Understanding Systemic Racism Through History

a little three-minute discussion wasn't a long conversation right but it was enough to let her know that history matters and that the things that she sees didn't just happen that they're the result of certain policies because here's what's interesting about that area that we now like to call the ghetto the reality is the ghetto was created and public housing in particular was created not for poor black people it was created for poor white people and in fact for the first several years of public housing people of color couldn't even get into public housing projects they were essentially seg ated by race only poor white folks could even live there and then what happened is the government created some new programs under the FHA program the VA loan program later on the GI Bill program which allowed those same white folks who had been poor and struggling to leave public housing and to leave urban areas and to hustle it out to the suburbs where only we could live or to the smaller towns where only we were going to be welcome so what's interesting is that the hood became the hood because only people of color now were allowed to live there white folks were literally being subsidized by the government to move to the suburbs the white middle class and make note of this was built by government government programs that underwrote those loans because those families could not have afforded a loan otherwise they were able to get one because the government underwrote the loan and guaranteed the loan in case of default but only for people of color people I mean excuse me only for white folks people of color by and large couldn't get in on any of that so white folks were able to move people of color were not certain neighborhoods deteriorated economically other neighborhoods went up in value at the very same time the government was doing what they called urban renewal which meant they came through black neighborhoods and Latino neighborhoods and they built interstates right through the heart of the community right knocking down black homes black Apartments knocking down blackowned businesses all around the country between 1950 and 1970 about one in five apartments or houses lived in by black folks was knocked to the ground for econom development purposes even though people of color couldn't benefit from almost any of that Economic Development so that's how our communities come to look the way they look but if we don't know that and if I don't tell my daughter that but maybe let's say I don't tell her because I don't know what if I don't know the history what if I don't do this work and therefore don't know the answer what do you think my daughter is going to assume is the answer what would you assume is the answer you know what we would assume if we're not taught the history we would default to the position of this culture which says what wherever you end up it's all about you so if you're living in a poor neighborhood it's just because you didn't work hard enough and if you live in an affluent neighborhood it's obviously because you're smarter right the default position of America is this notion of rugged individualism and meritocracy and wherever you end up is all about your own genius your own effort your own morality your own cultural ethics that's what we believe and we believe that even though there is no such thing as a rugged individual in the history of human beings how do I know that very simple for centuries systemic racism in government policies has disproportionately affected black Americans from housing to education outat to criminal justice this policies have inequality in this video we will explore how the systemic work against black people and what can be done to change them beings are social creatures by definition we've never lived in isolation from one another we've always lived in families and tribes and communities Nations right if you ever meet someone who's actually a rugged individual and hasn't been raised in a social context you need to get the hell away from that person they would be like a feral animal right they would be wild it'd be like being raised on an island by a porpus they wouldn't even know how to have language they'd probably try to eat you because they wouldn't understand there's like a taboo against that right you need to get the hell away from anybody who's actually a rugged individual because there are no such thing and certainly let me just say this If you inherited $200 million from your daddy's real estate Empire you sure as hell are not a self-made any or a rugged individual you might want to write that down so there is no there is no rugged individual anything we're all social beings some have had opportunity others have not unless we're honest about that unless we're willing to have a conversation we end up misleading ourselves and we can't understand what we're seeing and then if we can't understand it we're not going to fix it right we're not going to fix the disparity in housing if we don't understand where it came from so if the data says and it does that white folks on average have 15 times the net worth of black folks 13 times the net worth of Latino folk right we just assume we must have worked harder is that right that's interesting because actually the black folks and brown folks have done some of the hardest work in this country ever since the country was founded were it not for the labor of African descended peoples there would be no country at all in fact it was my family it was my family white slave owning family in the South that got black folks to do all the hard work cuz we were lazy asses and did want to work at all white folks in the south on the plantation used to want to sit on the porch and drink mint jeps and have carriage rides rather than work while black folks did all the real labor and yet we decided that black folks are lazy which I find fascinating right and then people write to me and say well these black people they're just taking all the jobs okay which is it precious because it can't be both people of color can't take all the jobs and be lazy I don't ask much of racist because I expect very little but you cannot be lazy and take all the jobs are we at least clear on that like if you took all the jobs you were like the opposite of lazy if you are indeed lazy you probably did not even take one job let alone all of them so I just need racist to get their damn story straight that's all I ask I just don't like moving targets that's all