On Juneteenth and the racism of white confusion and denial

With Juneteenth now a federal holiday, a decision made on Thursday, the day before the Friday that would mark the holiday (I mean come on now!) many Black folks and others have been expressing mixed feelings about this development.

Corey Bennett Williams, a racial equity educator, healing coach and a Black woman, summed it up well in a post on Facebook:

"I love Juneteenth. Normally, I would have already made my strawberry soda syrup. I’m having a tough time this year and I want to share my very complex feelings about it becoming a federal holiday. A lot of Black folks I know are having a tough time with it this year.

I am both happy that Juneteenth is being recognized as a federal holiday AND upset by it. Here’s why..." (read her full post here)

Unrelated to Juneteenth, our team has been having a lot of conversations lately with white leaders and their BIPOC staff about tokenism, performance, lip service, hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. There is a HUGE toll to pay when actions and impact are out of alignment with professed values. It is EXHAUSTING.

And so many white people are sooooooo confused. There is a severe lack of understanding of nuance. It’s not an excuse, but I do see that most white people have not had to think about race for most of their lives, and BIPOC have to every single day, whether consciously or not, just to navigate the world.

“I’m white so I don’t feel qualified to talk about race,” is something we hear a lot.

And my response is - you do realize that as a white person you have a race? You have a racialized identity? You are treated a particular way because of your race? You experience race every day too, just not in the same way? So no, you may not be qualified to talk about the experiences of people of color, but you can and should reflect on your own experiences as a white person.

Same is true for gender and really for all the different dimensions of identity. I remember going to a parent session on gender and there were no men! What, the men think that they don’t have a gender identity?

Anyway, if you or your org is being criticized for tokenism when you are focused on hiring BIPOC, the answer is not to throw your hands up in the air and stop hiring BIPOC, it is to understand that it is not enough to hire BIPOC but you also need to create systems and a culture that will support them and give them what they need. If you’re only doing the things that make you look good, you are still causing harm.

Oh and spoiler alert: just because YOU personally do not feel you have witnessed racism or sexism or all of the harm your staff is speaking about - that does not mean it isn’t happening!

You not believing that racism is happening is racist in and of itself and added evidence that it is.

When we start to confront the truth about the history and ongoing legacy of systemic racism and white supremacy in this country, what we are doing is undermining the very fabric of the lies that we have all been socialized into about the very nature of this project that we call the United States of America. We are undermining a kind of systemic gaslighting that takes what is aspirational about this country and pretends that we have already achieved it.

And maybe we have achieved it - for some.

Understanding the truth about this country isn't about hating it, or about hating white people - it's about loving both, and being committed to bring impact and results in alignment with professed intentions.

I've found in our work that people of color and of other systemically marginalized identities generally have a much faster learning curve - they take to it quickly because what we uncover validates and affirms our experiences and our lives in a way that the dominant narratives never did.

For white people though, I get it - it is disorienting, unnerving, overwhelming, demoralizing. Everything that made sense to you about your life no longer makes sense. Your reality is suddenly up for debate, and that can feel like gaslighting, oppression and abuse when taken at face value. We have found that equity feels like oppression to those who have privilege - it isn't oppression when you're the one with systemic power, but it can still induce a physiological stress reaction of fight, flight or freeze.

If you've experienced other trauma, for example the way that white women have often been deeply traumatized and abused at the hands of patriarchy, or the way that white men have often been deeply traumatized and abused at the hands of toxic masculinity, that trauma can get triggered as well.

It might feel like oppression, but the other difference when you have more systemic power and privilege, whether you wanted it or asked for it or not, is that you are more likely to cause harm, and that harm is going to disproportionately land on those who have been given less systemic power and privilege.

Your confusion and denial, your defensiveness, your disorientation, your overwhelm - you need to unpack all of this and heal from it so you don't continue to cause harm.

We are incorporating trauma-informed practices into our work and consulting and collaborating with clinical psychologists and licensed therapists to deepen our understanding of how to support various constituents within our client organizations through this process.

If white people become so fearful and traumatized by the process that they opt out, that isn't exactly helpful. At the same time, we can't depend or wait for those in power to be ready. It's a dilemma, but as always, I think we each need to look at where we can make the most impact and help move the most people along while also continuing our own journeys of recovery and liberation.

Banner photo by elizabeth lies on Unsplash

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