The Narrow Portrait of a High Achiever

"Teachers may reward students they view as high-achieving with a supportive environment, increasingly difficult course material, additional opportunities to respond in class and/or more frequent or informative academic feedback." Linda van den Bergh, et al.

One Portrait of a High Achiever

Let's start with an obvious statement: Students are highly influenced by their teachers. Students are influenced not just by what teachers are trying to teach, but also by what teachers think. And teachers think all kinds of things that are not in the curriculum. We all have our private thoughts. We all make private assumptions. Our private thoughts and assumptions do come out and influence people. And this is especially true for teachers. Most parents hand their young children off to teachers with tears and great hopes for high academic achievement. Sometimes the results are near tragic.

What does a high achiever look like? Each teacher has their own mental image of a high achiever. Each teacher has their own private idea of who will be most successful in their class. And again and again, they are right. They are right because they make it so.

As evidence of my last statement, here is one, classic study: Rosenthal, R., &. Jacobson, L. (1963). Teachers' expectancies: Determinants of pupils' IQ gains. Rosenthal's work suggests that students perform better academically if their teachers expect them to perform better academically -- especially in the earliest elementary school years. Here is the summary of this paper:

Within each of 18 classrooms, an average of 20% of the children were reported to classroom teachers as showing unusual potential for intellectual gains. Eight months later these “unusual” children (who had actually been selected at random) showed significantly greater gains in IQ than did the remaining children in the control group. These effects of teachers’ expectancies operated primarily among the younger children.

And now comes a massive, tragic problem: What happens when African American students end up in first grade classes with teachers who expect European American students to perform better than African American students? What happens, speaking generally, is that the European American students do perform better than the African American students. Are there exceptions? Of course.

Much work has been done at Harvard University to shed light on people's private assumptions and preferences. Just as most people have a preference for either chocolate or vanilla ice cream, or coffee or tea, most people have a preference for either European American humans or African American humans. We know whether we prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream. We know whether we prefer coffee or tea. And there is little social stigma attached to voicing our preference for ice cream flavors or beverage types. But there is social stigma attached to voicing a preference for either European American humans or African American humans. We are rarely asked to choose. Most of us are taught that it is best not to think about human preferences in those terms. And so most of us try not to. The very suggestion can trigger visceral defensive responses. But the preferences are there. The biases that we don't want to think about are implicit biases.

To test for implicit bias, Harvard researchers developed the Implicit Association Test (IAT). You can test yourself for implicit racial bias at the Project Implicit web site. Don't be afraid to do it! If you don't like your results, there are steps you can take. Here is a blog post I wrote to get you started: Prescriptive Action.

The IAT is widely used by other researchers for use as an independent variable in their studies. Here is the abstract of an important example, The Implicit Prejudiced Attitudes of Teachers: Relations to Teacher Expectations and the Ethnic Achievement Gap by Linda van den Bergh et al.:

Ethnic minority students are at risk for school failure and show a heightened susceptibility to negative teacher expectancy effects. In the present study, whether the prejudiced attitudes of teachers relate to their expectations and the academic achievement of their students is examined. The prejudiced attitudes of 41 elementary school teachers were assessed via self-report and an Implicit Association Test. Teacher expectations and achievement scores for 434 students were obtained. Multilevel analyses showed no relations with the self-report measure of prejudiced attitudes. The implicit measure of teacher prejudiced attitudes, however, was found to explain differing ethnic achievement gap sizes across classrooms via teacher expectations. The results of this study also suggest that the use of implicit attitude measures may be important in educational research.

This supports the work of Rosenthal, et al in their study, Teachers' expectancies: Determinants of pupils' IQ gains, which I mentioned earlier in this post.

Again, what does a high achiever look like? You could ask a teacher, but they may not be able to tell you. Their gut instincts on the subject, however, are powerful. Especially in the early years. This is typically when some students head onto the high achiever path, and others do not. Students who fall behind in reading and math in first grade have a very hard time catching up.

Last week I saw a study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. They took data available from the US Census and state records to determine how well children fared in different states based on their continental ancestry. The study, "Race for Results: Building a Path to Opportunity for All Children" ranked states. The results turned up interesting facts like these two: Wisconsin was rated the worst state in the nation for raising African American children. Wisconsin was rated the eleventh best state in the nation for raising European American children.

What can account for the difference in experiences of African American children versus European American children in Wisconsin? Undoubtedly, there are multiple factors. I would argue that implicit bias is one of the largest.

Implicit bias is not just about teachers. It is about the person who dials 911 to report a suspicious person. It is about the police officer who responds to the 911 call and possibly overreacts to the situation. It is about the parent who determines which children can come over to play. It is about the employer who determines which candidate they will hire. It's about the woman in the elevator who determines whether the other passenger is a threat. It's about the store manager who decides which teenagers should leave their backpacks at the front of the store. It's about who comes to dinner.

Each of us paints our own portraits of who makes a good student or friend or employee or house guest. And we make decisions based on the portraits we paint in our minds of who is trustworthy, who is hard working, who is gentle, who is smart, and who is committed. Please keep all of this in mind as you read my next post (as yet unfinished), "The Narrow Path of a High Achiever".

Dear White People: A Fun Film

The Dissolve: You’ve been called an “equal-opportunity indicter,” but the film doesn't feel like it indicts people at all. 

Simien: I don’t think it does.

The Dissolve: It’s sympathetic to everyone. Even its worst villain has a few mitigating factors. 

--From an interview by Tasha Robinson with Director, Justin Simien.

I watched Dear White People last night with my husband and daughter, and it was a lot of fun! And I loved seeing it at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland. My first time there!

The audience was probably 70% European American, and maybe 10-15% African American. Many/most people were there in mixed race groups. The audience in the theater behaved like fans at a soccer match, cheering the "scores" and "ooooing" and "ouching" the rough stuff. A group of about four young women sat directly behind us and provided running commentary, which was generally very amusing, and at times even helpful. It was a ton of fun watching and hearing Etagu react!

Etagu could hardly believe it when, after we got home, she realized we had taken her to an R rated movie. But I had figured there would be nothing disturbing in it that would be new for her, and I was mostly right. She was shocked and offended by the "black face" college party, but, as we learned in the credits, that stuff happens. It was perfectly appropriate for her.

So, about the movie! We are so accustomed to seeing African American stereo types from a European American perspective, it was fun and interesting seeing them from an African American perspective. There were so many more of them! And stereotypes of European Americans were also in abundance. If the point still needs to be made that our lives are richer when we are exposed to many perspectives, this film helps to do that, if only through the number of stereotyped characters that an African American can come up with for both African Americans and European Americans. People may still be in boxes, but better to have many boxes than just one or two. And, of course, what is really important about the film is that it looks at very real issues. 

