What Does It Mean To Be "Woke"? (Part 1 of 4)
/Around 10 years ago at a Christian conference that included a segment on the topic of race and racism a known black Christian leader explained that people ask him what they can do to help race-relations. His answer was simply to be “aware”; be aware that race-relations in America are not perfect. That was it, that was the answer. 10 years later and everything has changed.
You might now be very confused about terms and phrases like “racism,” “social justice,” being “woke,” “racial reconciliation,” “white privilege,” “antiracism,” “racialization”, “white supremacy”, and the like. And you’re not alone. This paper seeks to review and respond to what is being widely communicated and embraced inside and outside the church under the broad banner of “social justice”; specifically, social justice as it pertains to race and racism. This paper intends to be helpful on the ground where these ideas are being embraced. In order to review and respond to popular ideas about “social justice”, this paper will primarily be interacting with three highly influential books: Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, and How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram Kendi.
Before we begin, three things should be made very clear. First, racism is evil. All people must repent of racism. Among many nations throughout the history of the world, America too has a vile history with racism. Second, the following blog series seeks to summarize the modern social justice movement’s worldview, a worldview increasingly embraced in the church. Lastly, not all three of the above mentioned authors agree on everything. Thus, the following series will seek to (1) explain the idea that the authors of these books communicate and seem to all agree on and (2) respond to those ideas.
This blog series will be organized according to four major headings. First, we will seek to understand what these leading voices are teaching. What is the big idea concerning “social justice” or “racial reconciliation”? What does it mean to be “woke” to racial realities? Second, having established the big idea we will examine the calls to action these leading voices are making. If you believe in these ideas, what should you do? Third, we will consider the reasoning of these ideas. What, if anything, should you embrace in these ideas, whether you are a Christian or not? Lastly, we will conclude by considering the biblical nature and/or effects of these ideas. In other words, what, if anything, should Christians embrace in these ideas?
First, what is the big idea concerning “social justice” or “racial reconciliation”? What does it mean to be “woke” to racial realities?
Racism has not gone away. “History demonstrates that racism never goes away; it just adapts”, writes Jemar Tisby in Color of Compromise.[1] Racism “remains a persistent problem” and the “racial divide between Christians has, in some ways, become even starker in recent years.”[2] Racism is just as present today as it was during any time in American history, including the vile days in which black men, black women, and black children were considered something less than those made in God’s image and were brutally enslaved, raped, stolen, and murdered.
How can the racial divide be “even starker” today given the progress American society has made? The answer: racism has adapted, morphed and changed. Progress has not really been made at all, racism just looks different. Even when progress seems to have been made, there is another answer for it. For example, Robin DiAngelo in White Fragility says she rarely encounters the kind of resistance to her racial sensitivity training she faced in her early days. Is this not progress? According to DiAngelo, no, it is not. She says she faces less resistance because she has grown in her skills as a trainer.[3] Today, racism is still just as sinister or more so.[4] One view is that racism has adapted because it has learned that it needs to be stealthy. People have learned to be secretly racist because racism is by and large condemned by people, even by those who actually perpetuate it. Another view says racism is just so deeply baked in our society that it is natural to our entire way of life in America.
Racism is so foundational to life in America, and in the church, that it is invisible. DiAngelo writes: “The dimensions of racism benefiting white people are usually invisible to whites”[5] and, “In fact, much of white supremacy’s power is drawn from its invisibility…”.[6] Tisby writes, “At this point, readers of this book may be searching for the proverbial ‘smoking gun’—explicit evidence that connects the American church with overt cooperation with racism. But racism, since it is socially constructed, adapts when society changes….Since the late 1960s, the American church’s complicity in racism has been less obvious….Nowadays, all the American church needs to do in terms of compromise is cooperate with already established and racially unequal social systems.”[7] In other words, Tisby is not going to offer an overt “smoking gun” of racism described in today’s society. Rather, the claim is that racism is invisibly embedded into the foundation of just about everything. DiAngelo does not point to a “smoking gun” either as she opens her book stating, “…[this book will not] attempt to prove that racism exists; I start from that premise.”[8]
Racism is “covert, embedded in the normal operations of institutions, and it avoids direct racial terminology, making it invisible to most white people.”[9] Racism is everywhere, in everything, and perpetuated by all white people, you just can’t see it and it is not directly tied to actions, ideas, intentions, or discourses. DiAngelo summarizes her argument writing, “…white people raised in Western society are conditioned into a white supremacist worldview because it is the bedrock of our society and its institutions”.[10] Our country is founded on “A color-blind Constitution for a White-supremacist America,” writes Ibram Kendi in How To Be An Antiracist.[11] Kendi writes, “To be American is to be white.”[12] While American history is full of brazen, open, obvious racism, today racism is essentially invisible to everyone except those who are either victims of it and/or those trained to see it (i.e. people like Robin DiAngelo or those that have woken up to this reality). However, the invisible and indiscernible racism of today is just as bad as the overt, discernible racism that plagues American history.
