Anti-Racism isn’t a Popularity Contest

There is no Brownie Badge or Scout Banner for your participation

Today I read what I felt to be both a really important and helpful article about what is brewing right now as it relates to race, racism, and allyship. Here is Holiday Phillips’ article:

My response to one of her comments turned out to be, because I have too much to say, the article below. However, I hope to put the importance of what Holiday says into a larger context around social action in America. This is in part because I’m old enough to have seen my share of movements, and also to have been directly involved and even researched a few.

In 1979, I had been out of the Army just a few months when a New York City electric utilities PR firm hired me on. They had recently hired one Charles Yulish, who had deep knowledge in the nuclear business, which U-J wanted to offer to their clients.

Some of you may remember that Three Mile Island happened in the spring of that year. Not good optics for nuclear. In the midst of all that, I was taking over what was then euphemistically called the Grass Roots Energy Alliance Team, or GREAT, which was a nationwide, very loose alliance of folks who were, for whatever reason, pro-nuclear. Part of my job was to research and better understand the anti-nuclear movement as well as to best understand the pro-nuke folks, their why, and what kept them collaborating. Not well, but still.

Without getting into in-depth detail, this is what I learned which might be relevant to what we are seeing right now, and why it pays to be mindful of our motivations:

1. Those who were anti-nuclear, especially the leadership, often had a long history of anti-(whatever) movements. Anti Vietnam War, that kind of thing. Lots of protest experience. Keep in mind this was 1979.
2. Those same people often got money from many of the same sources, often very large, very liberal organizations. I’m not saying this is a bad thing at all, just noting common funding sources. Many movements have backing like this, albeit I can’t speak with any knowledge about today. My guess, probably the same.
3. The more I looked at the leadership, the most virulent of those leaders were often folks who had horrible personal backgrounds, an axe to grind, or were incredibly angry about something that had nothing to do with nuclear or Vietnam or abortion. They simply needed an outlet. This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Nor is this a criticism. There’s just a downside.

If you will, #3 is the key point here. Movements can collect parasites- sometimes without their having any clue that this is the case- who desperately need a cause because they need an outlet for rage. These folks can seem like precisely the folks we might want leading the charge because their righteous indignation can ignite a group.

Well, yeah, until either their personal issues overwhelm them, or they are revealed as a bit dishonest, or their personal issues resolve and they don’t need an angry outlet anymore. Or or or. Therein lies the problem. The motivations aren’t necessarily based on something deeply felt.

Here’s an example: In 1980 I found myself negotiating with the activist groups who were staging sit-ins at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons plant between Denver and Boulder. Of the many, many folks who came out to join the sit-in protests, I discovered most had no clue whatsoever why they were there. It was a party, they often had no idea that the Flats wasn’t a nuclear power plant at all, and they were simply coming along for the ride. That is just one way that protests can swell their numbers.

If those who are bellying up to the anti-racism bar aren’t genuinely engaged with these issues, but are far more needful of an issue through which to attack (other people, any people) or government, or whomever they feel worthy of their fury, then when that is spent, so are they. We cannot count on that support going forward, numbers dwindle and the movement can lose steam.

As Holiday points out, this is a lifetime issue. I’m towards the end of mine, and we are hardly farther along than when schools in Florida were first segregated when I was a kid. Temporary interest, to my mind, does more harm than good, because good folks get encouraged that there are more folks on board.

Black folks have been let down time and again by the appearance of a turning point, only to realize that the turning point they were making, they were making solo. The crowds, ever short-sighted and with very short attention spans, dispersed. With very good reason the Black community has seen White folks show up and disappear as it suits our schedules and what happens to be on Netflix.

I sincerely hope not. We won’t know until the Next Big Thing, which the Orange Thing is so good at energizing us about so that he can damage the country (please see below).

If we can’t stay focused, we all lose here. The inability to stay on task, stay focused is precisely what prevents true, substantive progress. As in, Divided, We Fall.

My research indicated that certain activist leaders got repurposed, redirected and and then reassigned. The people who had the most to lose, still lost. Experienced activist leadership is critical to get things done in the short run. I got the impression at the time that they got assignments the same way I did while in the Army. I don’t know that this is still the case, but it’s what I saw back then.

If your life or mine is in disarray, and we feel rage, the Topic of the Moment can be very handy as an anger outlet. This is where I am seeing, and questioning, the wholesale shaming of any white person who isn’t down with the “right”way to respond to the BLM movement.

That’s the backdrop.