The only really painful part of the movie is the black face party. Seeing the African American characters react with painful disappointment and disillusionment to what they were witnessing was wrenching.

The ending is, from comments I've seen on social media, somewhat controversial. I think it disappointed some. But I found it to be a refreshing surprise. Etagu asked my about my favorite part of the movie, and I sheepishly said "The ending." She said, "Mom! You're such a hippy." I don't think I'm a hippy. That box doesn't fit me. I want more boxes to choose from. Maybe Justin Simien can help me out.

Prescriptive Action

"I was walking down the street wearing glasses when the prescription ran out."
-- Comedian Steven Wright

When I first started learning about white privilege, I was confused about what I was supposed to do about it. It seemed I was being accused of something that was out of my control. As recipient of unearned privileges,  privileges I had never asked for, what can I do? I can't ask the police to pull me over while driving because of my skin color. I can't ask a store clerk to follow me around, making sure I don't steal anything. I can't ask a prospective employer to doubt me based on my skin color. I can't ask a neighbor to dial 911 when they see me entering my own home because they suspect I am a burglar. I can't go back to my childhood to ask teachers to doubt my intelligence, work ethic, and integrity. I can't ask school principals to assume the worst about me. I can't ask people to forget about my humanity and simply ignore me or actively avoid me. This isn't my fault! It isn't under my control! I hate racism! What am I supposed to do??!!

And honestly, what I want is for everyone to have the same privileges I have. It's not that I want to give up the respect I receive in my day-to-day life. I just want everyone to be treated with the same respect that I receive.

Slowly, slowly, as I continued trying to figure it out, I learned a few things. I'm still learning. But here is my prescription-in-progress:

• Be aware of the privileges that come with European skin and hair and facial features. Notice them. Every day.
• Notice the African Americans in your environment and say to yourself: "I have superior privileges, but I am not superior. It isn't fair. And it isn't my fault. But I need to be aware of my unearned privileges so I don't come up with racist explanations for the state of racial inequality."
• Give enormous respect to African Americans who have achieved success in academics, business, politics, and other areas that are associated with European American success. Contemplate that they likely had to work much harder and overcome many more hurdles than successful European Americans in the same field. 
• At the same time, avoid the guessing game: Don't allow your mind to make up another person's story. Don't try to figure out another person's story and then ask questions of them to see if you got it right. You'll likely make assumptions based on stereotypes -- because that's all we have to go on -- and you'll likely get it wrong. And you'll likely annoy people. Because so many people have come before you and made the same assumptions and asked the same questions. Instead, notice what you have in common with all the human beings around you and connect with all the human beings around you based on commonalities -- not differences.
• Notice the African Americans in your environment and respect them as human beings with human worries, human love, human joy, and human pain. 
• When you are in a group that includes African Americans and/or Latin Americans or Native Americans, don't assume the leadership position by default. Let others take the lead. You don't have to be the leader. If restaurant staff, for example, assumes you are spokes person for your diverse group, pass that privilege on to another member of your group.
• When you have the opportunity, use your white privilege for good. This might mean standing up for people who are being treated unfairly. For example, when the Walgreens manager insists that the African American middle schoolers leave their backpacks at the front of the store while the European American middle schoolers get to keep possession of their back packs, you can say something to the store manager. Or teach your middle schooler to watch for this kind of thing and speak up. Follow up on racist comments made in private. For example, the dad who complains about all the black kids at the Palo Alto public swimming pool. Or the principal who labels an individual African American child as "aggressive". Or the neighbor who watches for crime by watching for African Americans. Or the mom who complains about all "we" do for "them". 
• Notice the difference in the ways people think about and talk about crime depending on the continental ancestry of the suspect. If the suspect is European American, ancestry will not be part of the narrative. If the suspect is African American, crime and ancestry will connect in the narrative. Be aware that this practice feeds racism.
• If you are a parent, talk honestly with your children about racism. Teach them what to watch for. For example, have them pay attention to how the teacher responds to children in class. Talk about it with them. Ask them who is getting in trouble and why. Ask them which children the teacher admires as good students. Ask them what the teacher's expectations are for different kids in class. Ask them who the presumed leaders are. Have them question rather than absorb. Have them connect with their peers based on commonalities other than skin color and hair texture. Be proactive with your children.
• Recognize what you share with people of African descent, and Asian descent, and North and South American descent, and Australian descent, and European descent: What you share is human emotion. And whether joy or grief, there is nothing more beautiful than that. Because it is all about love.

<3 I love you for reading. Thanks for sharing these concerns with me. I don't want to feel alone with all this. It's hard feeling alone with it.

This Puzzle Piece

"Each of us has a piece of the puzzle."--Lillian Smith

European American Author, Lillian Smith,
wrote "Strange Fruit", which was banned in Boston.
"...Smith maintained that the book's title referred to the
damaged, twisted people (both black and white)
who are the products or results of our racist culture." 

My Twitter handle is "This Puzzle Piece" because I know I don't have all the answers, but I also know that my life experiences provide me with a unique perspective that has value in the big picture.

You are also a piece of the puzzle. You have your own set of life experiences, which shaped your values and ordered your priorities. It can be tempting for each of us to believe that our own values and priorities should set the standard for everyone else. But as any major league football coach will tell you, melding individual strengths into an integrated whole is what moves us forward.

No matter what television or radio stations you tune in to, no matter what newspapers or magazines you read, no matter what is in your beverage glass and who is sitting around your table, societal problems are discussed. No matter what your highest priorities are, there is something you can do to alleviate societal problems.

"It's all about the pocketbook."

We, the tax payers, are paying for prisons to incarcerate human beings for very long periods of time. In the US, we lock up a much higher percentage of our population than almost all other countries. According to the fabulous Wikipedia volunteers, these are the numbers, per 100,000 population, in a few selected countries:

Seychelles 868
United States 707
South Africa 294
Singapore 233
Mexico 211
Saudi Arabia 162
Canada  118
Ethiopia 111
Switzerland 87
Germany 78
Tanzania 73

Glancing through the full list, Seychelles (pronounced "say-shells") was the only country in the same ball park. I'll be honest: I've never heard of Seychelles, a set of islands well off the coast of South Africa, but I don't think I want to go there. Do you think Seychelles is an exceptionally safe place because so many people are locked up? Or do they have so many people locked up because people are so much more dangerous in Seychelles than in other countries? Can you tell from looking at these numbers where you would be the most safe?

