Feedback and Response

Today's entry concerns the column I wrote for the April 18 issue. The print title was ©Dr. Wes: What I Don't Know Could Fill a Book, while it ran below as Incomprehensible Post. We received an unusually well written and thoughtful letter regarding the column. The letter was run in the April 25 issue. I'm including it here with a response from me which couldn't be printed in the paper for lack of space.

Dear Editor,

This week's Real Change was the first one I've seen in a very long time. The issue has its bright spots. But in the middle of Dr. Wes's column of April 18 was a low point. It called a power analysis of racism "meaningless, vacuous, rotting from the head down and out its ass bullshit."

This flippant and insulting description is beneath this columnist and Real Change. It doesn't add to a meaningful dialog about race, class, and power but only obscures the issue and demeans fellow community members.

Prejudice and bigotry have been part of human interactions and civilizations in many ways for millennia. Racism is a specific form of systemic prejudice that's developed in the last 500 years or so. Racism as a political, social and economic system relies on the construction and perpetuation of the concept of (supposedly) biologically-based races, with white folk sitting on top of the pile. From what you wrote ("with all that humongous power White Americans have…"), I think we're in agreement to this point.

Where you and I diverge is in the assessment of to what extent and with what "power" people of color (not just "Black" people as you wrote) enforce their race-based prejudices. White people bring 500 centuries of dominance to bear. Whatever incidents of prejudice you're thinking of that justify calling people of color (again, you identify only "Black Americans") racist surely pale in comparison to the sheer volume, longevity, severity and raw effect of racism as practiced by white folk.

Is it worth writing seven superficial paragraphs about a pet peeve in a way that undermines purposeful, heartfelt organizing and community-based education that so many are undertaking daily in Seattle and the nation? Is it worth it to reinforce the idea that anyone can be racist, therefore implying that people of color can be equally culpable for racism? That's one of the unintended results of your column.

We don't have to agree but we need to be in respectful dialog as a community about racism, class and power. Please be mindful of the impact of your words.

Sincerely,
Gillian Burlingham, Seattle

Dear Ms. Burlingham

I've been waiting for someone to say all this. All week all I've gotten is "Great column, Wes" and never had the other shoe dropped. When that happens I feel like nobody's really reading the things.

Absolutely it was worth it to bring that pet peeve up. It is my honest opinion that this issue is a major stumbling block to race relations today, and will become more so with time. I raised the issue because of that, and I deliberately included the flippantly disrespectful language to try to draw attention to the fact that I really meant it.

One thing you say about the column doesn't make sense to me. I did not in any way say that Blacks are equally culpable with Whites. I bent over backward, in fact, to make it clear that I was referring to a much tinier and relatively insignificant culpability. But what I said was, to the degree that Blacks DO have power and use it, they may garner culpability. It is a warning as much as anything.

Sometimes I think White Liberals envision a world in which Blacks never gain any significant power, so liberals will always have them to feel sorry for as victims of racism and can always use them as foils to point out what's wrong with the White power structure. Blacks already have considerably more power than most White Liberals have bothered to notice, and some of it has been misused. This fact has to be acknowledged and dealt with by White Liberals, or Conservatives will continue to control the debate and use the denial to fuel backlash.

Honestly I think the failure of White Liberals to recognize that Blacks wield power is a form of racism in itself. You can't nullify it by not refusing to see it, but you can disrespect it. Or maybe White Liberals want to think that Blacks only have the power they gain by having White Liberals allies.

But once you see that Blacks have power you see that it can be abused. What Liberals need to do is admit that that is already happening and to point out that it is an inevitable aspect of progress. People who can act can make mistakes. Only people who are powerless can never fail.

I didn't raise the issue in regard to other segments of the population because the ideology that I'm attacking is rarely heard in connection with others. Nobody says Asians can't be racist. The image of Korean store-owners calmly targeting Black looters in the Rodney King riots have never left the imaginations even of White Liberals, apparently, so that it is easy for them to accept that Asians can be racists (of Blacks only, of course, not of Whites.) With Latinos, issues of racism get lost in the glare of the issues of nationality, immigration status, and ethnicity. There aren't enough Native Americans around to draw the argument out. They really do lack power, for sheer lack of numbers.

As for the colorful language I used, the whole "rotting out the ass" bit, I can assure you that it accurately describes my deepest heartfelt feelings with regard to the ideas in question. I really think that liberal intellectuals have screwed the analysis up royally on this one.

My fear is that no one will listen and the result will be that White Liberals will continue to maintain a myth that Blacks can do no wrong, because they can do nothing of anything. And to the extent that is believed by White Liberals, and known to be flat out bullshit by everybody else, White Liberals will actually stand in the way of further racial progress, to the extent that the Conservatives are able to confound the White Liberal view with Black aspirations. Which is especially likely when Black intellectuals adopt it.

But the fact that Black intellectuals can adopt a philosophy that is inherently racist against their own race, in that it disrespects the power that Blacks are able to achieve, is a reminder that the mistakes of racism I was referring to do not have to be mistakes of racism directed at Whites. Mistakes are mistakes, they go in every direction. Maybe I should have talked about that too. But I only get the 666 words per week.

I am always conscious of the possibility that I could best be of help to the world by being so glaringly wrong as to bring the truth that I have missed into extreme stark relief for the benefit of others wiser than me. if I have done that this time, you're all welcome.

Thanks for writing! I really appreciate the feedback. If no one says I'm wrong, then all I can think is, no one heard me. -- wes