right but if I don't tell my daughter the truth she defaults to the position of the culture and then she can't understand what the problem is the same is true with policing you can't understand the black lives matter movement and the importance of it if you don't know the history and the relationship between law enforcement and black and brown peoples if you understood that history you wouldn't ask one question about why this movement is necessary and why it's righteous if you knew that history but you don't know it and it's not your fault you weren't supposed to know it and nobody taught it to you right so you don't have to know that modern policing traces back to slave patrols that black folks first experience with law enforcement was having you know who workingclass and poor white folks on Horseback going around keeping black folks in line on behalf of the rich master that owned all the property that sounds a lot like modern policing cuz ain't no rich people policing right it's workingclass folks who are out there protecting the property of rich people against the depredations of poor people that's what modern policing is and it traces back and we know that's what modern policing is by the way because we will lock you up for 10 years for $100 worth of food stamp fraud but if you take 12 a half trillion dollars on Wall Street 20% of the net worth of this country you will not do one day in jail so we know that law enforcement has got nothing to do with enforcing the law it's got nothing to do with good people and bad people law Breakers and the law abiding it only has to do with controlling certain people and black and brown folks know who those certain people usually are because it's always been them see black folks know that it was cops who were involved in race riots and racial terrorism against black communities for the first 50 years of the 20th century you didn't learn about that in class either and that's not your fault it wasn't taught but in fact every single year year just about from 1900 all the way to the 1930s 1940s at least there were race riots where white folks would just go into black communities burn them to the ground bomb them from the air like in Tulsa Oklahoma RI people out of their homes beat them in the street and police Sat by watched it happen and participated that doesn't mean that every cop in the modern era is like that but it means that black folks can be excused for being not so clear on the decency of police in their communities because there's a history there it was police who dragged black folks and white allies off of those sit-in stools at lunch counters in the South to enforce segregation see when your job is to enforce the law and for most of American History the law was against you as a people then enforcing the law means you are the first line of Oppression people of color know that history and need to be excused when they don't just get over it because that continues how do we know it continues very easy we know from the data on racial profiling that black folks are twice as likely as white folks to be stopped and searched for drugs even though white folks are more likely to have drugs on us on the occasions that were're searched white folks use drugs and sell drugs at the same or higher rate than black folks and Latinos and yet it is black folks and Latinos who in any given year make up 85 to 90% of the people who get arrested and incarcerated for a drug offense see people of color know that and if we don't we don't understand when black folks rise up and say black lives matter well what do you mean all lives matter yes sweetheart I know they do yes they do and that is a totally irrelevant and unnecessary point to make you see you don't have to say all lives matter we take that for granted what we've never accepted in this country is that black and brown life mattered you have to Proclaim that which is ignored you see that's why we have black history month right now and not White History Month we don't have to have white history month cuz we got May and June and July and August and every other month where we learn about white folks we don't have to call it that see how slick that is that's how white supremacy operates you don't have to call it White History Month you just call it History Literature and theater and poetry and art you don't have to racialize where it came from right that's what maleia Sante at Temple calls universalizing the particular which is the Hallmark of eurocentric thought right not everybody's experience is the same and so when certain people have been left out of all you have to called that out by name cuz see we've always said all and we didn't mean it we said all men are created equal and we didn't mean that right we didn't mean women but we didn't even mean all men we said all and it was a lie when we said it right and so in a sense when you say black lives matter to respond with all lives matter would be like going in a time machine back to 1971 y'all won't remember this those who were students those who were older will around 197 7172 the big phrase was black is beautiful right there was this desire to take back the beauty narrative from a beauty industry fashion industry glamour industry that had hijacked it and denigrated black physicality and Beauty right so folks we're saying black is beautiful to reclaim a sense of Beauty for themselves it'd be like getting in a time machine going back to 1971 hearing somebody say black is beautiful and tapping them on the shoulder and going but we're all beautiful in our own way yes shut up we know not the point it'd be like going back to the early 80s when the HIV aids crisis started and it took several years for the president president of the United States to even utter the word Ronald Reagan didn't want to even utter the word let alone Cut Loose with funding to deal with the problem until his buddy Rock Hudson died of it and then all of the sudden he was willing to talk about it a little bit right so for the first several years what' you have you had activist out in the street you had act up Gay Men's Health crisis out in the street demanding research and funding for HIV AIDS right and what they were saying in effect was people with AIDS lives matter that wasn't the actual phrase and we didn't have tags but that was essentially what they were saying right people with AIDS lives matter and we need to pay attention because right now we're not paying attention to that and we don't seem to believe it as a society so we need to start