What’s in it for me? Confront the question of racism head-on.
Racism is a huge and complex subject.
For people who’d like to learn more about its role in America, it can be hard to know who to ask, what to ask, and where to even begin.
But the truth is this: the only way forward is to talk to each other, unafraid of having uncomfortable conversations that tackle the difficult issues.
These blinks are for anyone who’s concerned about race and race-related issues in the United States – but, most of all, they're for white people who don't know how to start those uncomfortable but necessary conversations.
The blinks return to some of the most basic issues at the heart of the conversation about racism and track back through America’s troubled history to explain why we are where we are today.
In these blinks, you’ll learn whether you should say “Black” or “African American”; why so-called reverse racism doesn’t exist; and why you should never call anyone a thug.
To talk about race in a meaningful way, we need to think about the words we use.
Black lives matter.
That simple statement has had an explosive effect in the United States and abroad.
It has raised some uncomfortable questions, too.
Most fundamentally: Why is it necessary to point out that we should care about the lives of Black people?
If you understand how hard life can be for Black people today, that question probably makes you uncomfortable.
But the author believes that the only bad questions are the questions that remain unasked – as long as we choose our words with care.
The key message here is: To talk about race in a meaningful way, we need to think about the words we use.
Words matter – a lot.
So one of the first difficult questions we have to ask is this: Should you say “Black” or “African American”?
It’s a complex question with a lot of history behind it.
Since the American Civil War, several different terms have been used.
In the early twentieth century, colored was popular because it worked for people of mixed ancestry as well.
In the mid-twentieth century, Negro came into fashion before falling out of it – in part because the term was originally imposed on Black people by white people.
In the late 1960s, the preferred term became black, but 20 years later, African American received strong support from civil rights activist Jesse Jackson.
He argued that this term celebrated African cultural heritage.
Not everyone was convinced, though, and today both African American and Black have their advocates.
The author’s own preference is for black with a lowercase b, as he considers it the most inclusive term.
And then, of course, there’s the N-word and the classic uncomfortable question that goes with it: Why can’t white people say it?
A little history can help here, too.
The N-word was used as an insult as early as 1775 and remained widely used until the civil rights movement.
These days, Black people sometimes use it when talking to each other, and it’s famously used in rap lyrics.
But such usage is a reclaiming of a word that remains incredibly powerful – and incredibly harmful when used by white people.
When a white person says the word, they say its whole history – stretching back to the time of slavery.
The implication is that they still think of Black people as second-class citizens or even as deserving enslavement.
Given that, is it that much of a sacrifice for white people to stop saying the N-word?
White people often marginalize Black people without even realizing it.
Back when Google Photos launched in 2015, it caused a serious controversy.
Google boasted that it could automatically identify the people and things in photos.
But some Black people found that it kept identifying them as “gorillas.
” Unbelievably, nobody had thought to train the algorithm to recognize Black faces.
And that had happened because of implicit bias – that is, people’s tendency to discriminate against others without meaning to or even really thinking about it.
The flipside of this is that white people often experience privilege without being aware of that, either.
Between these two tendencies, Black people find themselves at a huge disadvantage.
The key message here is: White people often marginalize Black people without even realizing it.
Not everyone accepts that white privilege exists.
As proof, they’ll argue that Black people’s civil and voting rights were ensured in the 1960s or that many white people are unprivileged and living in poverty.
But that’s not what privilege really means.
Imagine you’re competing in a race, but you get a 200-meter head start.
Just because your opponent is eventually free to run doesn’t mean it’s a fair race.
White privilege is the head start that all white people have in life.
Not every white person will be successful – but the difficulties they face won’t be due to their skin color.
Because they’re used to it, white people frequently take privilege for granted.
When you get in an elevator, do you check to see if you’re making anyone feel uncomfortable?
When you see a police officer, do you modify your behavior?
If your answer is, “Of course not,” that’s white privilege.
These are things Black people have to think about constantly.
White privilege manifests itself in relation to Black culture, too.
Is it OK for white people to be influenced by Black culture, adopting “Black” styles as Kim Kardashian has been accused of doing?
What about white rappers or jazz musicians?
Isn’t their interest kind of a compliment?
Not really, no.
When white people take from Black culture, that’s cultural appropriation, another manifestation of white privilege.
And let’s face it, white culture is dominant in America.
