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Consciousness and Racism The Reverend Mark Edmiston-Lange, March 17, 2002 Anthropologists studying the skeletal remains of early homo sapiens have learned that one out of four human beings died from what the police today call “blunt force trauma”—clubbed or speared in some fashion. And you may also know that over the millennia there have been at least seven distinct species of hominids. How come only homo sapiens exists today? The most common explanation is that homo sapiens, that would be your ancestors and mine, killed off the others. In short, violence is not unusual among us. It is a part, a very troubling part, of our heritage. It is a particularly prominent fact of relationships between groups of human beings who imagined that they were different from each other. In the fourth chapter of Genesis, Abel, the “keeper of sheep” is killed by Cain, the “tiller of the soil.” As an aside, for you who are counting, the Biblical record states that after Cain kills Abel there are exactly three people on the planet: the Mom, Eve; the Dad, Adam; and the surviving son Cain. After God punishes Cain by sending him off into the wilderness Cain protests saying, “whoever finds me will slay me.” “Not so,” says God. “If anyone slays Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” Now even though I am not a gifted mathematician, I can still count. If there are only three people on the planet, who are these others that Cain is so worried about? Adam and Eve’s son Seth is not mentioned until the next chapter and seems to have been born much later, but even add him to the story and that still leaves four people on the planet. Undoubtedly Cain must have been thinking about aliens from another planet. Well, in any event, some historians of the Biblical record believe that the Cain and Abel story is a record of the disputes that most have arisen when the hunter/gatherer and nomadic societies were succeeded by agricultural societies. Just as there have been disputes between sheep herders and cattle ranchers, and between cotton growers and cattle ranchers, and between, dwellers in Clear Lake and dwellers in Pasadena, any part of Louisiana and any part of Texas, etc…you get the picture. Much later in the Old Testament narrative Moses receives the Ten Commandments. Taken as a whole they present an interesting picture. That is, their tone suggests some inner inconsistency among them if they are taken as universal moral truths. For example, commandment number two relates, “You shall not make for yourself a graven image; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the fourth and fifth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to those who love me and keep my commandments.” Fair warning to you who would be tempted by heathens, whosoever they may be. Number six, on the other hand, states plainly, “Thou shall not kill.” Except perhaps if you are assisting the Lord in visiting iniquity upon those bowing down to graven image type heathens. Perhaps you begin to see a hint of the inconsistency. Numbers nine and ten point to the source of the inconsistency. Nine states, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” And ten states, “You shall not covet your neighbors house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” Coveting is defined as inordinate desire for another’s possession. It is irrational behavior in that the desire is far stronger than, let's say, mere admiration. And, telling lies about neighbors is also a species of irrational behavior in that the liar forsakes one the basic tenets of reason, commitment to the truth as best as one understands it. The entire list of ten could be taken simply as a set of directives but the last two, focused on dealings with neighbors, leap out as quite distinctive. They define in fact, the body of people for whom the commandments apply—namely neighbors—fellow members of your tribe, your city. Neighbors are to be treated in an above board and rational manner. And as long as the rules are understood to apply only to your neighbors, they are consistent. But when strangers are brought into the equation, well that’s another story. How does God relate to people who, for instance, bow down to graven images, people we might think of as non-neighbors? God experiences jealousy when it comes to people who do not recognize the Lord’s sovereignty. Apparently these non-neighbors need not be related to in an above board and rational manner. It’s hard not to feel that, because of the tribal context of the commandments, when it comes to relationships with strangers—all bets are off. The whole list becomes provisional. You need not honor their fathers and mothers, you may kill them, you may commit adultery with them, you may steal, you may bear false witness and can covet until their cows come (to your) home. Which, come to think of it, seems a pretty fair description of a good deal of non-neighborly or we could say, sheep herder versus cattle rancher, etc. interaction. Several years ago when Becky and I lived outside of Washington D.C. the entire delegation of the New York City police department attending a law enforcement conference was arrested for the wanton destruction of their hotel rooms following an evening of just a tad bit too much drunken revelry. The combination of being away from one’s neighbors, and alcohol, is well known for leading to behaviors which one might ordinarily avoid. It is was not the best night for New York’s finest. But such things are not unusual when you are not among your neighbors. One of the most common and particularly vehement expressions of such non-neighborly interaction is called racism, and its ubiquity suggests that we may be underestimating its influence if think of it as merely a form of misunderstanding. Thinking of racism as mere ignorance creates an aura of simplicity about it, as if all we need do is correct that simple misunderstanding