believing it it would be like getting in a time machine going back to 1983 82 in the middle of an act up event or a gay men's Health crisis event and shutting down the protest by saying yeah but what about pancreatic cancer people die all kinds of things right sort of not the point you have to claim that which is ignored and if we know the history we understand that right because if we know the history we know that it is indeed black life and I would suggest Brown life life of color generally indigenous life that is usually denigrated demeaned ignored on a sexual level it's trans lives that are demeaned ignored right it's women is women so sometimes you got to Proclaim that which is not in the obvious frame of reference there's nothing pernicious about it it's not about saying black lives are worth more than other lives it's about damn it these lives actually do matter and even though the history says they don't we're here to tell you that they do and there's nothing wrong about that at all but if you don't know the history it might seem untour and I get it and again it's not your fault that you don't know the history but it is our responsibility to learn it and then apply it to what we see same is true with immigration this immigration drama that we have right now is only possible because we don't understand our own history as a country and particularly those of us of European descent we have lied to ourselves about how we got here and for what reason see black folks know why they're here native peoples know why they're here and how they got here a lot of Asian folk know particularly if they're Chinese American they know they got here because their ancestors were brought over to work on the railroads by the railroad Barons who didn't care if thousands of them died laying track 19 20 hours a day but for those of us who were from Europe we have this fiction that we've told and we believe it even though there's no truth to it you know what the fiction is it's two parts number one we say things like with regard to Mexicans coming over the border with regard to immigrants coming but only that border that's the only one we care about right the southern border I find that interesting we're not flipping out about Canada right we don't have any of the Minute Men or the anti-immigrant group sitting off the coast of Nova Scotia with a gun and a scope trying to like pick off the sneaky Canadians that are trying to sneak in here for our Superior Health Care system which after all would be pretty stupid thing to do but in any event we only care about that one border forgetting for a minute that that border was created at the end of a war that was started on false pretense by this country after which we jacked half of their country and you weren't taught that in school either because our history books aren't interested in telling the truth they tell this very patriotic history that has no relationship to the fact so that border is artificial Mexican folk who are coming here documented or not let's be clear are coming home their families were here before our families were here in almost every instance but we forget that and then we say things like well I don't mind them coming I just want them to come legally like my people did the hell is that even mean come legally there was no law to break when our people came the fact that we didn't break a law that didn't even exist you don't get cookies for that you don't get like a pat on the back and a gold star because your great great great whatever was law abiding when there was no law that he could have violated even if he wanted to but we've told this lie that we came for these upstanding principles so we'll say things like well you know our people came for Liberty and freedom democracy these people they're just coming for Stuff they're just coming for jobs they're just coming for health care they're just coming for stuff we came for high-minded principle right because we believe that what kind of third grade version of American History is that right like when Donald Trump says well Mexico is not sending their best what the hell you think Europe sent their best Europe no our people were The Losers of Europe I'm not trying to be an I'm just telling you the truth like our people were The Losers of Europe the winners didn't get on the boat you understand what I'm saying the winners didn't leave why the hell would you leave if you were winning only the losers left because they had no choice they were dying they were starving they couldn't support their families a lot of them were convicts who were sold into indentured servitude to Rich to work for Rich European people they were barely above the level of a slave themselves the idea that we had these high we didn't believe in Liberty and freedom and we know that because once we got to the colonies we set up the opposite of Liberty and freedom and I don't just mean that for like black folks and Native folks I mean even for other white folks like we spent most of the time in the early colonies trying to figure out who the witch was right it was like well you're not a Christian well no you're not a Christian well no you're not a Christian I'm going to hang you from a tree really well I'm going to drown you in the Stream well I'm going to set you on fire like that wasn't Liberty the colonies were some of the least free places in the history of the cosmos but we act like we came for Liberty and they're just here to take advantage let's be clear our people didn't come for Liberty they came for stuff they came for stuff like land they came for stuff like opportunity they came for stuff like the ability to feed their families and there's no shame in that none at all but just like there's no shame in our families having done that there's no shame in in brown families doing that and coming over that border from Mexico Central America or wherever else they might be coming there's no shame in any event but we've told a lie it's like we have this image in our head that sometime in like 1650 this was a common scene in England all the nice white noblemen got together and one of them gathered his children around the fireplace in the middle of the 1600s and said well now children uh I think you'll agree with me that we're doing quite brilliant here and we have this big mansion and we have all this gold and you remember last week when the king invited us to the palace and you played out in the garden with his children I know it was brilliant right it was great it was great it was great