TRANSCRIPT: Allegories On Race And Racism – Camara Jones

And the scientist in me was getting very excited about this until I was like, oh, of course. There is no such thing as purple or pink or blue or green or yellow or orange moths. Moths are different colors, yes, but they’re different colors of brown and tan and speckled and splotched.

But the colors that I thought I was seeing and the colors that we think we see every day are actually due to the lights by which we look. These colored lights distort and mask our own true variability, which can only be seen under a universal light that allows all possibility.

So when I remembered this image, I started thinking, what is race? And how do the racial categories that we construct color our imaginations of who we are? And in my mind, race is clearly a social classification, not a biological descriptor. It is the social interpretation of how one looks in a race-conscious society.

So here in Atlanta in the United States, by the colored lights that we look at, I’m clearly black. But in some parts of Brazil with different colored lights, I’m clearly colored. Clearly white, actually. And in South Africa, I’m clearly colored. And so we need to challenge ourselves to understand the impact of these different colored racial categories that we construct and how it’s limiting our understanding of our own true variability.

Dual Reality – A Restaurant Saga

The second story, dual reality, a restaurant saga, this was also from my time back as a medical student in California. And I had been studying with some friends. It was getting late. We’d miss dinner. And so we went into town to get something to eat. And we walk into a restaurant and we sit down, we order our food, our food is served, and here we are eating.

And that’s not remarkable. Many of you have had that experience. And I wouldn’t have thought anything more about it or be talking about it today except that I looked up and I noticed a sign. And that sign was a profound, provided me a profound insight about racism.

So what did the sign say? The sign said, open.

Now, you know, I could have thought nothing more about that, right? I was sitting at the table of opportunity eating with a sign that proclaimed open to me. But because I knew something about the two-sided nature of those signs, I realized that in fact people who were hungry but just a few feet away from me on the other side of the sign would not be able to come in because in fact now the restaurant was closed due to the hour.

And I realized that racism and other systems of inequity structure open-closed signs in our society. And it’s important for us to know something about the two-sided nature of these signs. It’s important for us to understand how these signs, how racism and all of the other isms, create a dual reality where on one side, people who are in the side, for any of us, it’s difficult for us to recognize any system of inequity that is privileging us.

So, for example, it’s difficult for men to recognize male privilege and sexism. It’s difficult for white people in this country to recognize white privilege and racism. It’s difficult for all Americans to recognize our American privilege in the world context.

Yet, for those on the other side of the sign, they are very well aware of the two-sided nature of the sign because they are, it’s proclaiming close to them and yet they can see through the window and see that people are eating on the other side.

So back inside the restaurant, I understand that people might ask, does racism really exist? Is there really a two-sided sign? Because in fact, it’s hard to know when all you ever see is open. It’s a privilege, in fact, not to have to know about the two-sided nature of the sign. But once you do know, you can act. You don’t have to act, but you can choose to act and the knowledge about racism and its continued existence and profound impact on the health and well-being of the nation is actually empowering.

The third of my — oh, let me just before I get off of that, now provide you with a definition of racism that evolves out of this understanding. And I’m really clear that racism is a system. It’s not an individual character flaw or a personal moral failing or even a psychiatric illness, as some people have suggested. But it’s a system of power and a system of doing what?

It’s a system of structuring opportunities and of assigning value. And on what basis is that opportunity structured? And on what basis is that value assigned? It’s based on the social interpretation of how we look, which is what we call race.

And what are the impacts of this system of power? Well, it unfairly disadvantages some individuals and communities, but it doesn’t take very long to recognize that every unfair disadvantage has its reciprocal unfair advantage, so that it’s also unfairly advantaging other individuals and communities.

And then even as it’s unfairly disadvantaging or advantaging individuals and communities, this system is sapping the strength of the whole society through the waste of human resources.