on our parts. With such a correction racism will then become a thing of the past. An example of this educational approach can be found in words Oscar Hammerstein wrote for the musical South Pacific: You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear, You’ve got to be taught from year to year, It’s got to be drummed in your little ear— You’ve got to be carefully taught! You’ve got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made, And people whose skin is a different shade— You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late, Before you are six or seven or eight, To hate all the people your relatives hate— You’ve got to be carefully taught. Hammerstein’s lyrics reflect a longstanding belief that people have been socialized to adopt racism. His irony points to a belief that we could teach people the opposite lesson—that it was unnecessary to hate. Yet when we confront the millennia in which racism has been widely and unapologetically practiced, revealed even in the tribal background of the Ten Commandments, we must first admit that we confront something that is deeply ingrained in human consciousness. But identifying racism as something very basic to how human beings commonly regard each other is problematic for us. Normally racism is something we seek to overcome. In our heart of hearts racism is most commonly felt by us as a charge of which we’d rather prove ourselves innocent. Yet such hopes of overcoming or being innocent may only turn out to be instances of paying less attention to, being less aware, refusing to acknowledge that deep in the plumbing or our psyches there exists a racial well from which we routinely and often unknowingly draw. What can be done about this? If racism is that deep—what can be done? The first thing, acknowledge that racism does operate from deep within our consciousness. If there is anything that we have learned over the past several decades, it is that shutting something away from sight does not solve the problem. Hiding something only makes the hidden thing worse. But what must accompany our acknowledgment that racism is a deep seated human reality? Some in our society choose to stop here. They claim that as humanity’s consciousness is deeply infected by racism, we should therefore adopt racist behaviors. We however, cannot stop at this place. First, we have a moral imperative to imagine that we are not merely held hostage by these enduring structures of our consciousness. The moral imperative should be obvious, clearly there is so much injustice and misery which can be directly tied to racism. Second, we have a historical imperative to find some other way by which different races, and each differentiated group for that matter, can easily find reasons for treating each other with respect. This historical imperative is derived from the fact that we face one of two futures. We either will experience increased friction and destruction, or increased sense of human community. The very success of our technology, not just in armaments, but in communications and transportation, leaves us increasingly vulnerable to racial and sectarian violence. Over the past few decades democracy has indeed spread, but too often if it is a democratization of violence. One individual with a few barrels of fertilizer and a lot of determination can wreck devastation unheralded in human history. Obviously, getting out from under the grip of racial consciousness will not be easy, but it is very important to distinguish the impossible from the merely very difficult. And very often, it is the very difficult thing that turns out to be the most worthwhile task. Dr. Bill Jones, a Unitarian Universalist social ethicist has built upon the work of the sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois. It was Du bois who coined the term “double-consciousness” using it to describe the African American experience of both being a part of, and not being a part of, American society. On the one hand African Americans lived here. And at the same time, the ideals of the country such as liberty and justice for all, all are created equal; these seemed to suggest that African Americans had as much right to the American dream as anyone else. And yet the actual experience of African Americans led them to believe that the dream did not really apply to them. You can see how this “double-consciousness” would take root and become a common unsettling experience. Furthermore, this consciousness is the root cause of much of the feeling of being a second class citizen, no matter the level of success that a particular individual has achieved. So even though great strides have been made in equal opportunity over the past several decades, this troubling matter of double-consciousness remains as a kind of undressed wound that will not heal. You might recall from the reading this morning that Du Bois first remembers encountering this troubling consciousness when he was a school boy. The children were exchanging valentines and up to that point W.E.B. Du Bois did not know there was something remarkably different about him. Well, one of his classmates intentionally refused to exchange a valentine with him. Suddenly the realization broke through. He is a black child, and not a suitable recipient of a white child’s valentine’s greetings. No imagine if you or I, a white child, in that same class, received exactly this kind of treatment from the young lady with poor manners. We might imagine there was something wrong with us, perhaps there was something we could do about that thing which was wrong with us. But could we do something about being black? No. And let us suggest that maybe the young girl did not refuse to give him a valentine because he was black but because she was jealous of his academic abilities, or even most innocently, because she ran out of valentines when she got to his seat and gave him a sneer to cover up her embarrassment. All of those