This episode explores race, racism, and anti-racism, learning about historic ideas and policies to help us understand what each term means and how they are interconnected.
Transcript: Race, Racism and Anti-Racism
Joe: And then the anti-racism pieces, and we're going to do something about it. Right.
Eric: Our goal especially in teaching through these issues is for transformation? It's definitely transformational.
Penny: …but to feel a responsibility for making our society now as good and as equitable and as just and fair as it can be.
Welcome to the Diversity & Inclusion for All project supported by Calvin University and the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship. Together, we'll listen to key perspectives, build our knowledge, inform our thinking, and get a little better equipped to engage our world.
Welcome, everyone, to this special episode in the diversity and inclusion for all Project of Calvin University. Today we're discussing and exploring and unpacking some key terms that are important to understand when we are thinking about and talking about diversity and inclusion in our country. I have with me today some special guests from Calvin University. These are all professors from different areas of campus and different places of expertise. We have Joe Kuilema, who's in the sociology and social work department, Alisa Tigchelaar from Spanish and World Languages, Micah Watson from Political Science, and Eric Washington from History. I’d like to welcome you all to this podcast. And I really value your time and your perspectives as we explore some key terms together.
One of the things we want to explore today is the social construction of different categories for people. And there are lots of phrases and ways that we put labels on people. Sometimes that's done ungraciously, and sometimes, though, it's done just to help us navigate life together. And it's important for us to understand some of these key terms a little bit and how they're used today.
The first term that I want to put on the table for us to discuss is actually a little collection of terms, sort of race, racism and anti-racism. What would you say are the most important ways that those are used and important things for us to understand as we try to use them and have conversations together.
Eric: I think race, racism, we're definitely dealing with historically and socially and even culturally constructed ideas and perceptions of people, as well as, let’s say, otherness. So these aren't …these aren't biological. I mean, race is not biological. It's something that's contrived.
Penny: What we talk about, what some people talk about as race is a lot about how people look… kinky hair or squinty eyes or dark this or broad that and that those things altogether, we perceive people as being from a specific race, but that the idea of race is itself is kind of constructed. But I wonder if we can unpack that just a little bit. What does it mean when we say race is socially constructed?
Joe: So I found that it's helpful when you talk about race and racism to actually start with talking about race, because as soon as we start talking about racism, people's hackles are up. People are nervous that they are going to be labeled a racist. And I've found that oftentimes we are not operating with the same definitions of what race itself is. And people are often operating with faulty definitions of what race is, because it's not something we talk about: what race is. Right. I think we all know scientifically that there is one race, the human race, and people will say that. And yet people also have this thing in their mind that there are certain numbers of races. So, you know, with students, sometimes I'll ask them, well, how many races are there? What are they? Right. And have people actually start talking this stuff out? And quickly, I think people realize that there's there's no inherent meaning to this these categories. Right. They are socially constructed. So I like to talk about race as a pseudo-scientific classification system based on phenotype. So, break that down a little bit. It purports to be scientific. For hundreds of years, it was accepted as scientific orthodoxy, much like we used to believe that the sun revolved around the earth. Right. This was true. But it is pseudo-science and that it is a classification system or even a caste system based on phenotype. And then we're talking about the amount of melanin in somebody's skin, the texture of their hair, the width of their nose. Scientifically, we know that all those adaptations are controlled by a very small set of genes and that they are results of populations reacting to their geographic surroundings over time.
So, no race, right? There are no there's a one race here, but we have these ideas. So, here's another way to think about it. If you line everybody up in the world, every single person, you wouldn't be able to tell where one, quote unquote, racial group began and where one ended, because people just vary on skin tone, on facial structure, on hair texture. We all vary. You wouldn't be able to divide short people from tall people and you would not be able to put a line anywhere that would create something like neat and tidy racial groups. There are genetic differences between populations, and sometimes people will point to those and say, well, there's some truth to race. Right. And you'll get people who say things like, well, for example, black folks or African-Americans are predisposed to sickle cell. Maybe that has something to do with their, quote unquote, blackness. But it's important to remember that blackness is not real. That's a social construct. We invented that. It has embodied itself over time. What you are actually seeing with sickle cell is a genetic adaptation to the presence of malaria over many years. So, you find sickle cell in West African populations, but you also find it in Central American populations and in Indian populations. One of the other examples I like to use is you can find videos online of young white supremacists, young men chugging milk as a way of expressing pride in their, quote unquote, racial purity as euro-Americans because they believe they have the genetic adaptation to digest dairy and that this is a racially unique adaptation. But that's just scientifically hokey, because this is a population genetic modification based on your your ancestors’ proximity to cattle. Right. So there are a lot of Europeans who do have the ability to digest dairy. But there are also a lot of Maasai in Kenya and Fulani in West Africa who have similar adaptations to digest dairy, because all that you're really measuring genetically there is did your ancestors grow up around cows? Did your ancestors grow up around mosquitos? So even things today that we often think of as racial adaptations have nothing to do with the concept of race. Race is a pure social construct.
