Taking Responsibility for Racism

I think our minds are experts on shifting blame away from ourselves. No one likes to feel like something is her fault, especially something huge and terrible. (I suspect that’s one reason why people get extremely defensive when they are accused of being racist. Most of us try very hard not to be racist and to be told that we are in some way is very hard to hear.) Sometimes the mind is sneaky about this. I caught mine absolving me of responsibility and it took me a while to realize it was doing that.

I’ve long said that I’m not sure it’s right to hold people responsible for the behavior of their ancestors. The only thing we have in common with them is that we were raised and taught to behave by the people they raised (and so on back), which does mean that we could have some very incorrect ideas about other people built in to how we grew up.

Despite this belief, when people say “your ancestors did this to my ancestors” I say that’s not true. My ancestors are predominantly Irish, Scottish, and a little French. All people who did not invade India (or anywhere as far as I know). Not all white people are the same race!

Yet, this week I realized two things.

One is that I avoid responsibility on both sides. If I’m going to claim that racism is not my fault because my ancestors weren’t oppressors then am I fully claiming being Hindu or am I taking advantage of being in a weird limbo to avoid full responsibility for either side? Hindus are not and have not always been perfect. If I’m not taking responsibility for the ways in which white people haven’t been perfect, then I definitely need to take responsibility for the ways in which Hindus haven’t been perfect. I can’t get out of both!

The second is that I’m still a part of the oppression and the racism just because of how I look. I can’t help that but it’s the truth. My ancestors may be people who were also oppressed but I share the appearance of the oppressors and that’s not something I should hide from. (Not to mention that even though I don’t know about it and have probably actively avoided finding out, there’s more than likely British relatives in my ancestry. My family does descend from Europe.)

Let me use an example to explain. Let’s say there’s a person who looks fully white saying something terrible about black people. And the white person excuses it by saying, “I’m part black so I can say that. My great grandmother was black.” But the fact is, it doesn’t make what she’s saying any less racist. She reads as white. She participates in society as white. She only uses the knowledge of the black relative to avoid responsibility for racism.

So what do these realizations mean for my life? I’m not sure yet.

At this point I’m working on recognizing racism when it comes up in me and in others (racist thoughts do happen occasionally and I don’t think I’m the only one who experiences that! But I tell my mind, “Hey, that’s racist!”) I want to be part of ending racism. Part of that is respecting and acknowledging when others feel upset even when it’s for something that I didn’t personally participate in.

The best I can do now I think is call out racism when I see it and get better at seeing when it occurs.

I can’t fix the oppression of the past but I can stop trying to dodge all responsibility for it. I am a member of a group of people (a group covering many races and ethnicities, but all still white) who did hurt other groups of people. I’m sorry for that.

I’m sorry but it is not guilt that motivates me to dedicate myself to keeping things like that from happening again. It is important to me to end racism because it is wrong. That’s the plain and simple truth.