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EPISODE 049 | Systemic Racism: Making Sense of Civil Unrest as an Ally and Taking Action

Brandi Fleck

Dear Listeners,

This episode is directed at other American white people because, as a white woman, I have no right to tell Black humans what racism is and how to react to it. But, white allies talking to other white people to help educate and take action is one way I can make change for the better from inside the societal systems. So, if you are a Black person in the On Being Human community, this is for you even if not to you. If you are another race that isn’t Black or white, this is for you too.

We see you. We hear you. We love you.

And, if you’re listening from a country like Ireland, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Finland, Brazil, and so many other places from around the world, thank you.

Love,

Brandi

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EPISODE 049: Systemic Racism - Making Sense of Civil Unrest as an Ally and Taking Action Host: Brandi Fleck

Note: In this episode, I incorrectly state the year of Trayvon Martin’s death as 2020. He died in 2012.

Take Action to Stop Racism

75 Actions White People Can Take to Start Helping, article on Medium.com

Links to Anti-Racism Resources

Additional Reading

COVID-19 Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities by the CDC

Donate to Credible Black Organizations

Related

Transcript

We are pausing our regularly scheduled programming to #SayTheirNames:

Trayvon Martin. Age 17. 2012.

Tamir Rice. Age 12. 2014.

Michael Brown. Age 18. 2014.

Eric Garner. Age 43. 2014.

Sandra Bland. Age 28. 2015.

Freddie Gray. Age 25. 2015.

Alton Sterling. Age 37. 2016.

Philando Castile. Age 32. 2016.

Botham Jean. Age 26. 2018.

Atatiana Jefferson. Age 28. 2019.

Ahmaud Arbery. Age 25. 2020.

Doug Lewis. Age 39. 2020.

Breonna Taylor. Age 26. 2020.

George Floyd. Age 46. 2020.

Dion Johnson. Age 28. 2020.

Tony McDade. Age 38. 2020.

This is the On Being Human podcast. I’m your host, Brandi Fleck. 

Let’s have a moment of silence for George Floyd and the other countless black lives lost to racism and police brutality in the United States. 

[one minute of silence]

The list of names read at the beginning of this episode was extremely abbreviated, as according to NPR’s Code Switch, 1,252 black people have been shot and killed by police since Jan. 1, 2015.

We were due to start a 4-week series about faith today, and while faith will be an extremely strong tool in our toolbox as we navigate the world we now live in, it didn’t seem appropriate to go there yet in the way we will later in the season. So, while aspects of faith must be drawn upon to get through hard times for some of us, we’re going to shift focus for now to be intentionally thoughtful about the current civil climate of the United States and what we can do as allies. 

Now, if you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you know I’m not a racism expert. But what I am is a seasoned researcher by profession and advocate of humans. So, in this episode, you will hear about quite a few informational sources and resources. Every single one and then some will be linked in the show notes at onbeinghumanpodcast.com/episodes/049. Go there to get started on taking action. 

What is systemic racism? Let’s break it down. 

According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, racism is defined as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.”

Also according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, systemic is defined as: “a. affecting the body generally” and “d. fundamental to a predominant social, economic, or political practice.” The other two definitions were related to a medical context and pesticide, so I left them out.

So if we put the two words together, we can come up with a definition of systemic racism that is something like: 

A predominant social, economic, and political system created and sustained on a foundational belief that the white race is the primary determinant of superior humanity.

If you don’t believe it, look into or just observe in your life:

  • the wealth gap

  • employment

  • housing discrimination

  • government surveillance

  • incarceration rates

  • drug arrests

  • immigration arrests

  • infant mortality

  • and even what “flesh” or “nude” color is when you buy bandaids or panty hose…  

To help you start learning about systemic racism, check out the 8-video series (and they’re short videos) on what is systemic racism by the Race Forward organization. The link is in the show notes.

Riots erupted in Nashville, Tennessee on the Saturday evening of May 30th, 2020 as they had similarly arose in other cities across the country over the previous week.  

Friday night, even though rioting was happening relatively far away from where my family and I were, the energy was palpable. Based on various news reports, fires, looting, vandalism, and physical harm to fellow humans were happening in places like Minneapolis, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Des Moines, Denver, Detroit, Washington DC, Houston, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Jose, Bakersfield, Louisville, New York City, Phoenix, Memphis, and Portland.