That means that every time it incorporates something from Black culture, it’s not like it’s asking permission – it’s simply taking by force.
Of course, it’s fine for white people to appreciate Black culture.
But they should try to appreciate it as Black culture – not as something they can just take for themselves.
It isn’t just individuals who are racist – it’s society.
If you think it’s been illegal to discriminate against Black people since the 1960s, it’s time to think again.
The laws may have changed, but the end result is much the same.
Today, white families are, on average, a full ten times wealthier than Black families.
Let that sink in.
Ten.
Times.
This financial advantage isn’t the result of benign good fortune.
Rather, it’s yet another result of white privilege.
Remember, white privilege is the array of societal advantages enjoyed by white people in certain societies.
These advantages can be as basic and personal as not worrying about how you’ll be perceived by law enforcement.
But they play out on a massive, society-wide scale, too.
And that’s what we mean when we talk about systemic racism.
The key message here is: It isn’t just individuals who are racist – it’s society.
Let’s take a look at housing.
In the 1930s, the Federal Housing Administration decided to rank groups of people in order of their “desirability” for home-ownership loans.
Guess what?
White nationalities like northern European made it to the top, while Mexicans and “Negroes” – remember, this was the 1930s – were listed at the bottom.
This played a pivotal role in how cities developed, making it much harder for low-ranked groups to borrow money for mortgages.
It’s where the term redlining comes from: in the housing administration’s maps, Black and Mexican areas were literally outlined in red, to their considerable disadvantage.
In 1968, the Fair Housing Act made redlining illegal.
But the practice effectively carried on, and neighborhoods are still significantly shaped by race.
Even today, just 43 percent of Black households own their homes, compared to 72 percent of their white counterparts.
That makes it far harder for Black families to build up wealth.
That’s had an enormous effect on public school systems.
Schools in poor neighborhoods tend to receive less money from local taxes because there are usually fewer businesses in these areas.
As a consequence, students in these neighborhoods are at even more of a disadvantage.
Black students in poor neighborhoods therefore face a double disadvantage: not only are they economically worse off to start with, but their schools are also underfunded.
Now, there are lots of programs that help level the playing field.
Affirmative action, for one, is aimed specifically at helping disadvantaged people into jobs and universities.
But isn’t that an example of so-called reverse racism?
Racism is only truly racism when a powerful group oppresses another, less powerful group.
In America, the Black population simply doesn't have sufficient power to oppress the white population.
In short, "reverse racism" simply isn’t possible.
The American electoral and justice systems are rigged to favor people in power.
Crystal Mason’s mother insisted that she vote in the 2016 election.
But when Crystal, a Black mother of three, arrived at her Fort Worth, Texas, polling place, she found she wasn’t registered.
No matter: she voted with a provisional ballot, which would be approved later – as long as she passed some checks.
There was a problem, though.
Crystal had previously been incarcerated, so she wasn’t eligible to vote in Texas.
She hadn’t realized that that was the law, but that didn’t matter.
Three months later, she was charged with voter fraud.
A year after that, she was sentenced to five years in prison.
That same year, Texas judge Russ Casey also committed a crime.
He collected and filed fake signatures in order to get himself onto a primary ballot.
A more serious crime, you might think, yet he received just five years’ probation.
The key message here is: The American electoral and justice systems are rigged to favor people in power.
This is what the author calls the Fix.
It’s the reason why systemic racism is so difficult to change.
Simply put, people in power are working hard to make sure that the people who want to change the system are unable to do so.
This often takes the form of voter disenfranchisement, the history of which is long and complex.
Back in the early days of the Constitution, enslaved people counted as three-fifths of a person each.
Population determines how many representatives each state sends to Congress, so this meant that Black people were underrepresented.
Not that they themselves could vote, of course.
After the Civil War, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments supposedly granted Black people the right to vote.
But several states found ways around this by insisting that voters pay poll taxes, pass a test on literacy or the Constitution, or own property.
Of course, people who had formerly been enslaved were far less likely to be able to do any of these things.
Voter suppression is alive and well today, too.
Voter ID laws are one example – Black people are less likely than white people to have ID, so forcing voters to show ID disproportionately reduces the Black vote.
Gerrymandering – that is, drawing voting districts in ways that favor a particular political party – is also still common, and just one of the ways that the influence of Black people's votes is minimized.
And then the justice system kicks in, ensuring that people like Crystal Mason are punished with extreme severity.