If it makes sense that US taxpayers need to pay to lock up 707 people per 100,000 people, there must be some truth in these kinds of statements: We are more than nine times safer residing in the US than in Germany; or  people are more than nine times more dangerous in the US than they are in Germany. We are more than four times safer residing in the US than in Saudi Arabia; or people are more than four times more dangerous in the US than they are in Saudi Arabia. Looking over the list, can we make sense of the numbers this way? Are we much safer? Or are our people much more dangerous? Or is it some other factor at work?

How much do tax payers pay for incarceration, and what do we get for it? Incarcerated people pay no taxes. Taxpayers pay 100% of the support of incarcerated persons.

If it's all about the pocketbook, we can save taxpayers a bundle by decreasing our incarceration rates. If this is your puzzle piece, go ahead and bring it to the table.

"It's all about safety."

What causes people to hurt other people? Psychologists will generally tell you that people who hurt others have been hurt themselves, oftentimes as children. We pass it on.

Who keeps children from getting hurt out in the world? Clearly they don't always do it, but primarily, that's a parent's job. Generally speaking, a kid's best bet is with their parents. While no parent is perfect, the instinct to keep our children safe is very powerful.

When we lock up parents for long periods of time for non-violent crimes, we set our society up for violent crime down the road. We are making our society less safe because we prevent parents from doing their primary job, which is to keep their kids safe.

Courtesy of the ACLU, here is just one example of a harsh sentence for a non-violent crime:

 

Patrick Matthews was arrested while riding in the truck of a friend who pawned stolen tools and a welding machine, which he was convicted of stealing. Patrick is now 25. Since he was sentenced to die in prison three years ago, he has completed his GED, and participates in Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous. "I never in the world would've thought that could happen," he says. "Made one mistake and was treated like a murderer." Patrick had no violent criminal history and had never served a single day in a Department of Corrections facility. He desperately misses his two young children, Blayton and Hayley, who are eight and six years old. One of the judges who reviewed Patrick's appeal said he did not "believe that the ends of justice are met by a mandatory sentence for this 22-year-old," but that legislation mandated sending Patrick away for the rest of his life because of unarmed burglary convictions when he was 17.

How much safer do you feel with Patrick Matthew in prison for the rest of his life? What are the chances that his children will be safer and better cared for with him in prison? He will never be at a Back-to-School night. He will never be the applauding daddy at the school talent show. He will never pay for a single soccer season. He will never protect his children from being hurt by anyone, ever. How will his children fare? Is our society better off?

If it's all about safety, we can let non-violent parents raise their own children, giving those kids a better shot at a non-violent, law-abiding future. If this is your puzzle piece, go ahead and bring it to the table.

"It's all about fairness."

Why did I use an example of a European American felon for "It's all about safety"? Because it is so darned easy to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. As I discussed in my "Scientists at Work" post, we automatically and unconsciously associate African Americans with crime. That's why people are more likely to perceive African Americans as a threat and to dial 911 to report "suspicious activity" by African Americans.. That's why police officers are more likely to stop, question, and arrest African Americans, That's why DAs are more likely to prosecute African Americans. That's why jurors are more likely to find African Americans guilty of crimes. That's why judges are more likely to extend harsher sentences to African Americans. And that's why African American children are more likely to be perceived as a threat in school and disciplined more frequently and more harshly. And that's not fair.

If it's all about fairness, we can find ways to compensate for the automatic injustices of our human brains. We can find ways to measure the injustice. We can consciously observe the injustic. We can reverse the injustice.  We can insist that people in positions of authority, whether teachers, principals, police officers, judges, jurors, or corporate managers, are measured for bias and coached in managing their unconcious biases. If this is your puzzle piece, go ahead and bring it to the table.

So, what's it all about for you?

What's your puzzle piece all about? Go ahead and bring it to the table.

Scientists at Work

"The brain is a wonderful organ to justify conclusions that the heart already reaches."
-- Zackary Dov Berger, MD PhD

Stanford Professor Jennifer L. Eberhardt
recently won a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant"
for her work on unconscious racial coding.

We can only put so much trust in our brains. For many reasons. One reason is that when we don't know something for sure, and we wonder about it, our brain just goes ahead and makes something up. And we say, "Well, brain, that sounds pretty reasonable, I guess. Let's just go with it!" And our brains have come up with creative explanations for all kinds of phenomena. We tend to accept the conclusions of our brains, and then we tend to spread the falsehoods far and wide. And then when other people's brains come up with similar conclusions, we think, "Hey! You and I both came to the same conclusion! We must both be right!" And we congratulate ourselves. That's just how we human beings roll. I love to believe I'm right.

You already know that for the last hundreds of years of human history (at least), scientists have worked hard to discover truth and expose myth. You also already know that it can take a long time for people to give up myths in favor of scientific realities. I'm just reminding you.

As scientific knowledge on a subject spreads, it can be frustrating and baffling to watch people hold on to old ideas. And it can be frightening. For example, think about climate change deniers. Will enough people come around before conditions on earth become too unbalanced to recover? Foundations are spending tremendous amounts of money to help educate people, but at a societal level, minds change very slowly.

Unlike the efforts to educate people about climate science, efforts to educate people about the science of prejudice has not reached a stride. Not even close. The incentives are lacking. But even though the usual incentives for change are not materializing, I have a hunch that we are on the cusp of a new renaissance. I see people finding their voices. My guess is that scientific knowledge about the nature of prejudice will spread through the end of this decade, and then take off in the twenties. We will look back on this era of police killing unarmed men and schools punishing good-natured children as the suffocating era that it is.

We teach children about slavery and who did what to whom, but leaving it at that, many of our kids are led to a wrong conclusion: That Europeans are superior to Africans and Latin Americans. In so many towns in the US, kids grow up seeing money and power in the hands of European Americans and Asian Americans, and we leave our kids to draw their own conclusions. We expose kids to a non-stop barrage of images of handcuffed African American men and punished African American school children, and we leave them to draw their own conclusions. They do wonder, but their brains answer their own questions, and their brains get it wrong. Our children see a deformed society, and early on they begin to interpret it as a normal society.

Our school systems are not accurately educating our children about the science of prejudice.  Until that changes, it's up to parents to explain these realities to our kids:

• There are absolutely no differences in intellectual ability among the descendants of human beings from different continents. 
• Our society and our brains work in concert to trick us into holding different expectations for people based on their skin color and physical features. 
• That trickery has deformed our society. 
• We must not fall for the trickery ourselves.

