Lisa Solod Warren's December 16th, 2009 article (which she has since been deleted) in The Huffington Post titled "Two Black Role Models Done In By Hubris" invoked a great deal of outrage. I caught wind of the article via Twitter where people were expressing emotions ranging from utter dismay to outright anger at - among other things - the racially patronizing tone in which the article was written. In a previous article I used Warren's article as an example for the importance of white writers to check their privilege before embarking on writing about racial issues. However, there are valuable lessons to be learned from the aftermath.
If you ever find yourself in this kind of situation, the best thing you can do is set aside your ego and listen. The knee-jerk reaction is to go on the defensive, but the best thing is to ignore that impulse and take in what is being said to you. Even in the heat of disagreement, it is crucial to try to empathize. Unfortunately, that's not what Warren chose to do.
Beware: The symptoms of Foot-in-Mouth Disease
First, Warren became dismissive, glibly stating: "it seems I am being labeled by some a racist. No rationale for that but people like to call out names." Then--not content with having only one foot in her mouth--she became defensive, saying "seems anyone who speaks about race is a racist."
Let's break this down one foot at a time.
If you write an article that results in a mass of people denouncing your article and possibly yourself as racist, it's not going to be for some arbitrary reason. Though it won't be comfortable, you need to accept the idea that you may have done what it is you are being accused. Calling the large group of people whom you offended irrational is not going to help. They're angry for a reason, you have to acknowledge that.
No serious person is ever going to say it's racist to talk about race. That's nonsense. The whole it's racist to acknowledge/see/talk about race thing desperately needs to go away. While the idea of colour-blindness may seem altruistic to some, it's really a byproduct of white privilege. The ability to see race as a "card" to be "played" is also a byproduct of white privilege. The problem isn't in acknowledging race but in letting race be a marker for determining a persons worth or quality as a human being. Since Western society confers unequal privilege to those who are white, white people and people of color experience life differently. To ignore this reality, to refuse to acknowledge race, is to willfully promote this inequality.
If you find yourself in this kind of situation and decide to respond, a piece of advice: don't ever try to back up what you said by citing the number of people of color that are your friends/colleagues/acquaintances. Saying something like:
"you would be surprised at the number of black people I know"
The last best hope for redemption
Even if you managed to fit not only both feet but your entire lower torso into your mouth, there is still an opportunity for redemption. You can make all the mistakes above and still manage to turn the situation around into a true learning experience. The way to allow such an experience help you grow as a person is by staying engaged.
Amongst the (justifiably) angry tweets, some including myself tried to reach out and engage Warren via Twitter in hopes of educating her on privilege. What could have transpired is a healthy dialogue on white privilege, aversive racism and how to identify and confront these within ourselves. The outcome of such a dialogue could have been Warren writing a new article about the whole experience and how she came to identify the racially condescending overtones of her previous article. She could have held herself accountable for her words. At the very least, she could have apologized.
Any or all of that could have happened, but it didn't. Warren chose to ignore the opportunity. Her last public words on the matter (that I could find) were: "I am the naive one. I never expected the post in HuffPo yesterday to go viral. I'm not a racist but it will be hard to convince otherwise." To forgo for now the logical quagmire of trying to prove a negative, it's unfortunate that Warren tuned out. Perhaps the sting of irony was too great; after all, her offending article was based on the alleged hubris and supposed downfalls of President Obama and Tiger Woods. If ever there was a more profound example of irony or hubris than what happened with that article, I don't know what it is.
Final piece of advice: Start here
Peggy McIntosh's paper White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (1988) is widely considered the primer on the topic of white privilege. Despite being written over 20 years ago, much of what McIntosh says still applies to our contemporary Western society. It truly is required reading for white writers and activists who wish to seriously engage in discussions on race. Lisa Warren may have brushed off the suggestion to read it, but I hope those of you reading this article that are white will take the few minutes it requires and read it now.
Cross-posted from Race-Talk.
Follow Mike Barber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/apastdenied
Assuming, as many have done, that because I say I am not a racist, I therefore must be is akin to thinking someone who protests that he isn't crazy must be insane. And because I wrote an article that many people took as racist does not mean I am so...as further investigation into my writing might have proved:
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/postmortem-morning-not-mourning-in-america/
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/the-measure-of-a-man1/
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/how-about-electing-a-creative-thinker/
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/character-assassinated/
Mr. Barber's assumption that he tried to reach out to me by tweets is also disingenous. I had no idea the article had gone viral, I had no idea why people were following me; I didn't tweet the article myself. He assumes that I did not care , while his description of my defenses illustrates a woman bewildered and genuinely confounded by some of the reactions to the post. Each of my protests was met with more attacks. It is hard to start a conversation that way, which is why I chose to back off and sit tight for awhile.
But that the article was found offensive by many is accurate and, again, I apologize.
There is much more to say about race in America--but this comment is not the place. Suffice it to say that I heard you, Mr. Barber, and all the others. I heard you.
But putting Woods and Obama in the same post was ill-advised. Obama is a different kind of role model and rightly so. A majority of our country--including progressives, the young, and first-time voters-- put him in office and as such have a right to be disappointe, in his leadership. That has nothing to do with his being black: it has to do with our expectations born out of his promises. And using the word "hubris" was certainly not meant to signify uppityness: In fact, a Washington Post editorialist used the same word to describe Obama last week. I stand by my statement that the president's sense of himself does not jibe with what he is doing for the people who elected him. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/29/race.relations.poll/index.html is a poll which interviews black Americans on how they feel now about Obama.)
Criticizing Obama has become a polarizing issue: those who wish to hold his feet to the fire are fighting against those who wish to support him, no matter what. It is a difficult time for both the President and the country. That's another reason for a dialogue on race. Why our high expectations?
As a Jew I have been subjected to a huge amount of anti-Semitism and I would like to think I understand discrimination a little. I don't see myself as a victim and never have; I do put down a lot of it to sheer ignorance and misguided assumptions. My experience with anti-Semitism means that I am much more than a white woman of privilege.
But I, in no way, wished to speak for black people in America, and did not presume to do so in my article. I was trying to talk about role models--and as America in general idolizes sports figures, it was not an idle assumption. In addition, Woods had received praise for his mentorship. (see media coverage as illustrated here: http://www.mediaite.com/online/tiger-woods-now-officially-more-important-than-911-in-eyes-of-new-york-post/)
I do think, however, that it is not only blacks who can write about black issues; as it is not only Jews who can address issues of anti-Semitism, or only women who can speak to misogyny, etc.
(cont. below)
I am glad, however, that I happened on this article by accident; it might have been nice to alert me to it so that I could repond, as I am doing here.
Yes, I took the piece down. It was clearly stoking fires I did not wish to stoke and the comments were degenerating into personal attacks on me and my writing (as happens frequently on the 'net, especially under the easy clock of anonymity) See my article on same here :http://blogcritics.org/scitech/article/the-painful-art-of-blogging/
However, to in your tags, link me with the KKK, is the grossest of hyberbole and one good reason that a national dialogue about race, which Eric Holder called for last year, may be a long time coming. (continued below)