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Why Race Still Matters
It has been nearly a week since
Barack Obama gave his speech about race in
America, and I can already feel the nation's
focus on race starting to slip away. Many have
interpreted the speech through the lens of
campaign tactics: "Was Obama successful in
getting Reverend Jeremiah Wright and his
incendiary comments off the front page?" And
yet, in our hopes to embrace a post-racial
politics, we may miss the very discussion on
race that remains essential to our society and
politics.
Let me start by saying that I
do not believe a so-called "national
conversation" on race is the way to go, if that
means a repeat of former President Clinton's
effort on this matter. Remember the national
commission he appointed, which soon became
embroiled in endless issues about its focus?
That initiative had all the negative trappings
of a high-falutin' blue-ribbon panel: formal
hearings with far more posturing than
conversation. After a much ballyhooed launch,
the commission landed with a thud.
Nor
am I ready to believe that any "new and
improved" national conversation will be enough
to really move the nation forward. My fear is
that any such effort will be too far removed
from the realities of people's daily lives.
Instead I worry it will become entangled with
program staff, organizational charts, endless
strategy sessions, with little real engagement
taking place between and among citizens.
Indeed, such efforts can miss the larger point:
our engagement must start where we live, in our
communities, with people we can see and hear
and feel, where we can hold each other
accountable for what we say and do. Otherwise,
the discussion can become an abstract endeavor,
with success gauged by the number of
participating cities, the number of people in
attendance at public forums or who participate
in online discussions, the number of press
clippings garnered, instead of something rooted
in people's real experiences and emotions.
Relevance and meaning can too easily become the
victim of good intentions.
Just last
week I was reminded again of the true nature of
the engagement we need on race in America, when
I led our Public Innovators Lab in Baltimore,
where more than 40 public innovators from
community groups, national foundations, public
broadcasting stations (radio and TV), school
systems and city government were present. In
one of the small groups, the discussion turned
to race. (Indeed, wherever I go, I find that
the conversation often turns to race; it is a
topic that begs to be discussed among people
throughout our society.)
I have found
that there are a number of keys to moving the
"race discussion" forward. In suggesting them,
I do not pretend to hold "the answer" to this
dilemma, but I do believe progress is possible,
and here are just a handful of insights that I
believe warrant our
attention:
1.
We must know that the topic of race itself
brings to the fore different questions for
different groups in society. For instance, most
whites I have encountered want to talk about
"race relations," where the basic thrust is,
"Can't we all get along better?"; while many
blacks want to focus on "racism," seeking to
address fundamental, underlying questions of
past transgressions and prejudice in society.
These are two different conversations, which we
will need to air out and ultimately bridge if
any progress is to be made. But let's be clear:
the latter conversation is much more difficult
to hold, and will require both courage and
humility on everyone's part to step forward and
listen, and to engage with others on matters
that will test our resolve and ability to stay
at the table.
2.
After some discussion, many whites often say
something like, "Can't we move on now?" Indeed,
in yesterday's Washington Post, a man,
sympathetic to Obama's speech, was quoted in a
follow-up article to the speech saying, "We
need to get over it." Meanwhile, many blacks
want to work through issues from present and
past, not simply mention them, talk for a bit,
and then move on. Time is of the essence here:
in our desire to embrace a post-racial
politics, we must not seek to move on too
quickly, and risk undermining the very goals of
engagement we purport to hold dear. Indeed, we
must not seek to smooth over real differences,
or even merely come to "respect" them, but to
understand and live with them, even embrace
them.
3.
Not everyone is ready for this conversation. A
national conversation that seeks to engage
everyone, everywhere is a fantasy that will
only leave us disappointed and defeated. We
must find people who are ready to engage and
who know that it will be difficult at times,
but who nonetheless are prepared to step
forward. I believe that it is important to find
both whites and blacks who want to engage
together, and who are willing to stay at the
table and not retreat in fear when their
conversations hit rough spots, which they
inevitably will.
4.
It is important to actually do something
together (the size and scope of the action does
not matter as much as the action itself),
because conversation alone cannot create the
bonds of trust and relationships that we need.
Deeper connections will emerge only by rubbing
shoulders and finding solutions together to
common challenges, demonstrating to ourselves
and others that progress is possible.
5.
We must be open to engaging in a space riddled
by ambiguity, which this conversation surely
is. Real differences exist; but so too do
common aspirations and hopes. We must be
willing to engage in discovering both, which
will require genuine give and take, even a fair
number of false starts in our attempts to move
ahead. In situations like these, we must guard
against settling for naive pronouncements about
"Can't we all just get along," and understand
the very ideals upon which this nation was
founded, such as "All men are created equal"
and "Freedom for all," and find ways to make
them real
today.
6.
We must reconcile ourselves to the fact that
our engagement on race will require us not
simply to be uncomfortable, but that real pain
exists. We cannot simply gloss over such pain,
or appropriate it by trying to "identify" with
one another or to "hold" one another's pain;
instead, we must seek to genuinely hear one
another and to understand to the best of our
abilities the pain that does exist. Let us know
that this will not be easy.
Now, I know
that some people will write back to me because
I have framed my thoughts in black/white terms,
and that I have not taken into account gender
or various ethnicities here. Please know that I
recognize this shortcoming and that I welcome
such comments.
Still, my point here is
not to offer a solution for all ills in
society, but rather to make this central point:
we need a discussion on race in America, and
let us not fall prey to ginning up some
national conversation machine that becomes
nothing more than empty talk. Rather, let us
focus our efforts on a genuine, deep engagement
where we live, where we can see and hear and
feel one another, where it is possible to stay
at the table together over time, and where we
can make a real difference.