Re-Imagining Anti-Racism for Gen Z
By Kokayi Nosakhere, an Organic Black Intellectual
The following two paragraphs are how the Willamette University speaks about its own history on its own website:
“In 1834 missionary Jason Lee came to the Oregon Territory to establish a Methodist mission for Native Americans living in the Willamette Valley. One of the mission’s primary operations was a school designed to “educate and civilize” the Native children.
When the missionaries arrived, they encountered communities ravaged by deadly diseases that had been introduced only a few generations earlier by the first white traders who had come to the region. These diseases shattered communities that had flourished for millennia in the fertile Willamette Valley. Deeply moved by the misery of the Indians they encountered, the missionaries offered health care, food and shelter to several Indian children who had been orphaned when their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles succumbed to these deadly diseases.” Source: https://willamette.edu/about/
On Monday, October 2, 2023, while visiting this historic campus, two incidents reminded me of how great an effect racial stress has over our European American friends and family members.
Only about 3,000 students attend the private institution, although the campus is arranged to accommodate much more than that. Because most textbooks are secured using online resources, the campus bookstore is physically small. Nonetheless, because I am attracted to books, I walked through it.
Sitting on a top shelf, the title of the book caught my attention. Once I read the introduction, it made sense. The title of the book caught the attention of Twitter also. That is how the author generated the title: from a market test. The title was selected before she wrote the book.
I took the book entitled,“What White People Can Do Next” by Emma Dabiri, to the cashier, who was an elderly European American woman. She sent the student being trained away to complete a task.
“Are you renting the book or buying it?” the cashier asked me. She looked down at the book, read the title, and then covered it reflectively with two inventory sheets from the table.
“I am purchasing it,” I answered.
The cashier looked at me and selected the appropriate price. I used the card reader and paid for the book. The cashier looked down to get the book and gasped as she noticed she had covered it. An awkward smile and laugh accompanied the book as she gave it to me. I smiled back, then quickly left the bookstore to keep myself from saying anything.
Using google maps, I located a coffee house nearby. Inside the Starbucks, I situated myself near an electrical outlet by the garbage receptacles. My laptop, writing papers and the book were laid out. A European American man throwing away his trash turned and asked me, while pointing directly at the book, “What’s this all about?”
I froze, looking like I was thinking. “I have only consumed the introduction. The author is a Black woman living in London. She is ‘mixed’ - whatever that means. Her mother is white Irish and she has not mentioned her father, yet. The opening mentions the death of George Floyd and talks about it from the perspective of someone outside of America. So, the question she is tackling is why don’t coalitions form around social justice issues, like they do in the labor movement?”
He grunted thoughtfully at my answer, then nodded his head up and down. “Yeah, race doesn’t really matter.”
I smiled. “I hope you have a nice day.”
I am a Black man living in the United States of America. I know how “race” feels from that perspective. It is a forced relationship. Nothing I say or do makes me immune from the effects of race upon my life. That effect is outside of my control, because that effect is flowing off the hands of my European American friends and family. I have no boundaries or right to comfort that they recognize and honor.
From what I can observe, choosing to not honor the taboo around discussing race, racism and whiteness generates such a degree of dis-ease in the nervous systems of ordinary European Americans that avoidance tactics are used to prevent engagement with these ideas. To be effective, the book has to overcome the aversion towards engagement.
This concludes Part One, please stay tuned for Part Two: October 16, 2023
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