But how, as parents, do we get there ourselves? First step: Look at the science.

Perhaps the most important information for you to understand, and it's something I've already written about at least twice on A Woolman's Journey, is that the "colorblind" concept is a fiction.

Professor Helen Neville of University of Illinois and others developed the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS) in 2000. Their work suggests that people who endorse colorblind racial attitudes may have higher levels of racial prejudice than those who consciously pay attention to race.

Construction and initial validation of the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS).
"The purpose of this investigation was to develop a conceptually grounded scale to assess cognitive aspects of color-blind racial attitudes. Five studies on the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS) with over 1,100 observations provide initial reliability and validity data. Specifically, results from an exploratory factor analysis suggest a 3-factor solution: Unawareness of Racial Privilege, Institutional Discrimination, and Blatant Racial Issues. A confirmatory factor analysis suggests that the 3-factor model is a good fit of the data and is the best of the competing models. The CoBRAS was positively related to other indexes of racial attitudes as well as 2 measures of belief in a just world, indicating that greater endorsement of color-blind racial attitudes was related to greater levels of racial prejudice and a belief that society is just and fair. Self-reported CoBRAS attitudes were sensitive to diversity training."

Professor Robert Rosenthal of the University of California, Riverside and others published their now classic research on teachers' expectancies in 1966. Their research suggests that teachers expectations for individual students have a measurable effect on student learning. Consider the probable outcome when "colorblind" teachers work with children of color.

Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1966). Teachers' expectancies: Determinants of pupils' IQ gains.
From PsychWiki.com:
"This study found out that teachers’ expectancy can be a significant determinant of students’ responses/behaviors. The names of experimental children were given to each teacher who was told that these students would show unusual intellectual gains according to intelligence test. However, the children have been randomly assigned to the experimental condition, therefore, the experimental treatment consisted of nothing more than being identified to their teachers as intelligent children. Eight months later, these experimental students showed significantly greater gains in I.Q. than did the control group. The study found out that the effects of teachers’ expectancies were greater for younger children."

Professor Jennifer Eberhardt of Stanford University recently won a "Genius" grant from the MacArthur Foundation for her work on the ways in which people unconsciously "code" people based on physical characteristics such as skin color and facial features. Her main focus has been on crime-related stereotypes associated with African American males. Her work helps explain why European Americans may misinterpret the behavior of African Americans as criminal or otherwise threatening. That, in turn, helps explain why African Americans are so much more likely to be stopped by police, arrested, convicted of a crime, and sentenced harshly. It also helps explain why African American students are more likely to be punished more frequently and more harshly than the European American students in the same schools and classrooms.

Professor Eberhardt now works with police departments to help officers understand some of the unconscious mental processing that can lead to unjust arrest and use of force on African American males. She discusses her work in this interview for the MacArthur Foundation.

Watch her interview for the MacArthur Foundation here.

By not thinking about and talking about racism, by imagining ourselves to be colorblind, by allowing our children to draw their own conclusions about the racial inequality that they witness every day, we raise "colorblind" children who go on to continue the cycle. We can make a difference by properly educating our children about the science of prejudice.

My New Chiropractor Has Black Friends, is Colorblind, and Experiences Reverse Racism

"Whether race is a burden or a benefit is all the same to the race-neutral theorists; that is what they mean when they speak of being colorblind, all right — blind to the consequences of being the wrong color in America today." Unless you are that wrong color, your understanding of what it means to be an African American or a Latino in the U.S. will not be completely accurate." -- NAACP Chairman Julian Bond

This European American man appears to be angry.
Pretend he is a stranger yelling at you and threatening you.
Will you attribute his disposition to problems with his race? 

I love my new chiropractor. He is literally 1/2 block from me, and I'm so happy with him! I might explain why I like him so much in some other forum -- maybe a Yelp review. For now I want to tell you about the conversation we had this morning.

He was wanting to know about some of the emotional challenges that might be contributing to the problems I'm having with my TMJ joint. The problems started right after I had my gallbladder removed last month, so I have attributed the joint problem to the pain I was experiencing at night immediately following my surgery. But since I still have it, he wanted to look at possible emotional triggers, And guess what? Racism showed up on my list. I told him that was the main reason we had moved to Oakland from Palo Alto. And he told me that "reverse racism" is the problem in Oakland.

There are a key list of terms that European Americans use that immediately cause me to suspect that they are not very well educated about racism. This is not a complete list of the terms, but just what is popping into my head:

• Colorblind
• Black friends
• Reverse racism
• Victim mentality

Within the first few minutes of our conversation about racism, the doctor used all of the first three. Fortunately, he never made it to the fourth. That's my least favorite. I find that term so incredibly offensive!

The doctor told me this story: His then-wife was trying to cross the street with their daughter by their daughter's school in Oakland. A woman drove aggressively past them, then came back and yelled at them. The angry, yelling woman was black.

Given that my doctor was attempting to explain the problem of reverse racism to me, I commented that he seemed to be attributing the problem to the woman's race, and he agreed that he was. I asked him, so what if a white man did the same thing? Would you attribute the problem to his race? The doctor agreed that he would attribute it to the guy being an "asshole". And he got the point. And it made him think. And that made me happy.

Can a person be colorblind and attribute problems to a person's race? Isn't a person who uses an example of poor behavior on the part of a black individual to make a point about reverse racism assuming "there is a problem with black people"?

Can a person be colorblind and feel victimized by reverse racism? Isn't a person who feels victimized by reverse racism assuming "there is a problem with black people"?

Can a person be colorblind and worry that "victim mentality" is a problem that cripples African Americans? Isn't a person who worries about "victim mentality" assuming "there is a problem with with black people"?

If you assume "there is a problem with black people", you are not colorblind.

And I would argue, nobody is truly colorblind. People notice race. People make assumptions. Committing yourself to colorblindness will never move you forward toward universal love and kindness. Becoming aware of what you notice and what assumptions you make will move you forward. And you can do it with compassion for yourself. Because the current state of your programming is not your fault. But you do have responsibility for the future state of your programming.

For more, in case you missed it, here is my earlier post about colorblindness: Can We Be Blind to Skin Color?

If these thoughts are new to you, why not spend some time this weekend, as you are out and about in the world, paying attention to your thoughts and feelings about people of different skin colors? What kinds of wonderings come to mind? What kinds of assumptions lie behind your wonderings? Really pay attention. And if you don't like the assumptions you find yourself making, don't beat yourself up. Instead, pat yourself on the back. You just grew your brain. Well done. :-)

A White Man Dies in Utah: Who Needs Courts When We Have Police Officers with Killer Instincts?