And, to make sense of the discomfort from the rioting going on, I relied on the quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. —

“…it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear?”

To see a video of part of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “The Other America” speech on the matter, visit the show notes of this episode.

There’s also an article there from Psychology Today. The article is called, “The Psychology of Rioting: The Language of the Unheard,” posted on May 30th, 2020 by Joe Pierre, M.D., which further expands on, from a psychological perspective, the sentiment expressed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1967, which still applies today. 

So, it is society’s fault for not listening and for employing systems with a foundation that perpetuate harm to blacks and black communities. 

We start out thinking we can’t blame the people who are fed up with no other turn to take because peaceful protesters have not been heard.

It makes sense that people are outraged. It makes sense that there is unrest over racism and police brutality. No person likes to see damage and destruction to their cities and personal property, but because the average white person hasn’t been outraged enough to stop the systemic problem of innocent black lives lost at a rate far higher than other innocent lives lost by police force, we’ve finally reached a boiling point, right. And by the way, the database at the Washington Post shows that black Americans account for less than 13 percent of the U.S. population, but are killed by police at more than twice the rate of white Americans at 30 per million versus 12 per million. 

So people are outraged.

Let’s go ahead and account for the stress of natural disasters followed by lock downs and coronavirus adding even more pressure to society. The pandemic has uncovered dysfunction in our society by directly laying bare more injustices for people to face head on than we’re normally used to dealing with. This causes existential crises, evolution, and epiphanies.

People are overwhelmed. People are tired. People are scared. People are fed up. And some people react to this type of pressure kindly and some don’t. 

When American society is humming along at a pace faster than allows us to notice the injustices or crises, things seem okay for a lot of privileged people. Maybe privileged people notice the injustices, but we’ve been so caught up in the spinning cog that we get the feeling that stopping to fight an injustice would break the machine that’s keeping us safe - that’s keeping us in a false sense of security that our lives are stable, safe, and secure as long as we keep pushing that cog along. We have to keep up because everyone else’s cog is also running!

We’ve taken a windy road to where we’re at with how the riots and dissemination of information all played out over the last couple of days, so let’s summarize for a second so we can take stock of where we’re at in the logic: 

  • People are still recovering from natural disasters, at least here in Tennessee and I know of a couple of other places at least…

  • People are reeling from the impacts of COVID-19 that is still ongoing, including coping with the adjustment to a slower pace of life, financial uncertainty, uncertainty about death from the disease, and are grasping to make sense of the magnitude of the systemic issues our society has

  • And, people are already fed up by racial injustices happening on top of this, and since being pushed out of the cog, we have time to think about and really grapple with the injustices we’re seeing. This is resulting in innocent lives lost but also protests as a result. Peaceful protests. Rallies that mean something.

We’re caught up so far, so let’s add a little more to the equation: 

After all this, we’ve got white allies saying, “White people, don’t tell black people how to protest,” which I agree with. We’ve got black people saying, “What do you expect, you didn’t listen to the peaceful protests.” But we’ve also got black people saying, “Riots will hurt the cause. This is not us. We are peacefully protesting.”

Then we had the news come in that far-right extremists, including paid protesters, came in after peaceful rallies to incite civil war using the momentum of the already existing civil unrest to fuel the flames or at least to further their own agenda on the backs of black lives lost. Councilwoman Delishia Porterfield of District 29 in Nashville posted this on Facebook, but it has since been deleted on her Facebook page. The Psychology Today article mentioned earlier also shares the same sentiment.

So now what? The people who are unheard aren’t the one’s destroying our cities? Now how do we make sense of the riots? Were they okay before when the sentiment was, “Hear our injustices - innocent black lives are being taken by corrupt police.” But they’re not okay anymore because the sentiment behind them is just destruction and mayhem for the purpose of war?”

Well, sort of.

It’s all very confusing. And I know I’ve been searching for the sense of it as a coping mechanism, so maybe you are too.

And let me just say that as a white woman, I can’t begin to even come close to understanding what it feels like to live in fear that the systemic oppression of society will one day kill me or my loved ones and constantly having to watch it happen on the news, which is traumatic, but I can stand up and say that I want to help stop that systemic societal oppression.