So, the question is not, “Where is racism?” but “Is there anything that is not perpetuating racism today?” Tisby writes that America’s leaders “embedded race into the foundation of both the fledgling American nation and the church”, both now having a “flawed foundation” that Jesus needs to “deconstruct” and “remake…into a house for all nations.”[13] It is not only in the bedrock of the foundation of American society, it is in the bedrock of the foundation of churches and seminaries. In summary, “…unjust power is everything, always, and it manifests in biases that are largely invisible because they have been internalized as ‘normal’.”[14]
Does that mean everyone is racist? DiAngelo concludes, “…your parents could not have taught you not to be racist, and your parents could not have been free of racism themselves. A racism-free upbringing is not possible, because racism is a social system embedded in the culture and its institutions.”[15] In other words, to avoid racism is like trying to avoid being an American if you are born a citizen of America. It’s impossible. DiAngelo states multiple times: “We must continue to ask how our racism manifests, not if.”[16] Concerning who is racist, according to DiAngelo “racism” is something only perpetuated by white people against non-white people and it can be done subconsciously and unintentionally. According to Kendi, while anyone can be racist, he seems to imply that racism can only be directed toward non-white people. Thus, anyone can be racist but racism is only directed toward non-white people.
We must be clear on the definition of racism at this point. The definition of racism really cannot be assumed in a given conversation because “…racism is deeply complex and nuanced, and given this, we can never consider our learning to be complete or finished.”[17] If you think racism describes an individual who believes they are superior to another person based on skin color, that is only one part of what someone might mean by “racism” today but it may not mean that at all. Racism refers to a “system of oppression based on race”[18] or “a racialized system that permeates all interactions in society yet is largely invisible except to those who experience it or who have been trained in the proper ‘critical’ methods that train them to see it.”[19] “By definition, racism is a deeply embedded historical system of institutional power.”[20] In other words, to be a racist you do not have to believe you are superior to another based on skin color. You do not have to have racist intentions. You could be a morally perfect person but guilty of racism because you live in a racist “system”.
Thus, there are only two options: either you have woken up to this reality and are now actively fighting against this racism as an “antiracist” or you are at best complicit a racist system and way of life and therefore perpetuating it. We will return to this concept of being an antiracist later.
Ultimately, racism is about power; it is about the oppressed and the oppressive. Specifically, racism is about white people who hold power oppressing non-white people. Thus, a world without racism is only possible “…if we focus on power instead of people, if we focus on changing policy instead of groups of people.”[21] The conversation about racism is far less about racism in someone’s heart and far more about powerful American systems and policies. Americans are “racialized by power”.[22] The real problem is power being used to “create inequality and oppression”.[23] In other words, abuse of power leads to disparity in America. America is a nation structured by white people using their power to oppress non-white people, all justified by ideas about race and skin color.
In summary, you can be an oppressive racist while condemning racism just by living an ordinary American life because racism refers to the powerful, invisible social system that everyone is shaped by that oppresses non-white people. Racism is about the cultural norms in which you live and perpetuate, including policies you’re governed by, that are all racist, whether you know it or not. American society is racist and “it is the social system and its inherent power dynamics that are seen as the causes of oppression, not necessarily willful individual agents”.[24] Intentional or not, American society is invisibly racist in almost every conceivable way. This means unless you are actively fighting against racism in certain ways you are at best a complicit racist, regardless of your intentions and heart.
