The Road to Terry - 056 - America's Perpetual Racist Grief
Last night there was a conversation that led to, “Americans are still grieving the idea of being racist.”
I wanted to chew on that a little bit. Elisabeth Kubler Ross first identified the stages in 1969. They are:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
When talking about America, we have to identify what we’re grieving first. The object of our affliction is Racism. I would argue that the stages we perpetually bounce in between are Denial and Anger.
Denial comes up because I hear people proclaim we are past race, I don’t see color, I’m not racist*, we’ve come a long way, I wasn’t alive back then, or Jesus will fix it without me needing to change anything. All of these are clear examples of passing the baton to clear us present day humans of any responsibility. Here’s my question to those beliefs.
If racism isn’t a problem, why are so many people still experiencing it AND who is causing that to happen?
I’ll sit back and let you sit with that for a second. Last year I spoke to my colleagues and stated, “We ALL know someone who has said or done something that is racists without us correcting it.” Therefore, even if YOU aren’t the offender, you had an opportunity to shut down racism and you didn’t take it. Due to fear. Fear of losing a relationship or fear of your own ego. This is truly denial. We are unwilling to acknowledge and act on an illness due to fear, so we act as if it doesn’t exist.
Lastly, there is anger which correlates heavily with the “I wasn’t around for that so why should I fix it” statement. If we all know someone who has committed some racist act, how can we possibly be unable to fix it? We have seen laws passed in the past 5 years that negatively impact people of color and some of us say, “Keep it on the books”. We’ve seen this anger play out through history via the Civil War, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, the War on Drugs, police violence, and mass incarceration. Stop telling me it’s a thing of the past.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Trump earned nearly 75 million votes. This means that 75 million people side with someone who is okay with accusing 5 black and Latinx boys of raping a woman, banning Muslim people from entering the country, allowing white nationalist to march through Charlottesville, and encouraging the Capitol Riots THIS YEAR. You can miss me with it hasn’t happened in my lifetime. It’s happening now. Looking the other way while people continuously get harmed is an act of violence, denial, and anger. You must look in the mirror and move to the next stage.
When are we going to step out of denial and anger to acceptance?
*Actions can be racist even if you don’t consciously think about it or plan for it to be negative.