I bet it was lots fun but Daddy thinks that we need to stop all that nonsense and maybe strike out on an adventure so here's my plan even though we're doing so well even though we pretty much run the show here in England I think that what we should do this summer follow me stick with me I know it's going to be a stretch but I promise it's going to be great is we should get on a big boat a rickety Old Ship I don't even know if it's seaworthy children it might sink we might be eaten by sharks we might get hijacked by Pirates we might get scurvy and die a horrible death however I think you will agree it will be an adventure a great one indeed that did not happen noblemen didn't leave those who were doing well did not leave only the losers got on the boat people say things like when my family came over on the Mayflower okay sweetheart you might not want to talk about that if you actually knew who was on those early ships I'm not sure who was but I know who wasn't The King The King was not on that ship nobody the king really wanted to keep around was on that ship right so our inability to see this though understand the importance historically if we don't understand that we came for the same reasons that folks come today be they documented or not then we can't see them in us and we can't see us in them and that's why we have this drama because we're spending all this time pretending that our motivations and our even human decency and ethics are different when they're not you see this is why history matters so much we can't fix any of these problems whether it's immigration issues whether it's criminal justice issues whether it's wealth disparity all of that we can't do anything about that if we're not willing to understand history but let me close with this and it's a point that I think needs to be made because sometimes when we talk about racism and we talk about the heavy weight of History sometimes people assume that there is an attempt on my part or other anti-racist activists or Educators part to instill guilt in white people I have no interest in white guilt none and people of color surely have no interest in white guilt guilt will not liberate anybody from any thing it will not liberate any of us from systems of inequality it isn't about feeling guilty it's not even about white people per se it's about whiteness as a system right sometimes people get tripped up on that right and they think like oh you hate white people actually let me be clear I love me some white people I totally absolutely love me some white people like my wife is white I totally love her um those daughters that I've been telling you about they're white cuz that's what happens when white people make babies I love them uh my mom love her nice white lady and my dad and I don't get along but it's not cuz he's white it's about some other that we don't have time to process tonight but if you read my book White like me you'll know what some of that is um we don't have to talk about that it's not about white people it's about white Nest it's about a system of white supremacy that has turned us against one another right and so I want to tell you a story that tries to explain the difference between guilt and responsibility so you'll know what I mean when I say those things are different because it's one thing to say that it's another thing to really understand why so let me just share a brief story with you and then I'll take questions and I'll let you out of here and I'll be happy to sell you some books if you want one cuz I got a college fund to pay for um so you know feel free to come buy some merchandise but anyway the story is not about racism so that part of the speech is over right it's not about oppression it's not about privilege it's not about inequality it's about something totally different but I think the story has a lesson in it about those subjects so it has to do with something that happened to me when I got out of college I graduated 26 years ago this may from Tan University in New Orleans and when I graduated for some reason I'm still not totally clear on this I thought it would be a really great idea to move into a very large house with nine other people let me just give you a little life advice all right like if you haven't already figured this out okay do not think for one minute that it is ever a good idea to move into a very large house with nine other people it usually is not nearly as fun as you think it is going to be it has all kinds of problems but we didn't think about any of those we thought it was going to be great why because it was going to be cheap and we needed that because we were broke right we were right out of college we didn't have any money rent was $525 a month I don't mean per person I mean total right so again not good at math but I can do those numbers 5250 per person per month man you add the cable bill the uh utility bills we split the food right it's still less than 100 a month so like on that level this was a great idea right this was brilliant right hundred bucks a month man even in $1 19990 that was good right it'd be ridiculous today but it would be good even by 1990 standards so on a financial level it made sense but about 6 weeks into this little experiment in communal living we came to understand or at least I did why it had been a terrible mistake and this is what happened I was working downtown and I was living Uptown so I get on the street car to come back up Uptown in New Orleans I get off the street car I walk uh you know five blocks or so into the house on Robert Street I go up the steps at 1805 Robert I open the door and I'm met by this incredible smell and I mean that in a good way which is important to point out cuz when you live with nine other people there's all kinds of smells they're usually not good this one was actually really nice it was the smell of dinner being cooked for the whole group CU we also took turns making dinner for each other and this particular night one of my roommates was making dinner on the left front burner of the stove there was this big pot of gumbo right and man that's you know that's what you do in New Orleans big pot of gumbo and it smelled good and it looked good and it even had shrimp in there not many like I said we were broke but it had like three three of those really little bitty ass shrimp those shrimp that are like so small right that they make jumbo shrimp look like lobsters or something right and so I looked at it and I smelled it and I thought man that looks great and when my