Michele Norris: Our Hidden Conversations

This book is an extension of the Race Card Project founded by Michele Norris, where people were asked to distill their thoughts on race down to six words.

The exercise is hard, but I and other members of the book club found it also helped us think more clearly about race and our relationship to race.

Prior to community discussion, I shared some of my own reflections while reading, like the reflection Norris shares from Nicole Moore, who makes the intentional decision to provide a realistic portrayal of work at a slave plantation, where she describes how many visitors desire collective amnesia, wanting to be told slaves were treated well, for example, or dismissing the very real psychological terror white power produces.

Moore tells us: "The enslaved outnumbered white folks, but the white folks had a sense of power based on terror."

We often talk about the physical brutality, but white supremacy is a whole-person plundering.

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Our community discussion was deep and robust:

One book club member kicked us off by sharing her six words: "This country was built on slavery."

Seems simple, right? But then as they were talking through why the words struck them, they said: "I always knew it, but I didn't know it." We sat with that together for a minute, and again, what seems deceptively simple showed itself as remarkably insightful and deep.

How many of us know this country was built on slavery but haven't really known it until we started doing the work of more thoroughly interrogating our own experience in this world against a thousand other things, like books like Isabel Wilkerson's "Caste" and the videos of Black men being murdered in the street, and our own conversations with people who are under the thumb of systems of oppression.

Somehow, really knowing and feeling and honestly thinking about this country's history brings the reality of where we are now ever closer.

As I was sitting there thinking about those six words shared by this member, the simplicity of really knowing hit me like a ton of bricks, and as I sat with the revelation even after book club, I was thinking about how this knowing is marked by the inability to look away.

Now that I know know, I can't pretend that things aren't as bad as they are or that slavery wasn't absolutely calculated brutality that built predominantly white wealth.

Capitalism will have us all believe that those who make the most, worked the hardest. But a true reconciliation of our history demands we pull back the curtain and admit that it was humans in bondage who are almost solely responsible for early wealth accumulation, and that today's racism reinforces some of the same hierarchies that favor a few over the many.

We also talked about the adoption "discount" for Black children that several people in the book spoken about with honesty and clarity.

I didn't even know that was a thing, and our discussion was deep and in some cases personal.

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Similar to "Caste," we spent two months with this book.

At our second meeting, another member started our conversation with their six words: "People of color can't be colorblind."

We talked about how white people use the self-proclaimed virtue of being colorblind as a kind of "get out of jail free card." Saying you don't care if someone is "black, white or purple," first, isn't truly possible, and second, disrespects the very real experience of Black people and other oppressed populations who navigate this world being continually reminded that in almost every aspect of life, from equity to justice to jobs to property ownership, color does indeed matter.

Building on that idea, someone shared a point about "weaponized incompetence." Too many white people too often wash their hands of getting in the anti-racist struggle by simply suggesting they really know nothing about the actual problem, which in turn makes it easier to downplay any harm that Black people and others tell them is happening because of racism.

We have one member of book club who is our resident motivator and is always asking "How can we fix this?" and encouraging us to think of ways we can move the needle.

During this discussion, they talked about what they were calling moments of "micro-activism," reminding us all that even the smallest actions we commit to have meaning, like having conversations with undocumented people or with people experiencing racism and being ever mindful of asking: "What do you need?" and "What can I do for you?"

There can be real power in small actions because there is real power in reminding someone that you see them and are willing to be a co-struggler alongside them and, whenever possible, will use your own privilege to ease their burden. By privilege, I don't mean money (exclusively, at least), I mean the ways in which living as a white person is, in every measure, just easier.

We all shared small ways we take action. One member who works in animal rescue described the inequity that exists in the animal rescue world and the ways in which their own work is in service of pushing back against harmful and untrue stereotypes around who can/should be allowed to rescue, and what animal ownership/stewardship looks like.

A dog wandering the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago's south side, for example, is often thought of differently, can't possibly be a beloved pet who accidentally got out of the yard. Instead, the dog in Englewood is first thought to be an abused animal who folks assume is at-risk and needs rescue not return.

Or the way in which white people have impossible standards around pets, like feeding organic, fresh food, which isn't accessible to many pet owners.

In the microcosm of animal rescue, working toward more equity means making sure that everyone who can benefit from animals has the opportunity to do so.

We all talked about how to be white in this world with the intention of being anti-racist needs constant and enduring effort.

So much of white supremacy hums in the background unnoticed, and when you're white, you benefit, whether you think you do or not.

That means continually reminding yourself to be proactive and trying to account for how white supremacy is shaping both your own experience of the world, as well as what needs to happen to disrupt systems of oppression rooted in white supremacy.

For me, that work, in part, starts with the act of belief.

When someone tells me they experienced racism or I read something from a BIPOC creator about racism, I start with this thought: I believe you.

Starting there instantly puts me in the mindset of some of what we talked about around micro-activism, wherein the question that naturally follows is: "How can I help you?" or "What do you need?"

I think it's easy to diminish the experience of others when you've not had to navigate the same challenges. I think it's too common for white people to assume racism isn't as bad as people say or that when they're told of an experience the person must be overexaggerating or being dramatic.

To work against that, I try not to give myself the opportunity to even consider anything other than believing what someone is telling me about how they experience the world is true.

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Have thoughts? I'd love to hear them.