Nearly sixty years ago, I received a Golliwog for Christmas. It was a large cloth black-face doll that I had seen in a toy store window that December. I desperately had wanted the brightly coloured doll that was dressed in a red felt jacket, black and white striped pants and a matching bow-tie. The doll had a tangle of black wool hair that was sculpted into an exuberant Afro. I was six and this was a enticing toy like a new princess doll or a teddy bear.
Cultures and attitudes change. I now understand that my ignorance or lack of intent to denigrate racialized groups does not excuse my ownership of this toy. What was intended as an innocent doll is a crude and insulting caricature of a Black person. Over the last four decades, Golliwog imagery has been rightly relegated to history museums and cardboard boxes in basements.
It is important to realize that you can be an unintentional racist. Many of us are outraged when we are reminded by our children and peers that our comments or actions are racist. The frequent indignant retort is “I’m not racist. That’s not what I meant” and so on.
This leads me to Ibram X Kendi’s new book, How to be an Antiracist. The main premise of this book is that it is not enough to be un-racist. It is better to be an antiracist which requires more awareness and involvement.
Mr Kendi is a thirty-seven-year-old author and Black historian who teaches at American University. He won the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction for his book Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.
One of the compelling chapters in his latest book is his own recognition of his internalized racism toward Blacks. His indoctrination as a child by his family and culture to concepts that Black failure was personal and due to inherent traits such as laziness and criminality had framed his thinking. He thought that Black failures were due to personal shortcomings versus systemic subjugating policies. This is similar to the since retracted “Lean In” theory proposed to aspiring executive females explaining that their failings to succeed in the corporate world were personal, not systemic and could be overcome if only they would try harder.
Racism is a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities. Racists believe that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.
Racism is a result of both individual behaviours and systemic policies. Individual racism is behaviour based on internalized negative stereotypes and prejudices. Systemic racism is a result of policies designed to control, subjugate, assimilate or annihilate individuals based on racial difference. A racist sees difference as a deficiency where as an antiracist sees equality and a way to nurture difference among groups. A racist sees power and economic opportunity in exploiting difference. A racist blames people different from themselves for their own failures and hardships.
Mr Kendi offers several steps to examine and combat racism. Here are the steps for becoming an antiracist (slightly edited) from his book. (see pg. 226-7)
- Stop saying “I’m not racist.” Ask yourself, why are you being defensive?
- Examine and accept the definition of racist – someone who is supporting racist policies or expressing or acting on racist ideas
- Instead, look for and acknowledge the racist policies and ideas that you express.
- Examine the sources of your own racist ideas including negative stereotyping and prejudices – question your biases and look for systemic biases.
- Acknowledge the definition of an antiracist – someone who supports antiracist policies and expresses antiracist ideals.
- Stand up for antiracist power and policy in your spaces.
- Understand your racism needs to be intersectional. This means re-evaluating how you look at gender, religion, ethnicity, culture, sexuality, bodies, ages, economic class and others.
- Intervene when you are confronted by your own or others racist thoughts or actions.
Here in Canada, we are sometimes smug about the successes of our multicultural society. I think we can question this.
I ask you take a hard look at some of your thoughts about the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Have you read them? Have you taken up any of the calls-to-action? What are your attitudes towards immigrants and minority religions? What about in the province of Quebec, where two-thirds of the population support the secularism bill that bans religious symbols in the public sector?
What are your attitudes to other racialized or marginalized people – your neighbours, your oral surgeon, your new colleague at work or the staff at the nail bar?
Are you accepting of cultural differences and traditions? How do you feel when you are talking to a woman wearing a hijab or a man wearing a turban? Do you participate in perpetuating negative generalizations about Syrians or Asians or others? If you are White have you reflected on your privileges? If you are male and White is there even more to acknowledge? Do you believe that your racial or cultural group is superior? Do you secretly believe that a man, a White man in particular would be more competent in a particular leadership situation? Are you nostalgic for the era of the Commonwealth and colonialist values?
Being an antiracist is an ongoing process requiring individual and institutional intervention. It requires reflection and acknowledgment of outmoded and dangerous stereotypes and prejudices. It requires the courage to speak out and possibly offend someone who has not considered that their comment or action is racist. Denying the rights of one individual puts the rights of all individuals at risk. When you choose to be antiracist, you are preserving your own dignity and respect for yourself.
It is hard work not take an individual negative experience and generalize it to a group – from the singular “they do this” to the plural “they do this”. It is easy to be seduced into a generalization – These type of people, this group of people” always do this – Othering (think of Don Cherry here)
Perhaps having a nice cup of tea and a re-reading of Dr Seuss’ The Sneetches might be a good way to reflect on some of these ideas. Note how Dr Seuss also understood the link between racism and capitalism. Racism is an exploitive for profit way for thinking.
Addendum: I started this post a few days before Don Cherry was fired from Coaches Corner and triggered another National discussion on racism. This piece has not been reviewed by a racialized reader and I apologise in advance if I have got something wrong and invite you to comment below.