Confronting racism; swapping spit and hugs

You will search the world in vain to find a “natural born racist”. Babies are never racist. Racism is a learned behavior.

We can also often tend to think of racism as always being blatant, obvious, out-in-the-open behavior.

For example, it’s easy to see the open racism in a KKK march. Or at a Nation of Islam rally. Both events are filled with a haze of hatred and ignorance so nauseating you can smell it.

Yet, more often than not, I find racism to be insidious … subtle and indirect. And, therefore, too often slipping by us - too often unconfronted.

I strive to confront racism everywhere I see it, hear it, taste it, or even catch a whiff of it. I’ve found that “letting it pass” only allows such ignorant and destructive behavior to boil and fester all the more.

But confronting racism successfully does not always have to be done with over-the-top tactics. In fact, I found that sometimes “subtle” is best.

My teaching for nearly a quarter of a century at the Bristol Jail helped me understand racism more than any words I’ve ever read in a book or heard in a speech.

I once had a student named Marcus. Upon first meeting me Marcus was proud to inform me that “all white people are racist”. Therefore he swore to me, “I would never even drink after a white man.” (Before you are quick to judge Marcus too harshly, if you knew his past experiences - as I came to know - you might well have joined him in his view. We don’t have to “condone” racism, but we can much better challenge it if we seek to “understand” where it comes from.)

Eventually, after several months of sitting by his side for two nights a week in the jail library, helping him study for his GED final exam, Marcus ultimately saw that I loved and accepted him as my equal.

My realization of this fact happened during the last few moments we would ever see each other in this world.