interpretations are, in fact, ones which any white child could derive from the exchange. But there is only one conclusion that a black child could derive from the slight. He didn’t get the valentine because he was black. Du Bois record of this childhood incident is emblematic of what is a routine experience for African Americans. White Americans have at their disposal a great variety of interpretations to understand why something did not go as well as they hoped. For African Americans on the other hand, with any mistreatment, any slight, any loss, accidental or intentional, they cannot avoid the deep seated suspicion—it is because I am black. It doesn't matter if the mistreatment has nothing to do with their race—they never have the luxury of imagining any other cause. This is the great psychic burden of double consciousness—one cannot escape the routine feeling that one is a second class citizen. Following this analysis, how might we wish to address racism which exists at the deeper levels of patterns of consciousness? Can we simply say, “Stop doing that?” Probably not. In 1994 Rwanda was the scene of horrifying genocide. Tutsi’'s and Hutu’'s, the two principal tribes of the nation, began murdering each other, the warfare ultimately leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. There were specific political events leading up to the massacres but the underlying antagonism is only one hundred and forty years old—a babe when it comes to racial tension. In 1863 the English explorer John Hanning Speke wrote a book, Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile, in which he used Biblical records to describe the history of the people living in Rwanda. The Tutsi’s, he claimed, were descendants of Ham, and therefore migrants from what were thought to be the Hamite people of Ethiopia. By his specious analysis Speke gave the Tutsi’s the supposed prominence of an Eastern Asian background, like long lost Babylonians, an identity which they proudly adopted. The Hutu’s on the other hand began to look upon their neighbors in a decidedly non-neighborly fashion—as invaders from the north. The blood on both sides began to boil but it took the addition of modern armaments to create the truly evil massacre that took place in 1994. I have related this story because it points out to me that as deep as racial consciousness might be, it is an astonishingly elastic reality. Irresponsible people can mold it easily. What happens when responsible people attempt a similar molding? Indeed, how might we do some molding of our racial consciousness? The concern of almost any neighbor is, “who belongs here?” Strangers make one a little more alert. If you live in an expensive high rise apartment complex and you emerge from the elevator at eleven o’clock at night and find someone poorly dressed in hall on your floor, you cannot help but feel wary. Just so, the Hutu’s believed that the Tutsi’s did not belong in Rwanda. Perhaps the Tutsi’s really did migrate from Ethiopia. But one wonders where the Hutu’s migrated from? And we white people of America, we who believe that we belong here—where did we come from? You might think that I am going to suggest something about our relations with Native Americans but that is not really my point. For where did the earlier tribes of North American come from? They too were invaders. And as successive waves of tribes moved across the landscape they too invaded lands already used by others. Such mobility suggests that not any group of us, anywhere, on this very busy planet of ours, can claim that we are the ones who really belong anyplace. We are all invaders, migrants, and we make the claim of justified possession only as violence allowed, not because there was some natural right to ownership. Given that, in a fundamental sense, we are all migrants, newcomers, it should seem reasonable that we all should feel the burden of double-consciousness, that we belong here, and yet we do not. What is the virtue in this? Some sense of equality among the races will not succeed if all we do is insist that black people be more like white people. The dominant asking the oppressed to become dominant is on the face of it absurd. But it is entirely possible for us as white people to be more like black people, to admit to the fact that we too are guests, that we too are strangers among each other. We homo sapiens have a long and sad history as an uncommonly violent species. But we also need not be the victims of our history. The sociologist Cornell West has spoken eloquently about America’s prospects for escaping from the adolescent behaviors of our racial divides. We can become adults, take responsibility for who we are and how we relate with one another. As deep as instincts for racism may reside, we can mold them to good account, learn how racial distinctiveness can always be a matter of pride and not the motivation for fear and violence. Our success in this project depends entirely, however, on the effort of those who have enjoyed unjustified racial advantage. When we, you and I who are white, stop denying that we too are a race, when we, you and I who are white, always know that we are a race, when we, you and I who are white, come to fully understand that we too are guests on this great green earth, then perhaps we will finally learn to treat each other, no matter the race, with a little more kindness, and great deal more respect. When the authors composed the narrative of the Cain and Abel they did not feel they had to take into account the existence of other people—they did not matter. Having just turned the corner on another millenia, we no longer have the luxury of imagining that other people do not matter for our own story. We are all too close to one another, there is no wilderness to which any of us can escape or to which we can banish those who look different. This earth, it is the home for us all. |
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