Growing An Antiracist
By Robin Alpern
As a passionately committed activist working toward ending racism, I have often reviewed the stages in my growth. I am interested in the dynamics involved in moving a person forward through heavy challenges.
Thanks to Quaker parents, Carolyn and Glenn Mallison, I grew up convinced of the equality of all people, regardless of race. I learned from the beginning that racism exists, and we are committed to ending it. One of my earliest memories is of David, a native of then Southern Rhodesia, now
During the 1960's, of course, there was frequent conversation in my family about the civil rights struggle. Like many Americans, I remember exactly where I was when I learned John F. Kennedy had been shot. I have an equally vivid memory of hearing of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and recognizing what a tragedy that was. I also recall wondering, during my youth, why there were so few people of color in my Yearly Meeting (New York Yearly Meeting). I speculated, but didn't have anyone I felt safe asking. Looking back, I consider this period to be my “nonracist” time. I was clear I was opposed to racism, I was sure I was not racist, I knew I would never willingly participate in racism, I believed I would act to stop racism if I witnessed it.
In the year 2000, two events caused a sharp turn. At a conference at Pendle Hill, an African American Friend approached my husband, who is also European American, and myself, to tell several painful stories of feeling oppressed by white Quakers. It shook me to hear this, and my husband and I did our best to listen compassionately and supportively. At the same time, I privately wondered if the incidents weren't a question of misperceptions. However, months later, I attended a weekend workshop in another organization where I've participated many years. Again, a person of African descent detailed ways she had been hurt by white members of the organization. This time, I decided these experiences could not be accidents, or a misunderstanding. I had to admit racism was not just “out there,” done by other “awful” people. It was here, among my own people.
It took me a few months of exploring this revelation before I accepted another truth, and entered a new stage. In talking with Charley Flint, an African American Friend, and her European American husband, Jeff Hitchcock, I accepted the very harsh reality that, having grown up in a racist culture, I am myself racist. I have a reservoir of thoughts, feelings, attitudes, memories, opinions and interpretations that have been directly shaped by the racism embedded in the culture. To the extent that this reservoir had remained unconscious, I was controlled by it. I discovered that, to end racism, I would need to be more than a passive “nonracist.” I would need to work actively against racism, including my own internalized dominance patterns. Distressing though this was at the outset, I found it was thrilling that racism is in me – because I can do something about it!
I began working hard as an antiracist, reading, watching movies, taking workshops, participating in re-evaluation counseling as a means of moving through feelings distorted by racism. I found myself more open than ever before to friendships and partnerships with people of color. They, along with European American mentors, taught me a great deal. In particular, Mahesh Thomas, a Friend of African descent, partnered with me and coached me.
At that stage, I understood the purpose of my activism to be the elimination of racism because of the damage it caused people of color. There was no question of the huge wrongs done historically and still today. As I continued working though, I gradually entered a new phase. It began to dawn on me that, not only does racism destroy happiness and material wealth and life itself among people of color, it destroys white people as well. This was harder to see, in part because one of the very effects of racism on white people is to numb us. We could not possibly cooperate with racism if we could feel its impact on others, so we learn to numb ourselves. But in the process we lose our own humanity, our own ability to feel our pain.
It interests me that some early white Quakers exhorted their fellows to give up owning Africans, because they imperiled their own souls otherwise. This seems to me a correct understanding. What may have been missing was the equal importance of opposing damage to the souls (and bodies, of course) of the Africans.
In the last few years, I have moved into yet another stage, appreciating the necessity for white people to work together against racism, at times in exclusively white settings. This is a hard lesson, particularly for Quakers who so eschew exclusivity of any kind. Yet I have found that, as long as a white person maintains strong connections with people of color elsewhere in life, she or he can do much to unearth and erase unconscious racism, in the safety of an all-white group. This frees the person to return to the community and live passionately and lovingly alongside people of all races.
Robin AlpernRobin Alpern is a member of Scarsdale Friends Meeting in New York Yearly Meeting. She has written about ending racism and led workshops on the topic for Quakers. She is happily married and joyfully raising four children.