I have a bunch of questions:

Is it ever okay for a cop to  shoot and kill an unarmed human being? Is a family ever understanding about having their unarmed loved one shot and killed? If an unarmed person is shot and killed by police, does that always qualify as injustice?

What works as rationale for a law enforcement officer to shoot and kill an unarmed human being? How much of a threat does that person have to be?

Did this European American deserve to die?

http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/us/unarmed-white-man-killed-by-black-cop-heres-how-the-media-reacted

Did any of these African Americans deserve to die? http://www.theroot.com/photos/2013/06/unarmed_black_men_shot_by_police_20_sad_stories.html

Rats: Big Profits Flow from the Worst Injustice

"But as we look for splinters in the eyes of slave traders of the past, are we perhaps overlooking beams in our own eyes? Is it possible that today we are equally disconnected from an understanding of the suffering we bring to the whole of God's creation? Behind what euphemisms do we hide the modern equivalent of the slave trade, our oppression of the Earth?" -- Lisa L. Gould

BRIGADIER-GENERAL SAMUEL R. CURTIS, of Iowa, 

Yesterday I mentioned how Bruce Levenson, controlling owner of the Atlanta Hawks, was willing to discourage the majority (in this case, an African American majority) of his fans from showing up to games for the purpose of making the minority (in this case, a European American minority) of his fans more comfortable. While perhaps not a racist himself, he guessed that European American Hawks fans were not fully comfortable attending Hawks games as a minority. So he sought to make them the majority -- a much more comfortable thing for most people -- most people are most comfortable hanging out with people with similar ancestral heritage. So after making business changes that reduced the 70% majority of African Americans in attendance to 40%, he was still concerned that European American fans would not be comfortable. So he sought to further increase the percentage of European American fans attending Hawks games, thereby further reducing the percentage of African American fans attending Hawks games, by switching out African American cheerleaders for European American cheerleaders, guiding the kiss cam toward European American fans in the stands, and increasing the number of European American fans invited onto the court to shoot hoops during breaks in the game. Oh. And he discouraged rap and gospel music in the arena in favor of music that fifty-something European Americans would be familiar with. In my post yesterday, I mentioned that this is white privilege. And I mentioned that he was just looking out for his bottom line.

In the case of Levenson's Atlanta Hawks, we're not just talking about basketball games, who goes to the arena and who stays home. We're talking about who gets hired as a cheerleader and who does not, and who feels welcomed and valued by the Atlanta Hawks franchise and who does not. For the sake of profits.

But what if we were talking about who gets locked in solitary confinement and who does not? Who gets stabbed in prison, has his finger amputated, and then gets gangrene? And who does not. Who goes blind in prison after getting no treatment for glaucoma? And who does not. Who has rats crawling over him at night? And who does not. For the sake of profits.

Today, on A Woolman's Journey, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about who loses their freedom and their finger and their eye sight and their chance at a better life. Who gets to care for their children and who does not.

Getting a job because of racism is one thing: Most European Americans do it without even realizing it. You apply for a job. You interview. You do your best. If you do well enough you get the job. You have no way of knowing who didn't get the job and why they didn't get the job. You can easily assume that you were the best candidate. But you can easily assume wrongly.

Going along with racism for the sake of profits, as Levenson did, is another thing: Many European Americans do it without giving it too much thought. It might cause some discomfort, but what to do? The alternative is not attractive in terms of a future of financial security. Our culture says, take care of family first. Sometimes it means finding plausible reasons for denying the good stuff to African Americans. It's a gut feeling, maybe. You can easily assume that your instincts are just really good. But you can easily assume wrongly.

But just as there are always unscrupulous dictators and wall street financiers and mafiosos in the world, there are always slave traders. Well they used to be slave traders. Today, incarceration is their trade. They run for-profit prisons. They profit not by selling free people into slavery. They profit by incarcerating people. For as long as possible. For as much profit as possible. Some of those unlucky prisoners are European Americans! And most are not. Most are native Americans, African Americans and other non-European immigrants.

If you can stomach it, read about Dockery, et al., v Epps, et al., the Southern Poverty Law Center's lawsuit against an East Mississippi, for-profit, correctional facility:

http://www.splcenter.org/get%20informed/case%20docket/Dockery-v-epps

Thank you to Execution of a Slave Trader for the image of General Curtis. (I don't advocate for execution of anyone, though, for the record.)

On White Privilege: Oftentimes the Truth is Offensive

"But it was not just slave traders or planters who benefitted from the slave trade." -- John Woolman

I'm not much of a sports fan unless we're talking about my daughter's softball team. I'm also not very business minded. But reading this email written by Bruce Levenson, controlling owner of the Atlanta Hawks, it's clear what's going on. Bruce Levenson is just trying to make money, and the racist tendencies of too many European Americans is messing with his bottom line.

This is the real bottom line, though: White privilege means that the preferences of European Americans are served before the preferences of African Americans even when African Americans are in the majority.  And that means more European American cheerleaders for the Atlanta Hawks. Read on, and you will understand.

Bruce Levenson believed that season ticket sales were in a slump because European Americans feel unsafe and uncomfortable when they are outnumbered by African Americans. About 70% of fans in attendance, he estimates, were African American until he instituted changes (including reducing the number of African American cheerleaders) to get that number down to about 40%:

My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a signficant season ticket base. Please dont get me wrong. There was nothing threatening going on in the arean back then. i never felt uncomfortable, but i think southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority. On fan sites i would read comments about how dangerous it is around philips yet in our 9 years, i don’t know of a mugging or even a pick pocket incident. This was just racist garbage. When I hear some people saying the arena is in the wrong place I think it is code for there are too many blacks at the games.

I have been open with our executive team about these concerns. I have told them I want some white cheerleaders and while i don’t care what the color of the artist is, i want the music to be music familiar to a 40 year old white guy if that’s our season tixs demo. i have also balked when every fan picked out of crowd to shoot shots in some time out contest is black. I have even bitched that the kiss cam is too black.

Gradually things have changed. My unscientific guess is that our crowd is 40 pct black now, still four to five times all other teams. And my further guess is that 40 pct still feels like 70 pet to some whites at our games. Our bars are still overwhelmingly black.

According to the 2010 census, African Americans were 54% of the population in that year, while European Americans were 33.3%. But Levenson seems to presume that his bottom line would improve if African American representation a Hawks games was more in line with DC's Washington Wizards:

Then i start looking around at other arenas. It is completely different. Even DC with its affluent black community never has more than 15 pct black audience.