In response to one of Holiday’s excellent points about shaming folks:

(with some additions)

I see slews of articles shaming people, even one written by a young man of color who was himself shamed by a friend for not posting a black square on what, a Facebook page? This mindlessly simple act that does nothing suddenly means that he isn’t supportive ENOUGH?

I’ve had multiple conversations with folks who knew nothing of this black square movement. However, they are otherwise engaged, sometimes deeply, sometimes for decades and others for a lifetime.

This isn’t a competition, a race to the top of the I AM DOWN WITH THIS mountain top. This is work for life. You don’t get your Instagram shot at the protest march and call it done, dude.

At what point do we sacrifice the very real and difficult work of creating awareness, understanding and cohesive action with competing with and shaming each other over who is more down with the most recent issue?

This is where social media can be problematic. A black square isn’t an action. It’s nothing, really. A deep, hard, difficult conversation, and I’ve had my share lately, with Black folks I love, is action. Writing the police department and voting and discussing these topics with un-woke folks (good luck with that) are actions. They are painful, you can get hurt.

Besides, I fear that this topic, as hot as it is right now, may well get hijacked just like #MeToo, then Covid, now possibly BLM. The Next Big Thing, for which we get to compete for being more down, can just as easily derail current efforts to truly change the conversation about racism in America.

Social media is part of the problem and could be part of the cure. But not if all we are collecting are Instagram shots with the Token Black Friend at the BLM march in June.

Folks aren’t evil for not being part of the conversation up to this point. We’re all party to the crime if we simply discard the Topic of the Month to seem cool when and if another powerful issue rises. And it will. As long as we have this president, it will. He is a master of distraction, which allows the Senate to pass devastating legislation while we are all in an uproar. Laws it will take years to undo, damage that will take generations to repair, if ever.

But those folks who have been part of the conversation for decades, who have worked in these movements, who have dedicated blood sweat and tears to these efforts don’t deserve to be shamed for their quiet efforts, or for not being fashionable enough to put a clap emoji on the right Facebook meme.

Blood, sweat and tears

If we want to change things, we have to choose something we feel so passionately about that we’re willing to make a serious commitment. Not just the latest that got washed up on the endless beach of social issues, like beach glass, attractive enough for a selfie but not compelling enough to goddamned well do something about.

I would rephrase Holiday’s terminology, but this is just me. As a wordsmith I would suggest that if we are an ally, then it is what we do. It’s not a fashion, a craze or a fad. Not a popularity contest to get someone a Housekeeping Seal of Approval from their Black friends from whom they might be seeking absolution for having been born white. Folks are missing the point.

If I may please, let me make a simple analogy:

As those who share my love for the outdoors can attest, peak-bagging is an unfortunate bastardization of how to be in, love and respect Nature.

Issue-bagging is, to me, the same thing. It’s not about the real work, it’s about the “victory shot” and the list.

I might have just coined a term.

How about you research a list of all the Black massacres that have occurred in America, and ask yourself why they aren’t in our history books, and why Trump planned his ‘Publican hate fest where one of the worst took place?

Please see:

And kindly, if I may, from the article:

In 1945, Hooker became the first African-American woman to join the U.S. Coast Guard. She went on to earn a doctorate degree in psychology and helped form the Tulsa Race Riot Commission in 1997 to investigate the massacre and make a case for reparations. Dr. Hooker is now 103 years old and thought to be the last surviving witness to the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.

If the PhD and Coast Guard references surprised people, if Black excellence surprises folks, with respect, there’s a lot of work to be done. Black excellence is very common. What’s uncommon is that people do not come in contact with it, that it’s not normalized, that anyone is surprised that Black or Brown folks have advanced degrees.

We will not be free until we stop being surprised by Black and Brown excellence, Black and Brown FEMALE excellence, and all the other daily realities, because they are, that the white male patriarchy ignores, demeans, destroys and diminishes. Or just erases altogether.

To that I offer my fellow Illumination peep Sharon Hurley Hall’s piece:

If we are going to be on board this important topic, then I might respectfully ask what your motivations are? Are you truly willing to weigh in when it really matters? Or is this the latest thing, by which we measure each other on social media in the same way we measure Adele’s hips before and after?

For if you are indeed serious, you will be working on this two decades from now. If not, I am sure that another movement can use your fury.

With much respect to my fellow Black writers whose material continues to guide and inform. The list is long and my appreciation is deep. However I do tag Rosennab and Marley K. whose work both pushes and inspires me, and often makes me deeply uncomfortable, which is a gift.