The Fix is alive and well.
The way we talk about Black crime perpetuates damaging stereotypes.
According to criminologist John Dilulio’s 1995 description, the superpredator is a pretty terrifying sort of person.
“They kill or maim on impulse, without any intelligible motive,” Dilulio wrote.
Crimes, from murder and rape to drug dealing and assault, simply come – as Dilulio put it – “naturally” to them.
Dilulio didn’t specify that superpredators were Black.
But he did say that the problem was greatest in urban Black neighborhoods.
His use of the word “naturally” also hinted that certain people were natural-born criminals.
Dilulio’s idea was influential and fit well with President Clinton’s crime bill, which had become law the year before and seriously toughened sentencing guidelines.
This set the stage for today’s era of mass incarceration.
Violence is still a huge problem today, and the way we talk about it – even beyond terms like “superpredator” – has the potential to make things worse, not better.
The key message here is: The way we talk about Black crime perpetuates damaging stereotypes.
One example is the term thug, which is often basically a substitute for the N-word, standing for a whole host of racist assumptions about violence.
It’s only a short step away from talking about superpredators.
Then there’s Black-on-Black crime, a term that people use to talk about crime in Black neighborhoods.
The term makes it sound like there’s something innate about Black people that makes them more likely to commit crime.
But poverty, not race, usually determines criminality.
And there are systemic reasons why many more Black people than white people are living in poverty.
That’s the real reason for the high level of crime in Black neighborhoods.
So Black-on-Black crime as its own special phenomenon is a myth – just like the familiar stereotype of the angry Black man, who’s inherently aggressive and threatening, especially to white women.
This stereotype is nonsense, of course.
Anger is an emotion, and Black people experience it just like everyone else, not more and not less.
If a Black person seems angry, they might be!
But that doesn’t mean that their anger has anything to do with race, racism, or their personal character.
So maybe just let them experience their emotion, just like you would anyone else?
But while we’re considering anger, what about anger in a larger sense?
Isn’t the treatment that Black people in America have received for the past few hundred years enough to make anyone angry?
Black families have faced huge obstacles for hundreds of years.
The author grew up in a household where both of his parents were around – they had moved to Texas together from Nigeria.
So, in that sense, he’s like a majority of white people, who grow up in two-parent households.
The proportion of Black people who grow up in two-parent households, however, is much lower.
And, not coincidentally, Black families also have far higher school dropout rates and incidences of teenage pregnancy than their peers.
They’re also more likely to become involved with the criminal justice system.
How has this come to be?
Once again, the answer stretches right back through American history.
The key message here is: Black families have faced huge obstacles for hundreds of years.
One day in 1841, a man named Cecar Pugh wrote an astonishing letter.
It was addressed to the man who he believed kept his only child, Harriett, enslaved.
In the letter, Pugh courteously inquired about the possibility of buying one of Harriett’s sons, who might be able to take care of Pugh as he grew old.
Can you imagine literally trying to buy your own grandson?
Things didn’t get that much better for Black families after slavery ended, either.
They were promised 40 acres and a mule, but most never received it.
Instead, they faced hugely difficult conditions.
Earning a living was tough, education was inadequate, and families frequently found themselves in poverty.
Slavery and its legacy have worked like a wedge, splitting Black families apart.
Cecar Pugh wasn’t separated from his family by choice.
The same goes for Black people throughout American history: Black families aren’t naturally predisposed to be this way.
The author himself can testify that family bonds are very strong in Nigeria, for instance.
Once again, the difficulties that Black families so often face are a product of history rather than an aspect of who they really are.
What about interracial families?
It’s always a beautiful thing when people love each other, of course.
But the author sounds a note of caution here.
White people shouldn’t enter into relationships with Black people and pretend not to notice their color.
That’s just another instance of color blindness – ignoring the reality of racial inequality.
Taking the opposite tack is just as bad, too; starting a relationship with someone because you think they’re exotic is incredibly patronizing.
Interracial relationships have their own troubled history: it wasn’t until 1967 that the Supreme Court ruled that anti-miscegenation laws, which prohibited marriage between races, were unconstitutional.
That’s just another example of how America’s deeply troubled history isn’t as distant as we might like to believe.
It’s incredibly important to protest systemic racism.
When the author thinks about protest, he sometimes recalls an incident from his childhood.
