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For white people, in my humble opinion, believing the story that you are white, can place you into a mental prison of illusion.
Did you know there was anti-slavery language in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence? The decision to remove it – the economic decision – still continues its path of destruction around whiteness and our seeming inability to choose confrontation and change over emotional safety and comfort.
Last month, described in this New York Times article, a psychiatrist was invited to give a guest lecture at Yale School of Medicine as a part of “Grand Rounds.” Normally, all the lectures from the week are put online for additional viewing. But that lecture, by Dr. Khilanani, was taken down.
Her lecture was titled “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” In Dr. Khilanani’s words, she “used provocation as a tool for real engagement.” She spoke of a number of images, including a fantasy around gun violence – and she named that talking directly to white people about race is a “waste of our breath… We are asking a demented, violent predator who thinks that they are a saint or a superhero to accept responsibility…”
The same article quotes her explaining, “Too much of the discourse on race is a dry, bland regurgitation of new vocabulary words with no work in the unconscious,” she said. “And, if you want to hit the unconscious, you will have to feel real negative feelings… My speaking metaphorically about my own anger was a method for people to reflect on negative feelings. To normalize negative feelings. Because if you don’t, it will turn into a violent action.”
After her talk was taken down from Yale’s website, she commented:
“Something is emotionally dangerous about opening up a conversation about race… No one wants to look at their actions or face their own negative feelings about what they are doing. The best way to control the narrative is to focus on me, and make me the problem, which is what I stated occurs in the dynamic of racism… My work is important. And, I stand by it. We need to heal in this country.”
I identify with Dr. Khilanani. Some days totally, other days to a lesser degree. My folks have been trying to get folks to do the right thing since 1619, and I am totally spent, trying to do the collective therapy think healing pie-in-the-sky riff.
Such a personal identification does not sadden me, but inspires me. (I’m leaving that intentionally cryptic; my hope is that you look into your own looking glass.)
Malcom X would have agreed with Dr. Khilanani. In his words:
“The white liberal is the worst enemy to America, and the worst enemy to the black man. Let me explain what I mean by the white liberal. In America there is no such thing as Democrat or Republican anymore. In America you have liberals and conservatives. The only people living in the past who think in terms of I’m a Democrat or Republican, is the American Negro. He’s the one that runs around bragging about party affiliation. He’s the one that sticks to the Democrat or sticks to the Republican. But white people are divided into two groups, liberals and conservative. The Democrats who are conservative, vote with the Republicans who are conservative. The Democrats who are liberal vote with the Republicans that are liberal. The white liberal aren’t white people who are for independence, who are moral and ethical in their thinking. They are just a faction of white people that are jockeying for power. The same as the white conservative is a faction of white people that are jockeying for power. They are fighting each other for power and prestige, and the one that is the football in the game is the Negro, 20 million black people. A political football, a political pawn, an economic football, and economic pawn. A social football, a social pawn. The liberal elements of whites are those who have perfected the art of selling themselves to the Negro as a friend of the Negro. Getting sympathy of the Negro, getting the allegiance of the Negro, and getting the mind of the Negro. Then the Negro sides with the white liberal, and the white liberal use the Negro against the white conservative. So that anything that the Negro does is never for his own good, never for his own advancement, never for his own progress, he’s only a pawn in the hands of the white liberal. The worst enemy that the Negro have is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros, and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have. If the Negro wasn’t taken, tricked, or deceived by the white liberal then Negros would get together and solve our own problems. I only cite these things to show you that in America the history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negros think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems. Our problems will never be solved by the white man. The only way that our problem will be solved is when the black man wakes up, clean himself up, stand on his own feet and stop begging the white man, and take immediate steps to do for ourselves the things that we have been waiting on the white man to do for us. Once we do for self then we will be able to solve our own problems. The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox. One is the wolf, the other is a fox. No matter what, they’ll both eat you.”
The denial of equality and liberty and dignity, human and civil rights for those of us of the African diaspora has been true from before the beginning of this country. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men” are “created equal.” As we know, those proclaiming the “equality” chose to completely deny liberty – human and basic rights – to roughly one in five people in the country.
At the time, there was a ray of hope for my ancestors. As described in this piece by Yohuru Williams for History.com, as he was drafting the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson included language that condemned slavery (and the British Crown for its practice of enslaving humans) as “piratical warfare,” an “assemblage of horrors” and:
“cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.”
My ancestors were then appealed to to further the interests of those who had enslaved us. Britain denied our liberty, shipped us to the colonies, then offered to buy back our liberty – if we offered to try take up arms against the rebelling colonizers. Jefferson named the hypocrisy: “…thus paying off former crimes committed against the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”
And, of course that is only one of many hypocrisies, including of Jefferson himself who enslaved more than 600 people over the course of his life, including his own children with their mother, Sally Hemings. Even as he was dying, Jefferson chose not to free any of the people he enslaved.
Jefferson sent a draft of the Declaration of Independence to a small committee – including John Adams and Benjamin Franklin – and all the anti-slavery language was removed. So off the country went, into centuries of denying human and civil rights for people of African descent. Economics was chosen over the stated core national values of liberty and equality.
Racism can be addictive. More so than any narcotic or social engineered policy. The psychic support at the expense of others and the emotional camouflage that racism beneficiaries receive can be so sweet and satisfying. Going cold turkey might be the only cure.
I’d love to know what you think.
To reach Tom directly: tomficklin@aol.com
Thank you Tom for this well stated challenge to the soft, safe approaches to talking about the goals of racism. A friend of mine often says stand on principle not party. Courage to write as you have is needed and appreciated. The work of Dr. Asa G Hilliard speaks to the “white neurosis” upon which these systems are built and thrive.
Thank you
Thanks, Tom. I have called upon many organizations and the United States government to remove the category of “race” from their literature and classifications as a way of being anti-racist. I have approached journalists and academics. We must call what people do to each other what it is and not hide behind false systems of categories. I get a kind nod and a dismissal. The facts that we must speak about racism without accepting that the classifications we acknowledge so commonly are malevolent fabrications is beyond me. We will never reach the level of humanism that will usher in civil rights, human rights and world peace if we do no go to the core of it. We must be anti-racist and that means not speaking of each other as different “races”. We need to demand the intellectual honesty and effort involved in true emergence from what you call the illusion of race. We must kick the habit.
Thanks Tom for this brave piece on the topic of racism. Dr. Khilanani lecture at Yale on the white mind must have hurt the white man like touching the third rail in a subway because they took it down. Any mind that thinks humans are property and can be brought and sold like furniture is without a doubt a psychopath with serious mental problems. The white brought sold and abused blacks and went to church on Sunday like nothing ever happened. I think that promoting racism is the white mans drug of choice. They are addicted to it like crack and can’t seem to stop. We cant even mourn one killing before they kill another black person. Malcom was right when he said we have to break the cycle of racism by first helping ourselves as black folks and stop asking them for anything.
Tom,
I commend you for the brave and scholarly piece. Truth is so hard to hear. Fantasy, fairy tales help us to perpetuate our fictionalized version of self. Denying, hiding and lying about facts are how we do so. It is time to ad you say unmask the lie and the liars. Thank you for this provocative piece.