Communichi

On April 22-23, I attended an Undoing Institutional Racism Conference organized by People’s Institute Northwest and held at the Casey Family Services office in the Central District of Seattle.

Why am I sharing this here in my monthly patient newsletter? As an acupuncturist, I focus on supporting people’s health and well being, using the time proven techniques of Chinese medicine. Health is an extremely broad subject though. The health of the individual and that of the society are intricately interwoven.

Western culture in general is obsessed with physical health. America develops some of the best athletes in the world, and our school systems place a high priority on physical education – sports, competition, and fitness. If only we placed the same emphasis on community health. Indeed, we are beginning to awaken to the urgent epiphany that our shared world of 7 billion humans is one family.

When billions live in shanty towns, without the basic requisites of life, not even the rich man in his gilded mansion on the hill, with all his fabulous toys and jet setting adventures can be happy. Although wealth is idolized by our media (which is owned by an increasingly small number of large corporations), and the profit motive of so-called “free” markets defines the economic status quo, there is a higher eternal law expressed in many religious faiths –the golden rule or ethic or reciprocity.

Stated differently – wealth, privilege, and power, are often amassed over generations. Therefore, we inherit the ethical transgressions of our ancestors. This does not mean white people are evil for inheriting wealth or for having advantages that people of color do not. It simply means that knowledge of injustice implies responsibility to bring justice, to fight for equity, and to dismantle preferential codes of power and privilege. Impossible you say? Certainly, if you sit and do nothing, you may indeed arrive at your self-fulfilling prophecy.

After returning from my volunteer mission to Haiti, it became clear to me that poverty and social injustice are more deadly in the long run, than any natural disaster. Poverty and social injustice arise when one group maintains artificial and unjust privilege over another, through force, artifice, and invisibly, through social conditioning.

Although social oppression and class stratification is probably older than the human species, somewhere around 500 years ago, a particularly heinous chapter opened with the onset of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. What followed is detailed in Howard Zinn’s classic – “A People’s History of the United States”.

Skipping ahead to the 20th century, although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 legally ended racial apartheid in the United States, nearly 50 years later, we have yet to fulfill the promise of that landmark legislation. A 2005 Justice Department report found that 60 percent of state and federal prison inmates were black or Hispanic. An African American male is roughly eight times more likely to be incarcerated than a white male. According to an AP report, nearly half of the nation’s murder victims in 2005 were black, and the number of black men who were slain is on the rise. A majority of the black murder victims were relatively young — between 17 and 29.

Similar racial disproportionalities to the disadvantage of people of color are found when comparing socio-economic variables such as representation in positions of power, family income, unemployment rate, education, exposure to toxic wastes, cancer rates, and one can reasonably imagine, many other categories of analysis. This is the legacy of institutional racism in short and it is still very much alive today.

The pinnacle of power and privilege in the modern world – with but a few notable exceptions – is the white male. How disappointing and sobering it was then, when I looked around at the faces in the room at the conference to find that women were by far the majority, with white women outnumbering women of color by a significant margin. Not including the facilitators, there were two males of color, three white males, and I was the only white male not required to be there by an employer. And that is the essence of why my conscience compels me to speak out. Knowledge brings responsibility.

While many people count themselves as liberal, open minded, unprejudiced individuals, unless unearned privilege is addressed, a racialized society will never heal itself. It is not enough for white people to spend a few weeks volunteering in a third world country. It is not enough merely to socialize with friends of another race, to sign a petition against racist immigration laws, or to have voted for President Obama. The evil of racism is
multigenerational and it burrows deep into our social institutions – like a virus in the blood stream. In case I haven’t been clear, we aren’t talking about mere social prejudice – backstage “jokes”, cross burnings, and race hate. Those are only the gross manifestations of a system of oppression which does not change unless it is recognized and systematically removed.

Superficial treatments alleviate the symptoms but mask the deeper disease. This is not about self-recrimination, blame, finger pointing, or one-upmanship. It’s about identifying the elephant in the room – racial inequality and white privilege – and committing ourselves to doing the work of honest reflection and engaging in actions in support of racial equity. Along the way, we also need to support gender equity, sexual orientation
equity, religious equity, age equity, ability equity, and I’ll even go out on a Buddhist limb here and say ecological/trans-species equity.

This is not easy work, as one of my white friends has shared with me. It takes time and often brings up conflicts we’d rather shy away from. The payoff? A chance to save humanity from self-destruction. A chance to clear our conscience of past injustices performed by our ancestors. A chance for all children to survive, let alone thrive, in a peaceful world. With so many complex problems and conflicts – climate change, militarism, the current economic depression – facing our society and planet now, meaningful attempts to solve them will require of us an unprecedented level of
cooperation and mutual respect.

The training is based on the premise that racism has been systematically erected and that it can be “undone” if people understand where it comes from, how it functions and why it is perpetuated. This workshop is offered by The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, a national multiracial, antiracist collective of veteran organizers and educators
dedicated to building an effective movement for social change.

The People ’s Institute was founded in 1980, has trained thousands of people in hundreds of communities throughout the United States, and is recognized nationally for the quality of its training. The workshop addresses the following areas: Analyzing Power – Effective organizing requires accurate analysis. Analysis includes the systems that keep racism in place. The training examines why people are poor, how institutions and organizations perpetuate the imbalance of power, and who is responsible for maintaining the status quo.

Defining Racism – In order to undo racism, it must be understood. Organizers and educators who intend to build effective coalitions need to be very clear about what racism is and what it is not in order to avoid serious strategic and tactical errors. Understanding the Manifestations of Racism – Racism operates in more than just individual and institutional settings. The dynamics of cultural racism, linguistic racism, and militarism as applied racism are examined.

Learning from History – Racism has distorted, suppressed and denied the histories of people of color and white people as well. A correct knowledge of history is a necessary organizing tool as well as a source of personal and collective empowerment. Sharing Culture – One of the most effective methods of oppression is to deny a people its history and culture. The training process strongly emphasizes “cultural sharing” as a critical organizing tool.

Organizing to Undo Racism – How can communities achieve concrete results in dismantling the structures of racism? The principles of effective organizing, the process of community empowerment, the techniques of effective strategizing and the internal dynamics of leadership development are explored.

In two days, we barely touched on the mind boggling scope of the problem, or the blessed possibilities of the solution. Now, the real work begins. If you are interested in attending a workshop with the People’s Institute Northwest, upcoming trainings in Seattle will be held July 22-23, Sept. 30-Oct. 1, and Dec.9-10. For more information, you may contact them at 206.938.1023, or email: pinwseattle@yahoo.com