The following is an excerpt from Dear White Friend, by Melvin J. Gravely

 

You are not typically a bystander on issues, my friend.  I have watched you get into the details of a situation.  From neighborhood zoning to tax levies to proposed new gas pipelines to the new mascot at your high school alma mater; I see how you have the capacity to get into the details and probe past the simple, topline answers to complex topics.  But studying the system of racism is different.  You question any system that isn’t producing the outcome you desire.  Is it because you are a benefiting bystander that you are choosing not to question this one?

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Racism exists – and its systems remain fundamentally unchanged – because we don’t care enough to question them.  Too often, the outcome is an intellectual drive-by with no real attempt at solving the underlying problems.  We hear something stated as a fact, and we accept it without critical review.

 

Dr. Carol Anderson is the author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide.  She refers to the phenomenon as presentation under the cover of reasonableness.  You have heard the pronouncements: crack down on crime in the neighborhood; wage war on drugs; require mandatory minimum jail sentences; purge voters from the rolls to solve rampant voter fraud; don’t allow White people to be discriminated against in college admissions.  All of these sound reasonable, yet none of them passes the challenge of an intellectual review.

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I would imagine these examples of “solutions” also sound familiar to you:

Problem: high Black male incarceration rates.  Response: create second-chance job programs.

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Problem: low graduation rate at urban public schools.  Response: support high-performing charter schools.

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Problem: Blacks have significantly worse health outcomes than Whites.  Response: calls for more health education.

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All are reasonable and maybe even helpful, but none of them challenge the systems creating the problems in the first place.  These are symptoms, not causes; they’re treatments, not solutions.

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Collectively, you and I have not engaged enough in solving problems.  We don’t drive the conversation to the root cause.  We don’t spend our intellectual energy asking questions.  Why are things this way?  Why are Black males incarcerated at such high rates?  Why are urban public schools performing so poorly?  Why do Black neighborhoods have higher rates of crime than White communities?  Yes, we give of our time and money to treating symptoms – improving public schools, giving to poverty initiatives, funding scholarships, and providing mentors.  But none of those activities address the ever-present operating system of racism.

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I’m not asking you to agree with me … yet.  Mostly, I’m suggesting you invest time in finding out for yourself.

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