Exhausted. Angry. Depressed. Resigned. Frustrated. Cynical.
I have felt all of these over the last year. I know you have too.
In the face of the explicit and constant hate, it can feel overwhelming and demoralizing. The harm and deaths at the hands of hate are devastating. A lot of the rhetoric and energy over the past few months has focused on combatting hate. It is important and compelling.
And yet, as we approach Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the message most clear in my heart is this: the absence of hate does not equal the absence of racism. Or sexism. Or discrimination against trans people. Or the end of oppression for any marginalized group.
My concern is that a single focus on hate lulls us into ignoring the persistence of the system. If we truly ended hate, of course it would be positive. All of us would rejoice in a world that would surely see less vitriol and less violence. We would see the end of the singular extreme acts which many people have come to understand as racism. But we would not see the end of racism. Because hate and hate incidents are not the same as systemic oppression.
Hate did not create systemic racism. Hate did not create persistent educational inequity. Hate did not create the school to prison pipeline. Hate did not create the gender gap. Despite the horrible rhetoric we hear coming from the President, hate does not inform the country’s immigration policy which persistently marginalizes and injures people of color[i]. Hate does not maintain inequities in health care or real estate.
Ending hate is too low a bar.
And I fear that our attention on “hate” serves as a distraction. It deludes us into believing that we are fighting the “good fight” without addressing the “good people” who maintain the system. And white folks, the singular focus on hate serves us.
The idea that hate is the ultimate motivator of racism is cultivated to maintain the status quo. By framing it this way, most white people feel exempt from any personal responsibility for racist behavior (“I don’t hate people of color”) while simultaneously feeling righteous in condemning individual examples of hate (“That rhetoric was abhorrent! I would never use that language”).
It’s a cycle that replicates itself and distracts from the racism operating every day. In other words, the stubborn insistence in the belief that racism is an individual act fueled by hate serves to maintain and feed systemic racism in our society.
If you’re starting to feel defensive or angry, please stay with me. I want to remind you of an important point I have written about in previous years that bears repeating: You do not need to be a person of ill will to perpetuate racism. The dichotomy of racist (bad person) and non-racist (good person) does not truly exist. You can be a good person and engage in racist behavior.
Robin DiAngelo writes “The most effective adaptation of racism over time is the idea that racism is conscious bias held by mean people. This ‘good/bad binary,’ positing a world of evil racists and compassionate non-racists, is itself a racist construct, eliding systemic injustice and imbuing racism with such shattering moral meaning that white people, especially progressives, cannot bear to face their collusion in it.[ii]” So, if we stayed locked in the belief that acknowledging our racist thoughts or behavior makes us bad people, we will be perpetually stuck.
And we will not see any meaningful change in our society. We will not see King’s dream fulfilled. We will not see the arc of the universe bend towards justice. We will not see the fruition of any of the other sentiments expressed around MLK Day each year, sentiments that become mere platitudes absent true reflection and action.
And what is that action? The compelling antidote to hate we’re told is love. I don’t dismiss the power of love. But I do believe that we must interrogate what we mean by “love.” What is love? Is it simply an idea? A sentiment? What kind of love?
King himself distinguishes between types of love: “eros” – romantic love, “philia” – love for personal friends and “agape”- understanding, creative, redemptive good will toward all people[iii]. I gravitate towards Cornel West’s belief that “justice is what love looks like in public.” These manifestations of love – Agape. Justice. – assume action. They are verbs, not nouns.
And that action includes turning inward. This love challenges our perceptions of self and engages in the hard work of recognizing our part in perpetuating racism.
The kind of love worthy of fulfilling the promise of MLK’s dream is love which seeks to be much more than an antidote to hate, but instead, a force against oppression.
Endnotes:
[i] https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1264&context=blrlj
[ii] https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-sociologist-examines-the-white-fragility-that-prevents-white-americans-from-confronting-racism?fbclid=IwAR2kM9lTSnNhCkNIFzPxWksaJeKdUaZucQtRkKLjxi9PyTSju4aOnaovjBY
[iii] “A Christmas Sermon on Peace,” Martin Luther King, Jr, 1967
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