If right now you are thinking, “But I’m not racist,” it is because you do not understand that racism is so deeply woven in the fabric of society, in your childhood, and in the daily messages you receive from culture all around you, that you are not even aware of your racism. Your personal thoughts and intentions are almost entirely irrelevant. In fact, your confession that you’re not a racist is a sign of your racism. This is the core of DiAngelo’s argument as she calls the white person’s aversion to confessing their racism their “white fragility”. DiAngelo does not need proof of racism because the claim “I’m not racist” is her proof of racism.
Jemar Tisby does not seem to see overt racism as the core problem but the subtle, invisible complicity with racism. Tisby writes, “The relative invisibility of these racialized structures to white Christians often leads them to unknowingly compromise with racism.”[25] In your compromising with racism you are complicit with racism and thus remain someone perpetuating racism. So, whether you intend to be racist or not is irrelevant. You are someone oppressing an entire people group, holding them back from standing on equal footing with you in life. That’s what you are guilty of and no one needs a “smoking gun” to find you guilty.
These ideas form a worldview. It is a way of filtering all experience and discourse, interpreting and reinterpreting the past and the present. Those that hold to these ideas “interpret the world through a lens that detect power dynamics [i.e. racism] in every interaction, utterance, and cultural artifact—even when they aren’t obvious or real”.[26] This worldview is always looking for and finding ways in which oppressors are oppressing.
James Lindsay provides a helpful illustration: imagine you work in a convenience store in which you are to greet and offer help to everyone who enters. A black man and a white man enter in at the same time and you are faced with who to offer help to first. Who do you choose? If you chose the black man, this worldview asks, why do you think the black man is a threat and needs to be watched so closely and quickly? If you chose the white man, this worldview asks, why do you favor and privilege white people over black people? This worldview offers no option in which race and racism was not active and present, it assumes a situation involves racism and then brings the assumption to light by way of accusation.
This worldview interprets “all our human sociological interactions in the most cynical way possible”.[27] What is clear is that this worldview, as said of Critical Race Theory/Intersectionality in Cynical Theories, “…puts social significance back into racial categories…”.[28] These books pack significance into racial categories and then condemn nearly everything as racist. Informing this is the shaping influence of Critical Race Theory/intersectionality (CRT/I) that is “geared toward identifying and exposing problems in order to facilitate revolutionary political change.”[29] This worldview is “centrally concerned with ending racism, through the unlikely means of making everyone more aware of race at all times and places.”[30] James Lindsay and Helen Pullock summarize this worldview well:
“[CRT/I] does the same thing over and over again: look for the power imbalances, bigotry, and biases that it assumes must be present and pick at them. It reduces everything to one single variable, one single topic of conversation, one single focus and interpretation: prejudice, as understood under the power dynamics asserted by Theory. Thus, for example, disparate outcomes can have one, and only one, explanation, and it is prejudicial bigotry.”
At this point it may be helpful to highlight a few examples of racism reported in these books. It is normal for examples of racism in these books to lack any explicit evidence of racism. A trend noticed was that an event or discourse does not have to have any explicit evidence or connection to racism for these authors to deem it racist, racism need only be assumed. For instance:
· It is racist to think of one neighborhood as “safe” and another as “crime-ridden”; DiAngelo interprets a label like “crime-ridden” as code for predominantly black. This is an assumption she makes.[31]
· A white person interviewing a person of color is treating them as a “token”.[32]
· DiAngelo says a white person interrupting a black person is an act of racism.
· Moving up financial “classes” is desirable not because of financial stability but to be in “whiter spaces”.[33] For example, telling someone you desire to have a higher income and move into a neighborhood with less crime is interpreted as language hiding your racist desire to be around more white people.
· Saying a school has generally “low test scores” is “code for ‘not white’”.[34]
· Looking for “better” schools is really about looking for a “(whiter) school”.[35]
· A white person helping a non-white person express something is deemed racist.[36]
· A white person receiving a promotion before a person of color is racist.[37]
· Claiming to not be racist is racist.[38]
· The constitution is racist.[39]
· Climate change is due to racism.[40]
· Voter ID laws are racist.[41]
The racism of recent history is undeniable. The racism of today claimed by these authors is obscure and usually highly debatable, if not entirely baseless at times. Again and again, racism seems to be read into events, discourses, or actions. Robin DiAngelo does this quite explicitly when explaining that people like to live in better school districts. Rather than writing that people try to get into “better schools” she adds that people pick the “better (whiter) school”. Again and again it is DiAngelo that assumes that the better schools are “(whiter)” and the neighborhoods with less crime are predominantly white.