When he was 12, he was getting ready for school one day when he heard crying.
Going into the living room, he saw his mother in a fit of sorrow.
She was so upset that she was literally throwing herself against the wall.
She’d just learned that her sister had died.
Everyone experiences grief in different ways – the author’s mother felt anger, and that was her way of letting it out.
When people take to the streets in protest against the murder of George Floyd, for instance, something similar is happening.
Of course, violence is still wrong, but it’s an expression of that same sense of anger.
It’s vital to remember that even though violence isn’t justified, anger is.
The key message here is: It’s incredibly important to protest systemic racism.
It’s worth clearing up the difference between a few different terms: protest, riot, and rebellion.
Because, as we’ve said before, the words we use affect how the story is told.
A protest will ideally embody Henry David Thoreau’s concept of civil disobedience.
This happens when people find that their conscience is at odds with the way things are by law and express their objection.
For Thoreau, this took the form of not paying taxes because of slavery.
For Gandhi, years later, it involved hunger strikes to protest Britain’s occupation of India.
A riot is less civil, an actual disturbance that may become violent.
Many riots in US history have been white people attacking Black people.
One particularly bad one occurred in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898; another happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921.
In Wilmington, between 60 and 90 people died, and in Tulsa, it may have been as many as 300.
People often talk about the “race riots” of the 1960s, too, but the term rebellion might make more sense.
The difference?
While a riot is spontaneous and may not have a legitimate reason, a rebellion responds to injustice – it’s an act of resistance.
We should never forget the importance of voicing dissent in the United States.
John Lewis, the late civil rights activist, put it well: “Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.
To end racism, we all have to play our part.
Back when the author was a middle linebacker in the NFL, it was his job to organize the huddle – the moment in a football game when the players learn their roles.
The huddle is an important moment, no doubt – but nobody comes to a football game to see it.
What really matters is what happens next.
That’s the stage you’re at now in engaging with the effort to end racism.
Hopefully, you now have a better idea of your role.
What happens next is up to you.
The key message here is: To end racism, we all have to play our part.
Practically speaking, what can white people do to help end racism?
They can aspire to become an ally – someone who stands with an oppressed group and potentially loses their own privilege as a result.
Like everything else, allyship has a long history.
From the 1820s onward, the white abolitionists played a key role in ending slavery.
Other white voices later emerged against racist Jim Crow laws, including Juliette Hampton Morgan, a woman from Alabama who was highly vocal in her opposition to segregation.
She suffered dearly for her bravery, though: she lost her job, alienated her friends, and eventually died by suicide.
True allyship isn’t easy, and it certainly isn’t the same as being a white savior.
Too many white people fall into the trap of believing that they and they alone can save Black people.
It’s a narrative we see play out time and again in movies like The Help, where the white character gets all the credit, or books like To Kill a Mockingbird, in which it’s the white lawyer, Atticus Finch, who defends the Black man.
So what can you do?
Small steps are fine – and asking uncomfortable questions and listening to the answers is a great place to start.
Don’t be afraid to bring up the subject of race with your friends.
Try to diversify your social circle.
Go out and protest.
Get involved in politics and find out which policies are causing harm.
Will we ever live in a world free from racism?
It seems impossible today.
But people once found it impossible to believe that slavery would end.
And it wasn’t so long ago that a Black president seemed impossible as well.
True, racism has been around for 400 years.
It’s not going to disappear tomorrow.
But eventually, one day, it might.
And that’s a day we all need to work toward.
Final summary
The key message in these blinks: It can feel difficult and uncomfortable to talk about race, particularly if you don’t have firsthand experience of discrimination.
But by confronting uncomfortable questions head-on and educating yourself about the troubled history of race in America, you can come to understand the difficulties Black people face today and learn how you can help.
Actionable advice: Connect with some local protests.
If you feel strongly about something, why not make sure your voice is heard?
Find out what protests are going on in your area, or even organize one yourself if it isn’t happening already.
Protesting is a great way to walk the walk, as well as talking the talk.
If you have the means, you should also consider donating bail funds to help get protesters out of jail.
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What to read next: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson.
The blinks to Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man explain why many of the problems America faces today are rooted in its past.
For a deeper dive into the history of race in America, and the disturbing similarities between American society and the caste-based systems in India and World War II–era Germany, check out the blinks to Caste, a fascinating look at the long history of racial inequality.