Race, babies, and being white

On NPR's All Things Considered today, there was a story on infant mortality, and the U.S.'s abysmal ranking as 30th among industrialized nations (It was once 12th) Listen here, if you want: http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=120098242&m=120098821

Though this is pretty sad, what I found more maddening was that the preterm birth rate for black women is two times that for white women (The preterm birth rate for Latino women is lower than blacks and higher than whites), even when adjusted for things like income, obesity, education, income, and disease. The fact is that babies born to black and Latino mothers, even those who are well educated with good incomes, are still born preterm at a higher rate (and die at a higher rate) than babies born to the poorest, least well educated white women. A researcher who was interviewed said that it may make some people uncomfortable, but that it really is related to the physiologic effects of experiencing lifelong racism.

Uncomfortable? I'm not uncomfortable, I'm pissed. It's not that I'm surprised that there are serious physiologic consequences to living as a person of color in a racist society, it's that it's such a sensitive fact to discuss that a scientist who is clearly disturbed by this trend has to "prepare" the listeners to hopefully hear her message, which, I believe is this:

Stop. Stop denying racism. Stop this bullshit about a post-Obama/post-racial society. If nothing else has swayed you, consider what it would be like to be an expectant parent, all the planning and preparation and money saving and excitement. Then imagine that baby being born too early, and struggling to live in a NICU, hooked up to tubes and monitors. Imagine the sleepless nights in NICU rocking chairs, holding on to needle-thin fingers of your too-small baby's tiny hand. As painful as it is to imagine, now think about losing that little soul you forged out of love and tears and hope, imagine that infant not making it, imagine burying that baby before it was even supposed to be born.

Are you uncomfortable yet? You should be. Our collective white denial, my white friends, puts the infants born to our sisters of color in this situation at a rate we should all be ashamed about.

All this is what was left unsaid in the story, what was whispered between the spaces of the words.

Hear what I am saying here; it is not my aim to create or contribute to collective white guilt. Guilt serves no purpose at all when it comes to healing our perniciously racist society. This is yet another call to action. I know the economy is preoccupying us all. I know health care is stealing all the headlines. I know global warming may make all of this other stuff a moot point anyway. And I don't have a clue how to remedy the racial disparities in infant mortality in the U.S., but I do think whites can work individually and collectively to at least begin to minimize the physiologic effects of lifelong racism. Maybe it's picking up a book by Tim Wise, or challenging a racial joke, or becoming aware of our privileges. But we can do something, and we should.

I know it's not a task that's easy, or without complicating factors. This was made explicit for me last Saturday. I was at a writing retreat with a nearly all-white group of authors, editors, and aspiring writers. (That's basic step number one, by the way. If you're white, note all the places and spaces you go that are majority white. Most, if not all people of color do this as a matter of day to day life, so let's do the same. This will show you how starkly segregated our society still is, a result of racist real estate policies in Post World War II America). In one session, I came a few minutes before the start and I heard the white instructor  assuring one of the other participants, an Asian woman, that of course she belonged at the retreat, and said, "You're Asian after all, of course you belong here." The Asian woman smiled flatly and the instructor hurriedly explained that she was referring to an old Doonesbury cartoon where the "model minority" stereotype was invoked as three students with Asian last names were given academic awards after the teacher gave a speech to his multiracial class about how diverse and equitable the school was. The instructor laughed and said, "That is one of the funniest cartoons ever."

I, apparently, didn't get it. There was no reason at all to refer to race in this situation in the first place. And then the cartoon reference, it wasn't funny. So what if there are educators who portray that racism has been eradicated because Asian students often have high achievement rates. How is a cartoon-referenced stereotypical intellectual superiority of Asian students (which is, in itself a myth) supposed to assuage a woman who was expressing vulnerability around a soul-exposing creative pursuit such as personal writing (the theme of the retreat)?

I had to say something, so I asked the instructor to explain why the cartoon was funny and how it applied to this situation. The more she explained, the more it was clear to her that she'd blundered racially, so, as we whites often do, she continued to talk, attempting to knit together the story in her head that keeps her believing she's not racist. When I remained unconvinced of the validity of her amusement with the cartoon and it's use in the session, I said, "I just find that more offensive than funny." She conceded that she could see how it might be and thanked me for asking the question.

At the close of the workshop, the instructor made a quip about being worried that I might think she's a racist. I was thankful for it becuase that meant she'd be willing to talk more about it. As a white person, I know such a comment is code for "please reassure me that I'm not a total racist and didn't just totally make a person of color totally uncomfortable." We talked for about twenty minutes and I felt like it was a frank conversation that brought some things to the surface for her to continue to engage with. I started and ended with my basic premise: I do think you're racist, and so am I, and so are all us whites. We can't not be in this country. It's how we act on our racism, or don't, that makes the difference to our non-white friends and acquaintances. She seemed receptive to hearing that. I also got feedback that she appreciated me addressing her comment. I felt good about how I handled the situation, and I believe she'll think twice about using race in a similar manner in the future

In fact, I felt a little too good. And this is where the insidiousness of white privilege piece comes in. The Asian woman in our session was one of my roommates for the weekend. As I walked back to our room, I noticed that I was walking faster, feeling eager to get to the room to see of she was there to debrief the whole situation, and, and... "Aw, fuck!" I thought then. I realized that what I was hoping for, what I wanted to do was to go talk to this woman so that she could validate me and thank me for my valiant effort at calling out the less evolved white person, for coming to her rescue and saving her from having to call out yet another racist white woman.

I don't regret saying something. I think we all need to step up the ways in which we speak up and stand up. But I was disappointed that my motivation turned out to be that I wanted to be seen and appreciated and liked by one of the few people of color at the retreat for doing so.

Step number two, perhaps, in social justice work, is to know that people of color, or any person who's a member of an oppressed identity group that I am not a part of, do not need to be saved. They've managed remarkably well for centuries under fairly brutal societal conditions. We need to be saved from ourselves, white folks.

Having caught my motivation, I slowed my gait down, took my time on the walk back, and slipped quietly into my room. I said hello to the two roommates who were there, one of them the Asian woman from the session, and left quickly to join a Halloween party at the retreat center. I refused to bring up what had just happened, even though a part of me, the immature part of me that still longs not to be identified as racist, really wanted to. She never did bring it up, and all I could do was laugh at that privileged part of me, the part that loves to ride out on my horse and save people of color from other white people's ignorance.

And yes, even now, that part of me is thinking ahead to which person of color who reads my blog will applaud me for a piece well written. But my stronger motivation for me to include this personal experience, and for writing so raw about the infant mortality story, is that I want to connect with my white brothers and sisters out there. I want to engage your stories and your experiences, to connect to that part of you that I think all humans have that all about love and equity and respect. We're not subject to those physiologic effects of lifelong racism referred to earlier, but I have to believe that none of us wants to remain a silent part of the conditions that mean others experience lifelong racism.

What can you do today to destabilize racism?