{"id":36139,"date":"2024-02-26T11:00:46","date_gmt":"2024-02-26T19:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=36139"},"modified":"2024-02-26T16:44:53","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T00:44:53","slug":"but-if-youre-thinking-about-my-baby-it-dont-matter-if-youre-black-or-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/but-if-youre-thinking-about-my-baby-it-dont-matter-if-youre-black-or-white\/","title":{"rendered":"“If you\u2019re thinking about my baby, it don\u2019t matter if you’re Black or White\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week we read Not So Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity Politics[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em> by Kenan Malik; this book was about how our society has come to think about race and the growing acceptance of race-based and identity-based ideology. We also explored the tension between diversity and equality, and pondered the implications that class might have in the conversation surrounding race. Along the way questions arose: \u201cIs white privilege real?\u201d And \u201cIs there such thing as systemic racism?\u201d And \u201cwhat the heck exactly is CRT?\u201d (my words, not Malik\u2019s).<\/p>\n

In other words, this book is about how we got to where we are in modern race relations. It was a lot to get my head around, primarily because of my personal history of trying to grasp racial issues, and the ping-ponging of racial imperatives I\u2019ve lived my life under.<\/p>\n

To start with (and as I\u2019ve mentioned in a previous post) at different points in my life growing up, I was poor. Like government-cheese-and-peanut-butter<\/em> and food-stamp<\/em> poor (some of you know what I\u2019m talking about). We had a happy, godly house and my dad and mom worked incredibly hard to provide for us within a lower income working class context. But there was very little money.<\/p>\n

I can also recall growing up as a minority in the various places we lived. When I was in the 3rd<\/sup> grade my brother and I got beat up walking home from school because we were white with blonde hair (to be clear, we were explicitly<\/em> told<\/em> that was the reason why we were being beat up). We stopped using that street to get home after that.<\/p>\n

Regardless of our challenges, we were taught to be \u201ccolorblind\u201d. We learned that every human being was the same inside and that we were part of a human race, not segregated into races represented by colors or contexts. However, we were also raised to appreciate<\/em> the many differences that did exist (skin color, culture, language, food, etc.), and it\u2019s a lesson I took to heart\u2014I recall on more than one occasion complaining to my parents that our family was boring, because we didn\u2019t eat the food, or speak the language, or have the cultural heritage, that my friends did.<\/p>\n

This \u201ccolorblind\u201d attitude was reflected in the music I listened to. Whether it was DC Talk with \u201cColored People\u201d[2]<\/a>, the Stevie Wonder\/Paul McCartney duet \u201cEbony and Ivory\u201d[3]<\/a> or Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cBlack Or White\u201d[4]<\/a>, these kinds of songs reminded me to look beyond color when I was encountering a person.<\/p>\n

Then at some point in my adult life, I said something in public about working to be colorblind and I got dressed down for it. At first, I was confused. But as I explored the argument, I saw that the diversity of color, as well as other great things about people like background, language, culture, etc. shouldn\u2019t be something I\u2019m blind to, but something I learn to celebrate.<\/p>\n

Point taken. I already personally appreciated diversity, so it was an easy jump to more publicly recognize and celebrate it. Then, one day I was talking to a black friend about the diversity on the platform at my then church, and he asked, \u201cbut how many people of color do you have on your executive team or council?\u201d. He told me that non-white people were used to being the entertainers on the stage, but rarely had the opportunity to be the deciders in the boardroom.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, I was schooled, and humbled, that day.<\/p>\n

Before I run out of room, here are some things I learned from Malik, and how I overlay his book with my life experience:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. No matter how much I truly appreciate and celebrate diversity, it\u2019s different than equality. In my opinion, we need to work towards both, with a priority on equality (but not dismissing diversity).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    1. Class may be an accurate predictor of discrimination and a foundation to racism, but racism itself is still a huge problem. Malik agrees that institutional (or structural) racism is a thing, and I would further suggest that white privilege is a thing, too. Because while I grew up often quite poor and sometimes excluded because I was white, I enjoyed (and continue to enjoy) benefits many of my non-white friends did not, for a lot of reasons I don\u2019t have time to get into here. And, I also have non-white friends who grew up rich, who to this day must be aware of things I\u2019ve never<\/strong> had to consider, such as being careful around authority, or dressing in ways that don\u2019t make them a target of racism.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \n
      1. To state the above in a different way, racism is one of the world\u2019s Wicked Problems. It can\u2019t be solved, only struggled with. That is tragic, but we must keep struggling. However, I get<\/strong> why \u201cidentitarianism\u201d might make sense in this context; since we have failed to solve a problem that has impacted millions of people for hundreds of years, perhaps the next best solution for those impacted is to have safe spaces with others who have also been similarly impacted. To say racism isn\u2019t dead but decry any type of identity grouping is, I feel, somewhat disingenuous.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
          \n
        1. The significant decline of the universal liberal tradition represents a tectonic shift in our culture. Until reading Mounk [5]<\/a>, Petrusek [6]<\/a>, Lukianoff [7]<\/a>, and Malik, I had no idea that I was a classical liberal, but now I consider it a badge of honor.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Like I said, it\u2019s a lot to get my head around, but I know I can\u2019t put my head in the sand. This book more than any other we have read has caused me to want to ask more and deeper questions and \u201cdo my homework\u201d regarding racial issues, so I can honestly, critically, and lovingly engage everybody who shares my common humanity.<\/p>\n

           <\/p>\n

          [1]<\/a> Kenan Malik, Not So Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity Politics, <\/em>London: Hurst & Co, 2023.<\/p>\n

          [2]<\/a> DC Talk, \u201cColored People\u201d, from the Album Jesus Freak<\/em>, 1995.<\/p>\n

          [3]<\/a> Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, \u201cEbony and Ivory\u201d, from the Paul McCartney Album Tug of War,<\/em> 1982.<\/p>\n

          [4]<\/a> Michael Jackson, \u201cBlack Or White\u201d, from the Album Dangerous<\/em>, 1991.<\/p>\n

          [5]<\/a> Yascha Mounk, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time,<\/em> New York: Penguin Press, 2023.<\/p>\n

          [6]<\/a> Matthew Petrusek, Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture, Park Ridge, Illinois: Word on Fire Institute, 2023.<\/p>\n

          [7]<\/a> Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott, The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All, But There Is a Solution, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          This week we read Not So Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity Politics[1] by Kenan Malik; this book was about how our society has come to think about race and the growing acceptance of race-based and identity-based ideology. We also explored the tension between diversity and equality, and pondered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2489,3049],"class_list":["post-36139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp02","tag-malik","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36139"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36157,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36139\/revisions\/36157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}