Levels of Racism – A Gardener’s Tale

My third story, Levels of Racism, a gardener’s tale, comes from my experience when my husband and I, newlywed, bought our first freestanding house with a big wraparound porch with flower boxes all along the porch. Now, when we went to plant our marigold seeds, we saw some of the boxes had dirt in them and some of the boxes were empty.

So my husband dutifully goes to the gardening store, and he’s hauling big old bags of potting soil, and we fill up the empty boxes, and we put equal numbers of seeds in all of the boxes, and we water all of the boxes. And I’m not the gardener, so I sit back, just going to enjoy.

And three weeks later, I walk out of my front door, and I stopped in my tracks, because it looked to me like we had planted completely different species in some of the boxes versus others. In some of the boxes, they were full of plants, tall and vigorous-looking plants, and other boxes just had a few plants in them, and they were scrawny and scraggly.

And then I realized what had happened. That potting soil was rich, fertile soil, so that in the potting soil, every single seed had sprouted, with the strong seed growing very tall and vigorous, but even the weak seed making it to a middling height.

But in that old soil, that poor rocky soil that we had found there, the weak seed had died, and even the strong seed had to struggle to make it halfway up. And if you guys garden, well, maybe you’ve composted half of your garden, and you’ve seen the same thing. This image is about the importance of the soil, the importance of the environment.

And I’m going to make it a story about racism. But before I do that, I want to talk to you just a little bit more about racism, because in this story, I’m going to illustrate three different levels of racism: institutionalized, personally mediated, and internalized. And so, you know, sometimes I have an hour to talk about these things. I don’t today, but I’m just going to quickly define each of them, make some important points, and then share the story.

Institutionalized Racism

Institutionalized racism, what is it? It is that system that results in differential access to the good services and opportunities of society by race. This is the kind of racism that doesn’t require an identifiable perpetrator. This is the kind of racism that’s been institutionalized in our laws and our norms, and actually often shows up as inherited disadvantage.

These are some examples of how it can impact you. Sometimes people look at my top bullet of housing, education, employment, and wealth, and they ask, isn’t that social class? Why do you have this on a slide about racism? To which I respond, it doesn’t just so happen that people of color in this country are over-represented in poverty, while white people in this country are over-represented in wealth. That’s not just a happenstance.

But for each marginalized or presstigmatized group, there’s been some initial historical injustice. So for American Indians, for example, it was the taking of the land and the genocide, and then the moving of the survivors to the reservation. For people of African descent, it was the kidnapping of West African people, and then our importation across the Atlantic with tremendous loss of life in the Middle Passage.

And then, for the survivors, what I describe as the coerced usury of our unpaid labor for centuries to build this country. But then people stop me there and they say, well, you know what, Dr. Jones, you’re talking about slavery. But the enslaved people were emancipated by 1865, and that’s fully 149 years ago now. So all else being equal, don’t you think the impact of slavery would have washed out by now?

But the key phrase there is all else being equal. And all else has not been equal since 1865, and all else still is not equal today. And there are still what I describe as contemporary, present-day structural factors that are perpetuating the initial historical insult. And so when people ask me, am I talking about racism or social class? I say that institutionalized racism explains why we even see an association between social class and race in this country.

Before I get off of this, I need to also say that institutionalized racism can be through acts of doing, as well as acts of not doing, and often shows up as inaction in the face of need.

Personally Mediated Racism

The second level of racism, personally mediated racism, I define as differential assumptions about the abilities, motives, and intents of others by race, and then differential actions based on those assumptions. So here now we’re talking about what most people think of when they hear the word racism, somebody did something to somebody. It includes the prejudice and the discrimination, lots of ways that it can impact your health and your whole well-being.

And like institutionalized racism, it can be through acts of doing, as well as acts of not doing. But even more important, it can be unintentional, as well as intentional. You don’t have to intend it to have a racist impact, to do something racist to have a racist impact.

