Redefining racism in the Tea Party era

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I woke up the other day and noticed that everyone was a so-called “racist”—or so it would seem. The problem with this analysis is that it isn’t true. Over the past few weeks, a flurry of “racism” charges have been swirling around the public sphere, misinforming the American public about what racism is, and how we might address it. Bigotry is being confused with racism. Prejudice is being mistaken for discrimination. This misguided discourse is so popular because most Americans don’t know what racism looks like today—in the “post-racial” society that claims to celebrate “colorblind” or race-neutral policies that supposedly have erased all systemic barriers to equal participation and justice in American society.

Gone is legal segregation. Gone are color barriers to the most powerful political position in the country. African-Americans don’t have to march with signs that read, “I am a man” to be treated with dignity in restaurants or other public spaces. But just because people aren’t carrying the signs, doesn’t mean the signs aren’t there.

Talking about race and racism in America has always been difficult—in private and in the public sphere. Over 100 years ago, W.E.B. DuBois prophetically claimed that the problem of the 20th Century would be the problem of the “color line.” However, in the 21st Century, we’re challenged to cross a color line we’re not even supposed to see, even if the vestiges of racial bias, discrimination, and bigotry are still visible to any naked eye that’s actually paying attention.

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Recently, some among the Tea Party have declared that “racism” is not always a power relationship; but they are wrong. Racism is always about power. Racism and discrimination are structural (i.e. policy entrenched) barriers that inform actions that can systemically affect whole populations because of their perceived racial and ethnic affiliation. Specifically, “racism” is the negotiation between power and racial bias that shapes physical and social environments, and that determines whether opportunity is hampered or advanced. By definition, then, only those who have amassed full inclusion in the nation’s and world’s power structures can be called “racist.”

For example, a “racist” business model is one that targets African-American and Latino neighborhoods for predatory payday loans, deliberately and systematically trapping them in lending cycles that accumulate exorbitant fees that keep them trapped in poverty. A “racist” and “discriminatory” policy is one that validates the practice of criminalizing children of color (e.g., expulsion, arrest, incarceration, etc.) for abhorrent behaviors, while their white counterparts receive school-based counseling and other non-criminalizing interventions.

Bigotry and prejudice, on the other hand, are personal feelings that reflect a moral or spiritual poverty. Individual acts of bigotry and prejudice—as seen, for example, on political protest signs that hurl racial epithets—can drive the creation of the policy, but these are moral deficits more than they are “racist.” Though used interchangeably at times, bigotry and racism are not the same thing—even in a society struggling to redefine its relationship with the fluid and social nature of “race.”

Confounding these concepts can lead to other accusations of injustice; in particular, claims of “reverse discrimination,” where the successes of people of color are framed as losses for “hard working” (i.e., “more deserving”) whites. However, “reverse discrimination,” though firmly entrenched in our legal and social doctrines, is a convoluted concept painfully connected to the lingering myth of black and brown inferiority. Often, these cries are reflective of white anxiety over a perceived loss of power brought on by the symbolism of a person of color who has “made it.” However, the success of people of color does not lead to an automatic loss of power among whites. In fact, white males still hold the vast majority of decision-making roles in the public and private sectors.

All people, including people of color in powerful decision-making roles, should be held accountable for their words and actions. I am not an apologist for structural racism or individual bigotry of any kind, but a statement—even if it contains a racial epithet—does not a “racist” make.

Civil and human rights leaders are right to denounce manifestations of bigotry and prejudice that threaten the legitimacy of any political movement in our increasingly diverse society. We have developed a very low tolerance for overt bigotry in this nation, and that’s good; but our tolerance for racism in its true form should also be lowered. When we focus on eliminating the structural barriers that prevent everyone from full participation in our democracy, we all will win.