Cecilia:
Look up the word racist and tell me the definition. Hmm. . . I mean, let’s start with that. What is the definition of a racist?
Brian:
It's a prejudice, discrimination or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on their belief that one's own race is superior.
Cecilia:
Okay.
Brian:
It happens when you're born, almost. Frank is an educator and he has been talking to me about how early babies develop and learn from their parents before they even know how to speak.
Cecilia:
You're correct in that statement in that we all have a sense or a set of values that come from our parents and them from their parents. Now, if you just follow that statement all the way back 400 years you get to how this all began and how it's being perpetuated still today.
Brian:
In this case, what we're talking about is slavery and the impact slavery had on racism against blacks.
Over time there has been some change with the civil rights elimination of Jim Crow laws. However, these changes only treat the symptoms, we need to figure out how to assure that the baby being born tomorrow is taught to love people and not judge them based on their race.
I don't know, I wonder if it's a white problem. Would you say it’s a white problem?
Cecilia:
I don't know about that. Are you saying that in order to fix it, it is more of a white issue than black?
Brian:
I assume that it needs to be called out, as a white problem, to highlight its origin and to be held accountable for helping solve this.
Cecilia:
I believe that awareness is already out there. I mean, how can one not, how can anybody that looks at history not see slavery is where the problem stemmed from? I oftentimes think to myself how I could never have been a slave.
I don't know how black people did it. I just cannot imagine the cruelty of being treated like property along with being physically and mentally beaten to a point of submission. When one is treated like nothing for long enough one can either begin to believe it or develop a strong sense of determination to fight against it. This perpetuated more as slaves did escape and slaves did become free and were trying to begin and make lives for themselves.
There was a black class system that came out of slavery as well. Slaves that worked in the plantation house had more privileges than those that worked in the field. Mulatto children being born through rape were treated a little bit better. Thus, this disparity among the slaves worked to sometimes cause prejudices among themselves. The whiter, the lighter you were the better off you could potentially be. Mulattos were able to sometimes even blend in and go to school, get degrees, and that sort of thing, whereas as a slave, you weren't even allowed to be educated.
So just think about that for a minute. A basic inalienable right like education is denied.
Slaves were having kids, bringing children into the world in which the only way they were able to teach and learn how to read was when they secretly snuck away on their own with the Bible as the only source for reading.
Brian:
In the beginning, it wasn't even the slaves' Bible, the slave owners imposed their religion.
Cecilia:
Still, think about somebody being sold.
Being literally separated from your family and being sold based on what you look like, how strong you appear to be. Mentally that does something to a person.
So, as the slaves had children and their children had children, what were they being taught? They taught their children how to be better slaves. How not to get in trouble with the master. From the beginning of this era, slaves were tortured to understand their place.
Because of this, there has always been this deep-rooted desire to protest, to fight back.
Always remember, slaves were taken from their homeland against their will.
Brian:
Do you see it as the root or the veins of the problem still today?
Cecilia:
Well, think about it . . . just like black people have ancestry that dates to slavery, the same is true for white people where similar beliefs of the slave owners had been instilled.
White people really believed that they were right. There are pockets in the country and the world, even yet today, where white people do not come into contact with any black or brown people.
I am one that does not like to put the blame for the past solely on today's generation. We are each just as innocent as the other. We didn't start it; our ancestors did. It is our obligation, however, to recognize what has become systemic injustice and work together to enact reform.
Brian:
It's one thing if you say we didn't do it and yet another to think that we cured the problem. Let's take polio, for example, the country rises above and with a vaccine basically eradicates polio. I think in this case, as a country, we fought the Civil War, won and thought now we are done; but the truth is, not at all.
Cecilia:
Polio is something tangible. You can see it when you have it. Likewise, you can see when it's eradicated right? You have something tangible. Whereas for racism, if I walk into a room full of white people, I wouldn't initially know you were racist from anybody else, would I?
There are lots of people who are very good at not showing who they are.
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