Keith Tidman and Richard Sherins: Uprooting racism in America
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“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin,” declared the legendary civil-rights leader Nelson Mandela in his tireless battle against racism. “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can learn to love,” he averred.
Yet racism in America still abounds. Among Blacks, there linger major disparities in opportunity, resulting from inequality of assets to voter suppression, job discrimination, inequality of education, food and health insecurities, and the biases of injustice.
Besides human-rights considerations, there are concrete reasons to uproot racism: legal, social, cultural, economic and moral. Our economic model needs the best educated, trained and motivated citizens to advance America’s global competitiveness in science, technology, economics and culture.
White supremacy has been central to America’s racism, persisting 400 years. Zero-sum anxieties among whites unleash fears of losing influence over policymaking, as well as concern over cultural familiarity, norms and economic privileges.
Meanwhile, biases perpetuate racist behaviors. According to psychologist Daniel Kahneman, ultrafast, reflexive thinking blocks analytical thinking. Ultrafast thinking serves as a seedbed for “autopilot” racism. The reality is that people often acquire discriminatory behaviors from prior generations.
So, how can America disassemble racism?
One approach makes antiracism an educational imperative. To influence behaviors, not only attitudes, it’s critical to inculcate children when their minds are young and malleable. The objective is to become aware of how subliminal bias affects racism and to teach analytical thinking.
A corollary to education is parenting. Key is setting an example for children, leveraging “teachable moments.” That being said, civil-rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois cogently counseled: “Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.” Like parents modeling antiracist behaviors.
Parents should speak favorably of Black role models, culture and contributions society-wide; underscore the hurtfulness of exclusion; encourage cross-race friendships; reset norms to embrace Blacks’ values; explain the deleteriousness of racism; encourage empathy and morality; and teach how race gets defined by superficialities such as skin color.
A nationwide commitment is needed to teach civics in schools. Essential is to include a complete history of America, embracing the history of Blacks and the role of racism, starting with slavery. Emphasis should be on people’s participation in democracy. Currently, knowledge of civics remains shallow — tinder for hyper-partisanship and distrust.
Religious institutions ought to proactively lead, especially in communicating with their “constituencies” regarding racism in America and overcoming biases. Religious groups, as social moralists, should present messages of inclusivity, tolerance, equality and the advantages of racial and ethnic commonalities.
Paying attention to how messages are framed is important, to avoid unintended consequences. Words matter; they can help or hurt efforts to mitigate racism. Through social-science-informed public outreach, use messages inventively to motivate people to understand what racist behavior is. Point out racism’s harms and remedies.
Appeals to passions are more powerful than rote logic in eliciting change. Lessons can be drawn from past public-service messaging to sway behaviors, like smoking cessation, use of seatbelts and dangers of drugs. Such programs resisted disinformation intended to cleave society.
Lastly, establish a civilian National Service Corps, comprising volunteers of diverse racial, ethnic, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds and tasked across America to develop small-scale infrastructure, assist in tutoring and extracurricular activities, help Blacks in computer and internet skills, navigate social services and be a font of new ideas to engage with one another respectfully.
“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct,” observed philosopher Bertrand Russell, “and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd” — the autopilot fear of strangers among us.
Keith Tidman writes essays on social and political opinion. Richard Sherins is a published medical clinician and researcher.