“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence,” Samuel Huntington stated bluntly in The Clash of Civilizations & the Remaking of World Order. “Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.” Translate “the West” to “white people” and you’ll see why powerful white politicians are terrified by Critical Race Theory. Deep down, they know “white heritage” is a legacy of stolen wealth.
Somewhere in my body I have a racist bone.
It knows better than to parade by torchlight in a hooded robe. But I know it’s in there, masquerading as my funny bone. Because every now and then it twitches, and I laugh.
Not at a crude racist jibe or Amos ‘n’ Andy stereotype. No, my inner racist only blows his cover when an African-American friend shoots back a really superb, over-the-top wisecrack. My racist funnybone is not just delighted but momentarily surprised, self-consciously aware even while cracking up that I had underestimated my friend’s wit and intelligence.
I have an impeccable anti-racist pedigree. After growing up in the segregated South, my mother defied my bigoted grandfather by marrying a Yankee and moving north, kicking the red dust of Georgia off her shoes.
While serving as Methodist missionaries in Southeast Asia, my parents refused to confine themselves to the white people’s ghetto that exists in every foreign city. They mingled with people of every shade of skin, deliberately exposing their kids to every culture and religion in the multi-ethnic melting pot called Singapore. Dad learned as much from his Chinese, Malay, and Indonesian seminary students as they learned from him. Mom supervised the children’s program at a church that held services only in Mandarin.
During a year’s furlough in Chicago in 1966, our family shared a duplex with Jesse and Jackie Jackson and their kids. Martin Luther King Jr. was among the visitors who stopped by, and my parents were sometimes invited upstairs to listen and learn.
But regardless of parentage and upbringing, every white child unconsciously breathes in the subtle poison of racial hierarchy that laces the atmosphere of the post-colonial world. I’m sure no Caucasian of my parents’ generation could avoid it. And though I escaped its most toxic effects, somewhere inside I grew that solitary mutant bone.
Diversity Is a Law of Nature
Living here in Atlanta, birthplace of the Civil Rights movement, I’ve worked at two different companies with a roughly equal number of white and Black co-workers. From my friends at work I learned that although people of all skin colors have much in common, the primary thing they share is diversity.
“Diversity” is not just a matter of pigmentation but of character, personality, family background, spirituality and philosophy, quirks and talents and tastes and yes, humor. It’s not “races” that differ, but individuals. The science of genetics has found far more diversity within each superficial category of skin color than between them. And it’s no accident that biodiversity is a law of nature, the sign of a healthy ecosystem.
In fact, the single difference that can be attributed to skin color is psychological, caused by the trials and traumas of life in a racist society.
Psychologists have long understood the post-traumatic effects of harrowing experiences like childhood abuse, wartime combat, criminal assault or rape. More recently they have identified a condition called “secondary PTSD,” which afflicts people who grew up in a household dominated by the after-effects of trauma. Any adult child of a combat veteran already knows that, as do “Adult Children of Alcoholics.”
But researchers are now discovering that the ripple effects of PTSD extend beyond a second generation. I can see how the post-traumatic legacy of slavery must have been passed on generation after generation, compounded by lynchings, cross-burnings, chain gangs, “whites-only” signs, and other strategies to undermine Reconstruction, desegregation and Affirmative Action.
We white folks can only imagine how this cascading legacy of PTSD insidiously poisoned each new generation of Black children growing up in a racist nation pretending to be nobly democratic. Drugs, crime, gangs, and prison are predictable destinations for children of trauma, white or Black. But understanding the toxic legacy of racism helps me appreciate the courage of my African-American friends who are determined to overcome the stigma, defy the odds, pursue an education and a career and raise their own children with dignity and pride. Jazz, blues and soul music, inspired comedy and Nobel-worthy literature are among the less predictable results that delight us all – to the surprise of anyone with a racist bone like mine.
Supremacy vs. Superiority
Only anti-racists use the term “white supremacy.” Racists talk about “white superiority,” touting European culture, science, medicine, and technology as proof that whites are singularly gifted and therefore entitled to run the world. They don’t mention that all these civilized accomplishments were financed by centuries of plunder, stolen from people of color and shipped back to Europe from its colonies around the globe. Nor do they mention the achievements of other cultures in these same fields that likewise benefit us all. The “superiority” that made European “supremacy” possible was part military prowess and technological proficiency, part cold-blooded greed and murderous brutality. These moral defects are not exclusive to Caucasians, but we certainly won the competition to spin them into gold.
