a Black president, they’ll say. Back up your claim and prove racism exists, they’ll say.
You’ll present a rational argument. You’ll give them studies, persuasively written articles, and suggest books for them to read. You’ll share your personal experiences and the experiences of those you know navigating our white supremacist landscape.
They’ll argue the data aren’t sound. The writers of the articles too biased. They’ll never read the books. And they’ll dismiss the experiences as anecdotal and not representative of broader society—and don’t you dare call it a white supremacist society. That really makes white people flip their shit.
I’ve had this conversation with my white counterparts way too many times, but somehow I only recently realized how backwards it is. There’s no need to prove a foundational component of our national composition continues to shape its present state. The burden of proof is on those who claim this historical reality has been interrupted. The fact that racism exists in the United States is uncontroversial from a historical viewpoint. Ours is a nation founded on genocide, land-theft, and chattel slavery. There’s no debate over this. There’s also no debate over the existence of institutional racism throughout Old Jim Crow in the century that followed emancipation. (Nor is there any honest debate regarding the existence of institutional racism now, e.g. New Jim Crow, but let’s put that aside for now.) "
The rest: Next Time Someone Asks You To Prove Racism Exists, Give Them This | HuffPost
Sure, racism was real way back when, but not now, they’ll say. Nobody alive today owned slaves, they’ll say. I never see racism, they’ll say. We have a Black president, they’ll say. Back up your claim and prove racism exists, they’ll say.
You’ll present a rational argument. You’ll give them studies, persuasively written articles, and suggest books for them to read. You’ll share your personal experiences and the experiences of those you know navigating our white supremacist landscape.
They’ll argue the data aren’t sound. The writers of the articles too biased. They’ll never read the books. And they’ll dismiss the experiences as anecdotal and not representative of broader society—and don’t you dare call it a white supremacist society. That really makes white people flip their shit.
I’ve had this conversation with my white counterparts way too many times, but somehow I only recently realized how backwards it is. There’s no need to prove a foundational component of our national composition continues to shape its present state. The burden of proof is on those who claim this historical reality has been interrupted. The fact that racism exists in the United States is uncontroversial from a historical viewpoint. Ours is a nation founded on genocide, land-theft, and chattel slavery. There’s no debate over this. There’s also no debate over the existence of institutional racism throughout Old Jim Crow in the century that followed emancipation. (Nor is there any honest debate regarding the existence of institutional racism now, e.g. New Jim Crow, but let’s put that aside for now.) "
The rest: Next Time Someone Asks You To Prove Racism Exists, Give Them This | HuffPost