Internalized Racism

Third level of racism, internalized racism, I define as acceptance by members of the stigmatized races of negative messages about our own abilities and intrinsic worth. Lots of ways that it can affect us, and it’s really about accepting the limitations to our own full humanity of the box into which we’ve been placed.

So now, with this background about what I describe as these three levels of racism, let’s go back to the story. So here I have now two flower boxes. But what we’re going to introduce is a gardener. A gardener who has two flower boxes, one which she knows to have rich, fertile soil, and one which she knows to have poor rocky soil. And she has seed for the same kind of flowers, except some of the flowers are going to produce pink blossoms, and some of the flowers are going to produce red blossoms.

And this gardener prefers red over pink. So what does she do? She takes the red seed and she puts it in the rich, fertile soil, and she takes the pink seed and she throws it in the poor, rocky soil. And three weeks later, she sees in her garden what I saw in mine. In that rich, fertile soil, all of the seed is sprouted. The strong seed is growing very tall and vigorous, but even the weak, red seed has made it to a middling height.

And the poor, rocky soil, the weak, pink seed has died. And here comes the strong, pink seed, just trying to make it halfway up. And then those flowers go to seed. And the next year, the same thing happens. And then those flowers go to seed. And then year after year after year after year, the same thing happens, until finally, ten years later, the gardener is looking at her flower boxes and she says, you know, I was right to prefer red over pink.

So we’re going to pick, interrupt the story there for a minute to say that this first part of the story tells us something about institutionalized racism, where you have the initial historical insult of the separation of the seed into the two types of soil. You have the contemporary structural factors of the flower boxes keeping the soil separate, and then through inaction in the face of need, perpetuation of the inequity.

But, okay, well, let’s pick the story back up. Where is personally mediated racism in the garden? Well, now the gardener is looking at red, thinking that red is mighty beautiful. She looks over the pink flowers and she says, oh, they sure are scrawny and scraggly. So she plucks off the pink blossoms before they can even go to seed.

Or maybe she sees that a pink seed has blown into the rich, fertile soil and she plucks it out before it can establish itself, which is some of the anti-affirmative action stuff that still goes on.

And where is internalized racism in the garden? Well, the red flowers are just living their lives, enjoying being red. Many of them not even understanding that they’re benefiting from enriched soil. The pink flowers are looking over at red, thinking, wishing with all their hearts that they too could be red.

And here come the bees, minding their own business, collecting nectar, but of course pollinating at the same time. So here comes a bee, and then up to another pink flower, and then it comes toward this other pink flower, and that pink flower says, get away from me, bee. Do not bring me any of that pink pollen. I prefer the red, because the pink flower has internalized that red is better than pink.

So now the question arises, what do we do to set things right in the garden? Well, let’s start with addressing the internalized racism. So we can go over to the pink flowers and we can say, pink is beautiful, power to the pink, right? And that’s an important intervention. That’s an important intervention.

But as you can see, even if you do that, that’s not going to change the situation in which they find themselves. Or maybe you say, okay, let’s deal with the personally mediated racism. So let’s have a conversation with the gardener, or better yet, let’s have a workplace multicultural workshop for the gardener. It’s all good.

So we have our workshop, and in the workshop we say, dear gardener, would you please stop plucking those pink flowers? And maybe she will and maybe she won’t, right? But even if she does, it still won’t change the situation in which they find themselves. I think that if we really want to set things right in the garden, we need to address the institutionalized racism, which means we have to either break down the boxes and mix up the soil, or if we want to keep separate boxes, too, that’s all right, too.

But if we do, it means that we need to enrich that poor rocky soil until it’s as rich as the rich fertile soil. And when we do that, the pink flowers will flourish. They’ll be looking beautiful, grand, and glorious as the red. And in that intervention, we might also address the internalized racism. Pink will no longer be looking over at red, thinking red is better, or wanting to be red.

And in that intervention on the institutionalized racism, we also might address the personally mediated. Now, the original gardener may have to go to her grave preferring red over pink, but her children, who grow up and see the flowers equally beautiful, will be less likely to have that kind of attitude.

