Who Am I?

I talk about racism a lot.  That is basically how I spend my free time lately; thinking and talking about race and racism.  I attribute this new trend to the overabundance of racism we’ve experienced since moving to Georgia from New York City 3 years ago.  This new negative exposure has made me both hypersensitive and aware like never before.  But I like talking about it.  It raises my passion and it’s clearly necessary.  We do not talk about the subject honestly or nearly enough as far as I’m concerned. 

That said, let me be upfront, regardless of your own background, if you are framing your approach to the conversation of race and racism based on what you think you see in me, before you attempt to get to know me, you are going to be wrong.  I’m not not that guy.  If we could only agree on that one point before we begin I think we would be framing the conversation in the right way from jump.  Let’s agree that we don’t know each other.  And let’s us not be like those street corner MCs who try to act like they’re spitting freestyle when you know they wrote that shit at home last month.

If we can agree to make our conversation about race and racism about us getting to know each other than we might be able diffuse what I think are the two wrong ways to go about talking about race, which unsurprisingly happen to be the two most common ways to talk about race.  The first is making the conversation be confrontational.  If someone has got to “win”, or if I’ve got to feel like we might be throwing joints before its all over, we aren’t going to learn anything and someone is going to get their feelings hurt.   The second is stereotyping and we all do it when talking about race.  Its so easy to regurgitate all those things we’ve learned about someone we aren’t talking to at the moment if we can paint the person we are talking to with the broadest brush and then turn it on ourselves, its safe.  But we’ve heard it all before and its boring and won’t accomplish anything.  Talk to me about something I might not have already heard, something that will make me think, feel uncomfortable or happy.  But talk.

Comments

[michele a]

Let's talk about race, ethnicity, diversity, but it will be difficult- the heaviness of it all. To be honest, reflective, introspective, courageous, fearless is never easy, but so worth it. The conversation has to be had. Looking forward to what comes out of this.