So, from that lens, here’s the ultimate conclusion I’ve come to: It’s okay if we can’t make sense of it. It’s okay if you don’t want your city to burn, but you also want justice and the crushing of the systemic racism. And, it’s okay to not know where to start even though you want to start doing something. But definitely don’t let the agenda of some other group squash your concern or stop you from doing something for black lives and stopping police brutality.

Right now in our society, it is difficult to discern the truth - which leaders to trust, what data is real and uncompromised, what’s a conspiracy and what’s not. Trump supporters believe the left is out to get them, and the left believe Trump supporters are going to destroy humanity. 

The fact is, there are people in this world who seek to cause trouble for one reason or another, no matter what side they’re on. There are good people and bad people of all walks of life. Politics are an easy target because our human leaders of the world are tightly enmeshed in politics - leadership in government is synonymous with politics, right?

But the thing is, this isn’t really a political problem. It’s a human problem. We need to ditch the bipartisanship and unite over what’s right. To do this, we have to tune out all that noise - let go of the confusion.

And we can let go of the confusion and tune out the noise by holding fast to our core truths. Remembering and consistently thinking back to our core truths will help guide us through the muck, hurt, chaos, and pain to make lasting change for the highest good of all involved. Remember the truth no matter what information overload is thrown your way. 

Here are some of the core truths to hold onto during this time to cut through the chaos and keep your eye on the goal: 

  • Black lives matter. 

  • One life lost is one too many.

  • Only what you give power has power.

  • Change starts with you, on the inside, regardless of the external.

  • In a system, change also starts on the inside.

As white people, we can choose to be allies, secure in knowing that we can fight racism without knowing what it’s like to be black, but knowing what it’s like to be human. We can be secure in knowing that we were born into a society that promotes certain ways of being, but that when we can recognize that way of being is wrong, we can change it. We do this by listening and paying attention.

And, while the change starts inside of each one of us, the goal is not about us as allies. It’s about our fellow black humans.

We can recognize what racism is, what whiteness is, and we can be self aware to know when the impacts and effects of each are intruding in the way we do things. We’ve been living our entire lives through a legacy left by those before us, not recognizing our own roles in perpetuating that gruesome legacy. Even if we’re not directly the white people who created systemic racism, we’re living in it, and we can stop it. 

Atlanta-based entertainer, Killer Mike, gave a moving speech in Atlanta, Georgia on Friday night - that is Friday May 29, 2020. He said: 

“It is your duty not to burn your own house down for anger with an enemy. It is your duty to fortify your own house so that you may be a house of refuge in times of organization. Now is the time to plot, plan, strategize, organize, and mobilize.”

With that, let’s do it. There is an article included in the show notes of this episode at onbeinghumanpodcast.com/episodes/049, which includes 75 actions white people can take to start helping. It’s from medium.com. So, go look at it and see what you can do. These suggestions include researching policies and procedures your local police force has in place; reading books and discussing systemic racism with others who may not know the entirety of the problem - so educating yourself and others; supporting black businesses and withdrawing from those that back systemic racism - consumer choice is a powerful influence; and the article has many other ways to get started. 

If donating money is something you’re interested in, there are links also in the show notes to credible organizations, which are organizing, planning, strategizing, and mobilizing. To name just a few, they are: 

  • Black Lives Matter (find your local chapter)

  • The NAACP

  • Color of Change

  • Know Your Rights Camp

I’ll leave you with this. A long time ago, about 18 or 19 years ago, I learned in a sociology class that there is a phenomenon among people where, if say, a person’s car is broken down on the side of the road with a flat tire and a person needs help, if the road is busy with a lot of traffic, less people are likely to stop and help because they think someone else will do it. But if the road is less traveled and not busy, one or two people driving by are more likely to stop and help because they know not many others will be coming by. It’s human nature, at least the way it was observed in the past. 

Keep this phenomenon in mind. The more people who witness an atrocity doesn’t mean the more people will help. Therefore, regardless of the amount of people involved - if help is needed, we must act.

I must act.

You must act as if no other person is acting.

Focus on the highest good for those involved rather than the amount of passersby, and act in productive and efficient ways to create lasting change.

Thanks for listening. 

Black lives matter.