So in this story, I’ve actually illustrated these three levels of racism: institutionalized, personally mediated, and internalized, and very strongly suggested that if we want to set things right, we have to address the institutionalized racism. Good if we address all the levels at the same time.

But the most important question is one that I haven’t raised yet, and that is who is the gardener, right? Because the gardener is the one that I gave the power to decide, the power to act, and control of resources, which in my mind are the elements of self-determination.

Well, who is the gardener? The gardener clearly includes government, as well as media, as well as foundations, and corporations, and even communities to the extent that they have self-determination. But whoever the gardener is, it is dangerous when the gardener is allied with one group. I painted her red. That’s why she prefers red over pink, right?

And it’s also dangerous when she’s not concerned with equity, when she can look at her flower boxes and think that her garden is beautiful, because she’s not even really keeping the pink flowers as part of her garden. And our challenge is what to do about the gardener. Do we make the gardener striped, or polka-dotted, or fuchsia? Lots of different questions that can come out of this story.

But I’m going to close in this last minute with one last image. And this image is not from my own real experience, but Ashley, this is an image taken from the book by Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race. And in that image, she presents racism as a conveyor belt on which people are just living their ordinary lives, not really understanding that they’re moving to and through racism, but just living their ordinary lives and contributing to racism by their benign inaction.

So I’m going to build on this story, get back on the conveyor belt over here, to help us know how can we act. So here we are on this crowded conveyor belt, and we’re just living our lives, most of us not even paying attention or even wondering where we’re going. But say one of us looks up and we see racism. Well, one reaction is to close your eyes. That’s denial, right?

Or another reaction is to turn around. You’re still going in the same direction. Maybe you’re colorblind. But if we do not, and you know what that shows you? That shows you that racism is most often passive, most often shows up as inaction in the face of need. But if we’re on this conveyor belt and we don’t want to go there, then what we have to do is start walking backwards, right?

And we need to walk at least as fast as we’re going not to go that way. But now we have to start walking faster if we don’t want to, if we really want to get away from that. And what happens when you start walking backwards on a crowded conveyor belt? You bump into people and they say, hey, buddy, watch out. Where are you going? And this is your opportunity to do the first of three steps in terms of being actively anti-racist. And that is to name racism.

You say, look, do you see where we’re going? Do you want to go there? And most people will say, just stop bothering me. But maybe one or two will turn around with you. So now you’re two or three walking backwards on this conveyor belt. And now where are you headed? You’re not just going away from racism, but now you’re actually going to understand the conveyor belt motor.

And now you’re going to do the second of the three stages of anti-racism, which is to ask, how is racism operating here? And so maybe one of you thinks it’s a lover and you pick the lover up and the belt jolts because the lover is part of it. But it’s a very smart conveyor belt. So whoop, it reconfigures itself and keeps going.

So now you have to do the third thing to be actively anti-racist, which is to organize and strategize to act with others who are on the other side trying this dial or trying this button. And I believe that we together can dismantle the system and put in its place a system in which all of us can know our full potential and have the opportunity to develop to our full potential.

So I have shared with you four allegories. Japanese lanterns talks about race as a social construct. Dual reality illustrates racism as a system that creates a two-sided sign, a dual reality. Levels of racism illustrates three levels of racism and highlights the fact that if we want to set things right, we have to at least address the institutionalized racism.

And life on a conveyor belt motivates us to act. I hope that you’ve understood these stories. I hope that you’ll find them useful tools and I hope that you carry them out into the world.

Thank you very much.

For Further Reading:

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Discussing Race by Jay Smooth (Transcript)

The Lies Our Culture Tells Us About What Matters – And A Better Way To Live: David Brooks (Transcript)

Julien S. Bourrelle: How Culture Drives Behaviours at TEDxTrondheim (Transcript)

What We Can Do About the Culture of Hate: Sally Kohn at TED (Full Transcript)

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