The question may linger, what exactly are the “…written and unwritten laws, rules, procedures, processes, regulations, and guidelines”[42] and the “laws, policies, practices, and norms of society”[43] that are racist? Aside from some of the items listed above, this is largely still unclear. It is largely unclear how the average American, with no racism in their heart, is perpetuating racism. These books rarely get precise and end up not needing to because if essentially everything is somehow linked to racism, the burden of proof now falls on proving what is not racist, not what is racist.
The way to find racism today is to find inequity between racial groups. Racism is then assumed to be the cause. In other words, “…disparate outcomes can have one, and only one, explanation, and it is prejudicial bigotry.” If there is a racial disparity, it is the result of white supremacy, though it is rarely clear how the system actually works to cause the disparity. For example, income levels between races is a major disparity Ibram X. Kendi blames on racism. He goes so far to imply that using “crack” should not be considered as a reason why a particular person seems to have a lower income than another white person.[44] In other words, if someone blames drug-use as a reason for income inequity they may just be trying to avoid blaming it on racism. Racial disparity in income, it seems, is never about someone’s personal choices, work ethic, avoiding drugs, etc. It is only and always the result of the powerful oppressing the less powerful.
Kendi makes this clear when he writes that, “Equality leads to equity.” This means that if everyone is treated equally then everyone should end up in the same place. Thus, if everyone is not in the same place it is necessarily because someone has not been treated equally. It appears there is no room in Kendi’s worldview for someone to have a higher income, for instance, due to working harder and/or avoiding drugs. Racial disparities are always the result of racist-oppression of non-white people. What are those white supremacist systems, policies, and norms the authors highlight causing the disparity today? That’s not clear.
In conclusion, the American way of life is racist. There are basically two broad categories of people in America and you fall into one of them: racists or antiracists. Nearly everything that occurs in American life is either racist or fighting against racism. There is not a third category of neutral people or events. Racism is caused by powerful “…written and unwritten laws, rules, procedures, processes, regulations, and guidelines” and “laws, policies, practices, and norms of society”. What those laws, rules, and norms were in American history, even recent history, is very clear. What they are today and how they might be even worse is not clear.
Check out part 2-4 of this 4-part blog series for more and for a response to these ideas.
Footnotes:
[1] Jemar Tisby, The Color of Compromise, 155.
[2] Ibid, 175
[3] Ibid, 116
[4] Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility, 50.
[5] Ibid, 28
[6] Ibid, 29
[7] Tisby, The Color of Compromise, 161.
[8] DiAngelo, White Fragility, 5
[9] Tisby, The Color of Compromise, 175
[10] DiAngelo, White Fragility, 129
[11] Ibram X. Kendi, How To Be An Antiracist, 10
[12] Ibid, 29
[13] Tisby, The Color of Compromise, 57, 24
[14] Lindsay & Pluckrose, Cynical Theories, 98
[15] DiAngelo, White Fragility, 83
[16] DiAngelo, White Fragility, 138 and 129
[17] DiAngelo, White Fragility, XV
[18] Tisby, The Color of Compromise, 16
[19] Lindsay & Pluckrose, Cynical Theories, 15
[20] DiAngelo, White Fragility, 24
[21] Kendi, How To Be An Antiracist, 11
22 Kendi, How To Be An Antiracist,
[23] Lindsay & Pluckrose, Cynical Theories, 16
[24] Lindsay & Pluckrose, Cynical Theories, 36
[25] Tisby, The Color of Compromise, 175
[26] Lindsay & Pluckrose, Cynical Theories, 25
[27] Ibid 16
[28] Ibid 133
[29] Ibid 114
[30] Ibid 132
[31] DiAngelo, White Fragility, 37
[32] Ibid, 54
[33] Ibid, 66
[34] Ibid, 67
[35] Ibid, 68
[36] Ibid, 133
[37] Ibid, 133-134
[38] Kendi, How To Be An Antiracist, 9
[39] Ibid, 10
[40] Ibid, 21
[41] Ibid, 22
[42] Ibid, 18
[43] DiAngelo, White Fragility, 22.
[44] Kendi, How To Be An Antiracist, 31