DC, according to the 2010 census, was 50.7% African American and 38.5% European American. Levenson wondered why there are so many more African Americans at games in Atlanta, making European Americans uncomfortable by their very presence? A problem to be solved. By catering to the preferences of European Americans.

Again, Bruce Levenson was just trying to make money, and the racist tendencies of too many European Americans was making it hard. The solution? Shift the balance of offerings to better suit European Americans even though 70% of the fans at games are African American. Apparently, this is how an astute businessperson deals with racism: Encourage African Americans to take their money elsewhere by pointing the kiss cam (and every other cam) at European Americans during games and hiring more European American cheerleaders. Because European Americans prefer it. And even if Europeans make up only 30% of the attendees, their preferences are primary. It's about the bottom line.

But Levenson really blew it. In the interest of selling the fiction that this is post-racial America, business people are not supposed to clearly articulate their concerns about the negative effects of racism on their bottom line. Plausible deniability is the name of the game. Levenson broke  the plausible deniability rule, and as a consequence, he surrendered his franchise.

Oftentimes the truth is offensive.

When Justice is Just a Fancy Napkin: Watch it Unfold

The story of the rest of Woolman's life is but a repetition of his travels and labors in behalf of abolition. He travelled extensively, beheld the deplorable conditions attending slavery, and preached to Friends his only sermon, that "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." -- See source description below.

First, let me review some of the important points related to racial injustice from previous posts:

We often see three key tendencies in people who have racial privilege when they are faced with racial injustice:

• Blame the culture/religion of the criminal if the criminal is of non-European origin.
• Blame the culture/religion of the victim if the victim is of non-European origin.
• Look for spokespeople to explain/defend the non-European culture/religion.

When a person of apparent African ancestry is the victim of injustice by an authority figure of apparent European ancestry, news coverage typically reports irrelevant details about the character of the victim, which leads many viewers/listeners to falsely believe that information about the character of the victim is relevant. 

A recent Stanford study showed that priming European American subjects with information about racial disparities in prisons may cause them to increase their support for the justice system as it is rather than decrease their support. My guess is that European Americans falsely attribute evidence of racial disparities in prisons to greater illegal activity by African Americans and other American minorities. But, the disparity begins with us...

As the 20/20 What Would You Do video demonstrates, European Americans are more likely (many, many times more likely) to report African American men to police than men of apparent European ancestry even if the African American men are committing no crime (resting in a car, for example). And that means...

African Americans are much more likely (many, many times more likely) to be stopped and questioned by police, even if they are committing no crime (for example, legally distributing voting rights information). And that means...

African Americans are much more likely (many, many times more likely) to be arrested. And that means...
African Americans are much more likely (many, many times more likely) to go to prison. And that means...

African Americans are much more likely (many, many times more likely) to have an arrest record that interferes with securing a job, housing, and even voting rights.

And that is how the fancy napkin of justice unfolds onto the privileged lap. 

Let's be real: African Americans are routinely denied liberty in the United States, which puts the purported key values of this country into question: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;"

Now, with all of this in mind, please read the text of this email that I received today from Color of Change. 

********

“It’s not real.” 1
Those were three of the last words John Crawford III uttered before he was shot dead by police while shopping at a Beaver Creek, Ohio Walmart. Police were called to the store by another customer who described a “Black male about 6 feet tall” waving a gun. 2 Crawford was actually leaning on a toy pellet gun — barrel pointed down — which he had picked up from one of the store’s shelves.
Misinformation is flying around Ohio about what happened that day. Adding fuel to the fire, local news has begun the now all-too-familiar attacks on John Crawford’s character. 3 Few in the press seem interested in finding out why another young Black man was racially-profiled and killed by the police. Walmart has an opportunity to set the record straight but is ignoring the family’s request to release the tapes, allowing the police to define the narrative and aiding the officers in evading prosecution.
Walmart is standing between John Crawford’s family and the answers they deserve. Walmart should release the tapes not just because it would help guarantee justice for John Crawford but so that shoppers and workers can feel safe walking the aisles of its stores.
Demand Walmart release surveillance footage publicly to ensure justice for John Crawford III.

Ohio is an "open-carry" state, which means individuals can carry firearms in many public places (including stores) without a permit. Even if the replica pellet gun Crawford picked up from the store's shelves were real, he had committed no crime simply by carrying it. Yet in a culture that perceives young Black men as violent, he was viewed by the police — and at least one customer — as a threat.4
Attorney General Mike Dewine has selectively released audio and video to stack the deck in favor of the police and harm the chance of John Crawford’s family getting justice. 5 Thanks to pressure from local groups like the Ohio Students’ Association and others, the Attorney General did screen a selected portion of the footage for John Crawford’s father and the family’s attorney, Michael Wright. What they saw shows John Crawford talking on the phone, no other customers reacting to him and then the police arrive and shoot him “on sight.” 6 According to Wright, nothing in Ohio law prevents Walmart from releasing footage publicly but they continue to refuse.
Walmart thinks that by hiding these tapes they can avoid a conversation about their responsibility for the safety of customers and workers in their stores: they're wrong. Walmart owes John Crawford's family, Walmart workers and future shoppers an answer for why police stormed one of their stores and murdered one of their customers.
Demand Walmart release the tapes so there can be a full and public account of John Crawford’s killing.

Thanks and Peace,
--Rashad, Arisha, Matt, Aimée, Johnny, and the entire ColorOfChange.org team.
September 8th, 2014
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References
1. "Cops shoot and kill man holding toy gun in Wal-Mart," MSNBC, 8/13/14,
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/3831?t=7&a
kid=3628.604202.Y3C4MT

2."Dueling demands in Walmart shooting case," WDTN, 8/26/14,
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/3832?t=9&akid=3628.604202.Y3C4MT

3."UPDATE: DeWine Says Walmart Suspect Carrying MK-177 BB/Pellet Rifle," ABC22 8/11/14
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/3833?t=11&akid=3628.604202.Y3C4MT

4. "John Crawford Case: It’s Open Carry for Whites and Open Season on Blacks," , 8/21/14
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/3843?t=13&akid=3628.604202.Y3C4MT

5. "Wal-Mart shooting: Family of Ohio shopper killed by police criticizes DeWine, seeks federal probe," Associated Press, 8/26/14
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/3834?t=15&akid=3628.604202.Y3C4MT

6."Video shows police shot Ohio man ‘on sight’ as he leaned on toy gun in Walmart, attorney says," Raw Story, 8/26/14,
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/3835?t=17&akid=3628.604202.Y3C4MT

********
Now, please hear my plea: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." Please take a step toward justice for all African Americans: Demand the surveillance footage from Walmart.

