Breaking the Silence
Unmasking the Difficulty of Courageous Racial Conversation
For
much of my adult life, I have been struck by the efforts to which educators
go to not talk about race. Not only does achievement data point us to
some alarming realizations about who is not developing requisite knowledge
and skills to negotiate an ever complex and changing world, but also the
ways in which students segregate on playgrounds as early as second grade
and how high school co-curricular activities are predictably enjoyed by
white, black or brown students, should serve as grounds for caring adults
to sit down and ask how and why race continues to impact our lives.
Ten years ago, I began to think about the energy educators, and for that matter Americans and fellow human beings throughout the world, expend avoiding all-important conversations about race. Indeed, these missed opportunities for "Courageous Conversations" seem to not only feel awkward and disingenuous to those of us that suffer the obvious pain of racism, but our collective silence generated mainly by a cultivated unconscious ignorance of many White people serves to set our society in great turmoil and perhaps global danger. What is the price we will ultimately pay for our inability or unwillingness to engage, sustain and deepen our interracial dialogue about matters racial? Beyond our children inheriting our same conflicts domestically, even our so-called "best and brightest" students will fail to contribute to meaningful, non-violent solutions to our challenges with race abroad?
Getting educators to talk about race, and then to subsequently lead in an anti-racist manner, has been the greatest challenge of my life. I have discovered that, for the most part, both educators who believe race to be a major stumbling block to addressing the needs of all children and those who see race as irrelevant with respect to student performance, equally struggle, albeit for different reasons, to stay engaged in the conversation. For the former, many have lost hope in our ability to "move this mountain." They see an ever-growing trend of insensitivity yielding virtual invisibility to surrounding experiences and perspectives of color. For those who believe "race is not an issue," they continue to fight against a need to define their own racial experience while dismissing requests that they challenge the mainstream belief that White racial dominance and privilege does not exist and thus, does not impact each of our life prospects, processes and outcomes.
In my work with otherwise compassionate people around the world, an over-riding phenomenon that locks us into silence is the fear of discomfort that our courageous words often bring. Many of us learned that if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. Others honestly feel that there is nothing to talk about. Specifically, many White educators have a lifetime of practicing color-blindness that is not seeing us as people of color.
Accompanying perceived blindness is a feeling of comfort in this contrived state. I say contrived because clearly no one is truly colorblind when it comes to skin color, but for many, there is little positive meaning to connect to particularly dark skin and so, again, why disrupt the solitude. I think we will experience discomfort as we break loose from the shackles of interracial silence. For many people of color, the avoidance of dialogue about matters racial, creates inner conflict and perhaps, permanent physical and psychological damage. For White educators, silence continues to foster feelings of guilt, not to mention a deep-seated fear of interracial confrontation. Or perhaps, silence enables racially dominant people to avoid acknowledging their own lasting cultural incompetence when it comes to understanding the plight of people of color and the learning needs of our children.
What happens in the rare occasions that we speak our truth? In my experience, we do get uncomfortable but we also, often, arrive at a deeper understanding of our own and others' racial perspectives and experiences. Because these conversations tend to be more present and practiced for people of color, our extensive vocabulary, often buried, intense emotions and proliferation of coping skills necessary to survive a racist society and school system, overwhelms our White dialogue partners.
As White educators enter the "Courageous Conversation" from an unrehearsed place, often it is difficult to capture the actual words to convey ones understanding or lack thereof in a way which does not display the very racism about which we have set out to dialogue. But how can we improve on matters racial if we continue to withhold our truth and don't expose and shatter those faulty myths which play in the heads, particularly of White people, that we play on a level, raceless playing field on which the most racially disconnected educators feel free to determine, in their relative racial isolation, that which is best for the rest of us?
The most difficult question was asked eight years ago by Troy, a precocious and super-conscious high school junior: "Do you believe we will ever see an end to racism?" Not so long ago, I naively believed that my hard work could bring about the changes in the world that I wanted to see. What flashed through my mind then were the ways in which scientists had found cures to what once-were thought of as incurable diseases. I pondered the wonders of space travel and the human accomplishments in personal computing and thought, "of course we can end racism!" However, I looked back at Troy and answered, "probably not in my lifetime." I have, indeed learned to live with this expectation and acceptance of non-closure. That is, I will not see the end of White supremacy not because we, as a human race, lack the skill, knowledge or even capacity to stop it, but because our existing collective failure is due to our ever-present lack of will to realize the lofty and noble principles of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and justice for all.
Thus, daily, I set out to facilitate difficult dialogues about race. Mostly with compassionate and intelligent people who want very much to improve how we positively impact the lives of others. "Courageous Conversations About Race" challenge our overall communication accomplishments and dialogue skills because it is virtually impossible to empty the racial space, trivialize race as a topic and truly embrace the minority opinion. But in spite of these truths, we struggle to listen with our eyes, paraphrase with our hearts and empathize with our voice. One "Courageous Conversation" each and every time I engage with a superintendent, principal or teacher is as much as I can do to address institutional racism — the most devastating factor contributing to the lowered achievement of students of color. Okay, so I can't fix it, but I can chose to die trying!
Now, who is willing to really converse?