The contrast in values that gave white people dominion over our dark-skinned relatives was never more clear than during the struggle for Civil Rights. The principled bravery of nonviolent resisters when attacked by police dogs, firehoses, billyclubs and bombs threw into sharp relief the brute-force tactics of the legal authorities and the terrorism of the Klan. It was the moral superiority of the Blacks over the amoral supremacy of the whites that finally won the day.
And not just in the U.S.A. Any white person who feels superior to Blacks should read Nelson Mandela’s brilliant testimony at his trial, and at least try to understand him. Stripped to its essence, to take pride in white skin is to celebrate a superior capacity to conquer and kill, overruling the teachings of both Moses and Christ to live by the power of the sword.
The panic of powerful white politicians who feel threatened by “Critical Race Theory” is telling. State after state has passed laws forbidding schools from teaching a version of U.S. history that might cause students to feel guilty for being white. To me, it sounds suspiciously like those raising the issue are aware – consciously or not – that they have something to feel guilty about.
But why would any white student feel guilty about the crimes of long-dead ancestors? If prejudice and discrimination are no more than shameful chapters in our history, surely we can be proud that our nation fought the Civil War to end slavery and met the Civil Rights challenge by outlawing Jim Crow?
Evidently not. These moral victories did not lead to racial equality because the debts of slavery have never been repaid. While the descendants of slaves were passing down a legacy of PTSD, the white families who profited from slavery were passing down the compounded interest of their stolen wealth. To this day, whites deny loans and promotions to people of color and target their communities with toxic waste and polluting industries. These racist policies are not ignorant or accidental, but deliberate.
The only reason a student might feel guilty for being white is the realization that this country owes most of its vast wealth to our racist past, and white supremacy still rules our economy today. It’s not history the conservatives seek to suppress, but the secret of ongoing systemic racism: the guilt of “Original Skin.”
Confession, Repentance, Reparations
“Reparations” for slavery and segregation are the obvious ethical response to racial inequities in our economic system. But white racists understand that once the door to reparations creaks open, the secret is out. How much of the accumulated wealth of whites would have to be handed back if our history was openly acknowledged?
The value of stolen labor is just the beginning. Once you contemplate repaying the debts of slavery, sooner or later you have to admit that our entire economy is based on exploitation, mostly targeting people of color – and today’s economy is global. U.S. corporations have made billions colluding with wealthy elites around the world, often aided by the U.S. military, to keep nonwhite workers laboring at slave wages. Poverty imposed at gunpoint by U.S.-made weapons is a primary catalyst of the “immigration crisis.” No wonder we indignantly deny asylum to the refugees who seek sanctuary at our border!
Then there are the debts of “Manifest Destiny,” which can only be satisfied by giving the entire North American continent back to its indigenous inhabitants. No wonder the Native American “Land Back” movement gets so little media attention!
Finally, consider Climate Change, a global catastrophe created almost entirely by white folks pursuing an ever-higher standard of living. Dark-skinned people in impoverished nations bear little responsibility for global warming but suffer most of its impact, driving more desperate immigrants north. No wonder the U.S. is slow to fulfill its pledge to help fund climate mitigation in the Global South!
White people have run the world for the past 500 years. Any honest long-term assessment must conclude that despite the short-term fossil-fueled triumphs of science and democracy, we have bungled the task with breathtaking levels of corruption, cruelty, and shortsighted selfishness. No wonder the white supremacists are desperately denying that any such history exists! No wonder even liberal whites are reluctant to confess and repent of our “Original Skin”!
Note: These are my personal opinions and do not represent any organization I’m involved in. If my words resonate for you, please share widely. You can subscribe at StephenWing.com. Read previous installments of “Wingtips” here.
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I’ve read through your essay three times now, thinking hard about your message, Wing. Thank you for taking the time to call attention to and to publish this very important response to racism and white supremacy. I’ll live my life better and teach my grandchildren to be better because of your comments.
I’m impressed by your personal family history…Singapore, wow! I have traveled in 46 countries and lived in Chongqing, China for a full year, teaching English at a high-school there. I greatly appreciate your comments about embracing diversity.