Then the second part then is why, right, where did it come from? Right and why? So once you've sort of accepted that this is a pseudo-scientific phenotypical classification system. Well, why did we come up with that? And there the answer is really just oppression. Colonialism. We wanted to subjugate other people. We needed an excuse to do so. One of the clearest examples, I think, of this is the emergence of slavery in the United States through 1500’s and 1600’s. And the emerging necessity of a category other than Christian and pagan to legitimate enslaving someone. Because in the older documents from the popes and these sorts of things, you could enslave non-Christians. Well, what starts happening is you get enslaved people becoming Christians. And then what are you going to do? Right. Well, they sort of decide that even if black people, African descendants, become Christians, they can still be enslaved because of their blackness. Right. This becomes a way around these things. It also becomes a way to take lands from Christian kings in sub-Saharan Africa. Right. So the papal bull said you could take land as long as it belongs to Muslims or pagans. Well, what happens when you really want the land, but the people who live there turn out to be Christian, right? Because Christianity comes to Africa long before colonialism through the east and Ethiopia. Well, you legitimate that by just saying, well, these these these aren't white people. You invent race. Right. And race becomes an excuse. So, one of the things I say is that it's important to start with race, but racism created race. Right. The will to oppress created the necessity of a category that resulted in this pseudo-scientific explanation of why we were willing and able to treat some people the way that we decided to.
Penny: So, in some ways, it's the desire for power and control and money that created this need for that… to categorize some people in a certain way that allows me to do things to them, to their country, to their bodies that justifies me doing that. And that's sort of the seed of racism and therefore the seed of the construction of race.
Joe: Yeah. Another example that sort of proves exactly what you're saying there, point Penny, would be how we treated native folks here in the United States. So we want their land and we create this idea that they're incapable, in fact, of owning property and that therefore, it's not a problem to dispossess them of it and to push them further and further and further out west and then further and further and further into reservations, which really become sort of concentration camps.
Alisa: It really strikes me the idea that the will to oppress is what created race.
Penny: So currently, one of the things I hear a lot is anti-racism. And I know that Ibram Kendi, one of his more recent books, How to Be an Anti-Racist, it’s like been on The New York Times bestseller list for a long time….Can we unpack that a little bit? What what is meant by that term now? How it gets used, especially post-Kendi. And how it's a helpful way to maybe not use it and use it? How can we navigate that a little bit better?
Eric: When you talk about race, but then you shift to racism, you’re talking about policy. So, policy based on people you've already made into the other. So, it's land dispossession, it's enslavement, it's imperialism, and colonialism in Asia and Africa and in the 19th and 20th centuries. So, we’re talking about policy, race, racism, policy. So anti-racism would be any policy position that seeks to redress, to deconstruct, to eradicate racist policy. And also, by extension, any any person, any position that you take that that speaks out against these policies would be anti-racist.
Penny: I think Kendi also is sort of calling people to not be neutral on the topic. If there's a large wagon and it's on a hill, it's going to roll down the hill. And unless you want to keep letting it roll down the hill, you actually have to get off and start pushing it the other direction for it to stop rolling and possibly go and in the up uphill way. And so I think what I took away from reading Kendi was really: you can't be neutral on this. You need to be anti-racist if you want to not be just part of continuing to have all these disadvantages and lack of equity for people of color, especially brown and black people.
Joe: And then the anti-racism piece is: and we're going to do something about it. Right. We're going to pursue racial justice. And I think anti-racism has that bent towards: racism isn't just unfortunate. And it's not just something we need to feel bad or guilty about. And I think that's often actually counterproductive. Speaking as a white man, just to sit and feel guilty. It's something that we all need to work against. And that's not just calling out posts on Facebook, although that may be important or having awkward conversations, although that is important. It’s also thinking about, all right, what is the world that racism built and how can it be remade or renewed? So, I think that's what anti-racism is pushing us towards: to be active, to resist, to rebuild, to renew.
Penny: I think it might be helpful too for some of our listeners to hear this: that the current focus on diversity, the current push for anti-racism is not a guilt trip for white people. So, when you hear anti-racism, I think I hope that white people don't feel, oh, no, now they're going to put a guilt trip on me and make me guilty for every bad thing that's currently in our system. What I would love is for all of us, all different colored people, when we're confronted with this call of to be anti-racist is not to feel a overwhelming and incapacitating guilt, but to feel a responsibility, and not necessarily a personal individual responsibility for all the ills of our society, but to feel a responsibility for making our society now as good and as equitable and as just and fair as it can be.
Joe: I'm not actually as opposed to guilt tripping as some other people, particularly when confronted with the truth. Right. So I think I think it all depends on how you respond when confronted with the truth. There should be a moment of the weight, the enormity of this, how different it could have been, certainly for me as a white person and for me personally. And then it's what you do with it. Where I think guilt breaks down as if you just sit in guilt. And particularly if you want people of color, then to comfort you. Right. And tell you that you're a good person, because a lot of white people go seeking validation from people of color when they're confronted with the history and the enormity of racism. And really all they want is is emotional comfort. And that's that's not something that I think is actually a healthy impulse. You turn that guilt to responsibility.
Eric: Our goal especially in teaching through these issues is for transformation. It's definitely transformational. If I were a white person, I once failed to realize my privilege and I was complicit. I blamed people for their lack of success. I've been confronted with with with this with this history, these theories, this evidence. And now I want to work toward an equitable society. I mean, that's that's that's transformation.
Penny: If you want to dive a little deeper into the issues touched on in this episode, check out some of the earlier episodes in season one focused on race in America. I'd highly recommend Episode 13 Who is a Good American, or episode 25 in which we explored the Black Lives Matter movement. There are also three episodes about Asians in America, and episodes 21, 22 ,and 23 provide some historical perspective and insights on the civil rights movement in the United States. You can find all of these episodes and more on Simplecast, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
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