Source Description: 
John Woolman's Efforts in Behalf of Freedom 
G. David Houston 
126-138 p.
Lancaster, Pa.; Washington, D. C.
The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Inc.
1917
From The Journal of Negro History 2, no. 2 (April 1917), 126-138. 

Call number E185 .J86 v. 2 1917 (Davis Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Can We be Blind to Skin Color?

Social liberalism on racial issues in mid-twentieth century America derived from a critique of liberal theology and a rejection of political liberals's optimism and blindness on race. -- From The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition, by Thomas P. Slaughter

Some people pride themselves on their colorblind intentions. The idea is that we are all the same under the skin, so if we ignore skin color, we'll treat everyone fairly. But is anyone really colorblind? Consider this:

Do people who believe themselves to be colorblind even know if they have African American friends or loved ones? Or Latino friends or loved ones? Or Asian American friends or loved ones? How does that work? If you are colorblind, how would you know?

I'm an adoptive parent. My ancestry is European. The ancestry of my youngest child is African. I've learned a lot about racism from my youngest. Before adopting, I thought liberals were not racist. But what I'm learning is this: Many liberals believe themselves to be colorblind. And Colorblind Ideology Is a Form of Racism.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about and discussing transracial parenting. If a European American couple adopt a child of African ancestry, and they believe themselves to be colorblind, how do they respond when their eight-year-old child asks, "Why do white parents pretend they don't see black children?" Do they acknowledge that their child is experiencing something that they may know nothing about? Or do they explain to their child (wrongly) that their child is misinterpreting what they experienced? Or do they acknowledge that some parents are uncomfortable with African Americans? Do they talk about it?

This Psychology Today article, Colorblind Ideology Is a Form of Racism, focuses on color blindness in psychological therapists. My belief, based on my parenting experience, is that most European American therapists are not qualified to treat African American children because they don't understand racism. Racism is a major stressor -- possibly the major stressor -- for many children of color living as a minority. If a therapist doesn't understand racism, they can't be very helpful. 

As the article points out, colorblindness ignores the very real fact that, everywhere in the world, people whose ancestors come from a continent other than Europe have different experiences from people whose ancestors do come from Europe. How can you come to know someone -- how can you have genuine compassion for them -- how can you really love them -- if you ignore this basic fact? If you believe yourself to be colorblind, what do you do with this fact?

As I said, my ancestry is European. I know almost nothing about racism from personal experience. The one exception: I was in college, and an African American woman yelled at my male, African American friend, "What are doing with that cracker?!" That was the first time I had ever heard the term "cracker" to refer to people of European ancestry. And I was thinking "saltines". "Saltines?" I looked at my arm. "Well, that's about right." But she wasn't talking about saltines. She had confused me, but she hadn't hurt me. I felt badly for my friend, Jami, who really didn't need that. He had enough going on in his life.

What I really know about racism comes from the experience of  loved ones -- friends and family -- and from being a part of the experience of loved ones. For example, my youngest child is more socially adept than my first born was in his school years, and more socially outgoing than my second was in hers. But my youngest's kindergarten dance card was unoccupied compared with my older two. With notable (I love you -- you know who you are!!) exceptions, most parents seemed uninterested in having their child play with my daughter outside of school. The most outrageous instance: My daughter played soccer in first grade. She had hit it off with this one child in particular. They seemed to have such a great time together! In my mind, I can still see the mid-game orange wedges stuffed in their mouths to make side-by-side orange smiles. The last game, I approached the mom: "Our girls seem to have a great time together! Shall we get them together some time for a play date?" The mom smiled sweetly, shook her head, and said "No." That was that. She, clearly, had not come to the advanced stage of  "colorblindness". We had to face this family for the next five years at elementary school events. What does a colorblind person even do with this type of information? How does a person who believes themselves to be colorblind account for the effects of racism on people of color? Ignore it?

From what I hear from friends and loved ones, colorblindness generally means one does not see people of color. When these colorblind parents do see African American children, it is often African hair that grabs their attention -- "I like your hair! Who does your hair? Is it your mom?" From what I hear, it seems that colorblind people do not greet African American parents at Back-to-School night or at the elementary school sock hops or on field trips. They do not greet African American parents at sports practices or games. If an African American child happens to be a star on the team, European American parents are likely to interact directly with the child, but not the parents. If the child is not a star on the team, the whole family is ignored. 

Let me tell you what I really think: Colorblind Ideology Is a Form of Racism. 

What to do if you have adopted the colorblind strategy toward people of color? I will address that in a future blog -- hopefully very soon.

Imagine This: Your Son is an African American Teen Actor Hanging with ABC's 20/20. Yes! You're Proud.

Through the Force of long Custom, it appears needful to speak in Relation to Colour. Suppose a white Child, born of Parents of the meanest Sort, who died and left him an Infant, fall into the Hands of a Person, who endeavours to keep him a Slave, some men would account him an unjust Man in doing so, who yet appear easy while many Black People of honest Lives, and good Abilities, are enslaved, in a Manner more shocking than the case here supposed. This is owing chiefly to the Idea of Slavery being connected with the Black Colour, and Liberty with the White: And where false Ideas are twisted into our Minds, it is with Difficulty we get fairly disentangled. -- John Woolman

Your imaginary son. Wow! Look at him! I'd be proud too.
Actually, this is teen actor Tyler James Williams.
Photo courtesy of johnnybmoore.wordpress.com

A clip from the 20/20 episode showing the
European American actors vandalizing a car in a park with impunity.

Day 8 of my own #Woolman14DayJusticeChallenge:

Imagine this: You are the proud parent of an African American son who fills your heart with pride. He and his friends are actors, and some of his crew were hired by 20/20 for an episode of "What Would You Do?" Everybody is happy and excited -- thrilled, really -- at the prospect of national exposure on a major network. The process of filming these episodes is long, so your son and some of his friends decide to rest in the car. As they rest, a young European American man peers in at your son and his friends and decides they all look like they are about to rob somebody. He calls 911 to report the young men to police.

Now, proud parent of an African American teen actor, please watch this:

ABC 20/20: What Would You Do? Vandals -- Racism In America

You might also be interested in this:

ABC 20/20: What Would You Do? Bike Theft -- Racism in America

As you reflect on the content of these videos, please take another look at the recent Stanford study that hints, at least to me, that many European Americans may falsely believe that African Americans men are disproportionately imprisoned because they commit a disproportionate amount of the crime. These videos show the reality: African American men are disproportionately imprisoned because they are disproportionately arrested. And that is because false ideas about who deserves liberty are twisted into the minds of many Americans, and it is difficult to get "fairly disentangled".

