The Woman Who Showed Me How To End Racism
Putting down the invisible knapsack.
Last month, as I was boarding a flight to Vienna, a woman showed me a world beyond racism.
She was at the boarding gate with her daughter, trying to cram her oversized bag into one of those undersized metal cages airlines use to justify their “carry-on” fees. And since my bag was also slightly too big, I was eager to see how it would go.
It wasn’t going well.
A few other passengers had already been stopped, grumbling under their breath as they handed over the €70 ($75) fee, but this woman was particularly disgruntled. And as I got closer, I noticed a familiar tone to her disgruntlement.
“That’s okay,” she said as she slammed her credit card onto the counter. “We both know this is a racial issue. I saw you let a white man through with a case the same size as mine.”
“How dare you?” replied the agent with all the indignation you’re imagining. “I deal with customers from all over the world every single day. This has nothing to do with race.”
The two of them went back and forth, each convinced the other was judging them unfairly. But in the midst of all that racial tension, I saw something beautiful: a natural order that went beyond luggage allowances and hidden fees. An implicit truth that all the staff and passengers understood. An insight that transcended matters of “race” and culture and prejudice:
There was no way these people were going to stop me.
There was no way, while a black woman stridently accused them of racism, that they were going to single out the only other black passenger in the line. I could have been carrying a lumpy duffel bag with the word “BOMB” painted on it, and they’d have waved me through.
And sure enough, when I got to the front, I handed over my boarding pass, flashed the agent my winningest smile, and walked my oversized bag onto that plane free of charge.
Truly, I have seen the promised land.
In 1985, psychologists Robert Kleck and Angelo Strenta conducted an experiment on self-perception.
They recruited twenty-five female volunteers, hired a makeup artist to paint a realistic-looking scar on their faces, and asked them to have a five-minute conversation with a stranger.
But there was a twist: just before the women met their conversation partners, the makeup artist did a final “touch-up” on their scars. And, without the volunteers’ knowledge, removed the makeup completely.
Once the conversations were over, Kleck and Strenta brought the volunteers back and asked how they thought the strangers had perceived them: How much eye contact did the stranger make? How tense did they seem? Would they have felt more comfortable if the volunteers had sat further away?
Things like that.
And, you guessed it; even though the women looked exactly the same as always, they were convinced that the strangers had found them less attractive and less approachable than usual. Not only that, but they reported looks, gestures and comments directed at the scars that were no longer on their faces.
As Kleck put it:
Subjects entered the experiment anticipating how others might respond to various forms of physical deviance. And, when placed in interaction with a peer, readily found evidence consistent with these expectations.
Most of us believe we respond to the world as it is. But that’s rarely the case. There isn’t time to assess each situation objectively and respond appropriately. So, instead, we react to the world as we expect it to be. And then, just as those volunteers did, we find evidence consistent with our expectations.
That’s why the woman in the airport didn’t notice that almost everyone else who had to pay was white. It’s why she didn’t ask herself if she was wrong about the size of the guy’s bag (or if he’d just paid for extra baggage ahead of time). It’s why she didn’t notice me floating by her on a cloud of emancipated blackness.
All of that evidence against racism conflicted with her expectations.
And so, no matter what anyone said or did, despite all arguments to the contrary, she’ll remain certain that there’s a scar on her face.
And worse, her daughter, who was old enough to understand but not yet old enough to understand, is already learning the same lie.
There’s a lot of talk about ending racism lately, as if it’s a policy issue. As if it will die out once we convince enough white people to “be less white” or confess their “white dominance”. As if a day will come when the last racist dies, and no more will ever be born, and little white boys and little black girls will hold hands forever.
But racism is a mindset. A faulty expectation held in the minds of white people and people of colour. A mistaken belief that brown skin is a “physical deviance.” A broken filter through which people view each other and themselves.
And so, to fix that filter, we need to look at ourselves as well as each other.
As James Baldwin so vividly put it:
It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the Earth as though I had a right to be here.
And yes, even after all this, some people will still question our right to be here. They’ll still see us as less approachable or less capable or simply less than. They’ll still do everything in their power to hold us back.
But when I think about those people, I see something beautiful. An implicit truth that nobody, black or white, can deny. A quiet certainty earned through centuries of struggle and triumph. A gentle reminder for everybody who needs to hear it:
There’s no way those people are going to stop us.
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