Fascinating Stanford Study: When Numbers Backfire

"It hath been computed that near One Hundred Thousand Negroes have, of late Years, been taken annually from that Coast, by Ships employed in the English trade." -- John Woolman

Amazing. I thought I'd put some numbers out this morning. Taking a cue from the video, "Moving The Race Conversation Forward", I wanted to talk about systems. How does one talk about systems? With numbers, right? But what did I find in my search for numbers? This August, 2014 article by Shara Tonn, "Stanford research suggests support for incarceration mirrors whites' perception of black prison populations", about a fascinating Stanford study by Rebecca Hetey and Jennifer Eberhardt: "Racial Disparities in Incarceration Increase Acceptance of Punitive Policies" (I think you'll have to purchase it if you want to read it.)

It appears that if I want to improve our justice system, I should show photos of European American inmates. That's why I chose to show a photo of a European American inmate, above. But the photo I included above is staged. More about that later.

From Tonn's article: "Many legal advocates and social activists seem to assume that bombarding the public with images, statistics and other evidence of racial disparities will motivate people to join the cause and fight inequality," Hetey said. "But we found that, ironically, exposure to extreme racial disparities may make the public less, and not more, responsive to attempts to lessen the severity of policies that help maintain those disparities."

Hetey and Eberhardt found that, in presenting European Americans with statistics about racial disparities in prison populations, when presented with a higher rate of African American incarceration, the subjects were more satisfied with the system. From Tonn's article:

"Their first experiment unfolded at a train station near San Francisco. A white female researcher asked 62 white voters to watch a video containing mug shots of male inmates. Some of the participants saw a video in which 25 percent of the mug shots were of black men, while others saw a video in which the percentage of black men among the mug shots rose to 45 percent.

The participants then had an opportunity to sign a real petition aimed at easing the severity of California's three-strikes law. "It seemed like a great opportunity – a real-life political issue – to test this question of whether blacker prison populations lead people to accept these more punitive policies," Eberhardt said.

The results were clear. Over half of the participants who'd seen the mug shots with fewer black men signed the petition, whereas only 27 percent of people who viewed the mug shots containing a higher percentage of black inmates agreed to sign. This was the case regardless of how harsh participants thought the law was."

The photo I included above is staged to look like Bernie Madoff, architect of a brutal ponzi scheme that took a sledgehammer to the golden years for many Americans. It isn't real. I wanted real. Searching Google Images, I couldn't find actual photos of prisoners who were clearly of European Ancestry -- except these, from a 2011 article titled "The Super-Luxe Super Max", about the likely destination for Norway's mass murderer, Anders Behring Breivik:

So you won't be getting numbers from me. Working for justice surely does present some complicated problems. How do I talk about systems without numbers? I'm pulling my thinking cap down over my ears for extra thinking power. Think. Think.

Looking Through the Neighbor's Window

"Love was the first motion, and thence a concern arose to spend some time with the Indians, that I might feel and understand their life and the spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some instruction from them, or they might be in any degree helped forward by my following the leadings of truth among them; and as it pleased the Lord to make way for my going at a time when the troubles of war were increasing, and when, by reason of much wet weather, travelling was more difficult than usual at that season, I looked upon is as a more favourable opportunity to season my mind, and to bring me into a nearer sympathy with them." -- John Woolman

"Broken Window" by Brad Smith

We know our families are not perfect. We do our best. Sometimes we try in earnest to solve some of the problems that weigh on our joy. Sometimes we just keep pushing through without looking at our problems. But looking at the problems our neighbors face, the solutions come into focus. And sometimes, if we pay attention, the window glass reflects back on our own world. And if the window glass does reflect back on our world, and if we do pay attention, it seasons our minds.

Maybe that's why, when people who have the same problems come together for support, they make more progress in solving their own problems. Perspective comes more easily when we connect with others. Negative self judgements become less harsh.

Day 6 of my personal #Woolmans14DayJusticeChallenge looks through our neighbor's window, as Joseph Harker, an African British editor for the Guardian, challenges his British readers to learn about how racism takes root. In the article, Harker is not looking directly at racism against people of African ancestry in Britain. The cases he cites do not involve people of African ancestry. He's looking through a neighbor's window.  Read "This is how racism takes root". The article is from July 2012.

Harker focuses on the process of racism taking root, and in doing so, he hits on three key tendencies of people who drew privilege in their birth lottery:

• Blame the Culture/Religion of the Criminal -- Harker notes the different reactions from native British to the arrests of  British men who preyed on vulnerable girls. People were much more interested in discussing the crimes of British men with other than British ancestry. When the predators were of non-British ancestry, many attempted to find the seeds of the crimes in culture and religion that are not traditionally British. When the predators were of British ancestry, that method of examination was a non-starter. And so the story of the arrests of the native British men went silent.
• Blame the Culture/Religion of the Victim -- Harker also talks about the importance of the ancestry of the victims. If the victims are of native British ancestry, they are simply victims.  If the victims are of other ancestry, then the problem may be found in the culture or religion of the victim.
• Look for spokespeople to explain/defend the other culture/religion -- Ask people who share ancestry with either the criminal or the victim to either face the fact of the flaws in their culture/religion or defend their culture/religion.

On the third point, Harker writes: "Imagine if, after Anders Breivik's carnage in Norway last year, which he claimed to be in defence of the Christian world, British people were repeatedly asked whether they supported him? Lumped together in the same white religious group as the killer and constantly told they must renounce him, or explain why we should believe that their type of Christianity – even if they were non-believers – is different from his. "It's nothing to do with me", most people would say. But somehow that answer was never good enough when given by Muslims over al-Qaida. And this hectoring was self-defeating because it caused only greater alienation and resentment towards the west and, in particular, its foreign policies."

Harker's piece is about racism in Britain. But it all applies to racism in the US. In the case of Michael Brown, an eighteen-year-old African American, unarmed man, who was shot and killed, his hands in the air, surrendering to the European American police officer who was shooting at him, many European Americans laid blame squarely on Michael Brown. Many European Americans sympathized with the "poor cop" who killed Michael Brown. People who believed the killing to be a senseless, racially motivated execution by a cop who was frustrated by his own lot in life needed to defend African American culture in the US. This is what people in other countries see when they look through our window.