roommate asked me if I wanted any I normally would have said yes but as it turned out I didn't know he was going to make gumbo for the night and so i' had already had dinner down town before I you know came up town after I got off work so I said hey man I already ate but do me a favor um smells great great looks great take me some of that put it in the container put it in the fridge I'm going to take it to work tomorrow for lunch and he said okay great and so he does that and then I go upstairs and you know listen to music watch TV hung out with some friends or whatever and did whatever we did for fun in 1990 there wasn't much wasn't much like social networking in 1990 was pretty much you just walk down the hall to your roommate's room and you're like hey what you doing and they were like nothing it's 1990 there's nothing to do go back to sleep get with us in like 15 years and there'll be something maybe or 20 years right so we all sort of go to bed early I went to bed sort of early woke up the next morning at like 7:30 came downstairs to get some coffee get ready to go to work and I noticed that on the left front burner of our stove was still the same pot of gumbo and man it did not smell as good or look as good as it had the night before and my roommate had neither saved any of it for me nor had he cleaned it so I was pissed on two levels right now the food had gone to waste I definitely wasn't going to eat it now but he also left the mess for me or you know maybe one of the other roommates to clean so I sat there and I thought about what I wanted to do part of me wanted to wake him up right get him to clean it you know give him hell for it but then I thought no I'm going to be nice I'm just going to clean it I'll take it up with him when I get home so I took the pot of gumbo and I brought it over to the sink and I got the brush and the soap and I started running the water into the pot of nasty day old gumbo and I stopped myself halfway through and I said man I don't have to clean this this isn't my mess I didn't even eat any of this let alone did I make it so now I'm feeling really self-righteous cuz I'm talking myself out of doing the hard work right so now I feel real smart so I take the pot of gumbo and I put it right back where I found it on the left front burner right and I walk out the door head held high knowing that I had not been suckered into cleaning somebody else's mess right so then I come back that night at about 6:15 6:30 and I see one of my other roommates making dinner on the right front burner of the stove but on the left front burner right where it had been now for 24 hours it's the same pot of Gumbo getting Nast nastier more disgusting more crusted on the sides of the pot I looked at my roommate I'm like man what are you doing like I know you can smell dinner from last night how the hell can you make dinner for us now on the right front burner when it's right under your nose why don't you clean that and he looked at me and said hey man I didn't make the gumbo I didn't even eat any of the gumbo I wasn't even here last night how about you I said hey man not me now we both felt self-righteous and we knew what it meant he looked at me and said so you want some lentils and rice and I said absolutely so piled up my plate with lentils and rice I ate my dinner I wiped off the dish in the sink cleaned it dried it put it in the dish rack went upstairs hung out with the roommates did whatever we do for fun in 1990 once again went to bed sort of early woke up the next morning I'd forgotten to set an alarm wake up about 7 but here's a tip if you're living in a house where a pot of Gumbo has been sitting on the left front burner of the stove for what is now 36 1/2 hours you are not going to need an alarm clock to wake your ass up you are going to be awake right because the smell is going to find you it is going to crawl out of the pot of Gumbo on the legs that it grew overnight and I'm not speaking in metaphor English Majors I mean that literally like the stink is going to grow feet and legs and it is going to crawl out of the pot across the kitchen across the living room up the stairs down the back hall go under your doorf frame and it is going to find with the Precision of a laser that thing on the front of your face you call the nose and you will be awake and now I was and I was pissed because I knew what the smell meant right I knew what was waiting for me on the left front burner having not been cleaned by anybody least of all the guy that made the gumbo so I open my door real loud I start stomping down the hall hoping to wake people up hoping to let them know just how displeased I am live with nine other people cannot find one of them and the guy that made the gumbo like where's Waldo nobody knows where in the hell he went he just made the gumbo like a practical joke and disappeared right just wanted to see how long it would take for somebody else to clean up his mess I guess and I get down to the bottom of the stairs I look across a living room into the kitchen I see the pot of gumbo and I'm pretty confident the gumbo saw me right with the eyes that it had also grown it was evolving right there in our kitchen very rapidly yes and it was at that moment not one moment earlier but definitely not a moment later that I came to understand maybe the most important lesson I'd ever learned about any sub and what was it the lesson was it didn't really matter anymore who made the mess didn't really matter anymore who was the author of all this unpleasantness as the old saying goes the only thing that mattered was that I was tired of living in that nastiness I was tired of living with the residue of somebody else's actions I was not to blame but I had to take responsibility because if I didn't it may not get clean you see and the same is true with human society when we decide that we will clean up the residue of what other folks left us even though they did it without our permission and without our involvement when we decide that we're tired of living in that we will clean it not because we are the blame not because we are guilty but because we're the only damn ones left thank you all so much for being here I appreciate your time to understand to this Injustice we must first look at the past policies like Jim Crow law red lining and unequal access to resources were especially designed to exclude black Americans from the benefit of society one of the most gloring examples of systemic Justice is the criminal justice systems black Americans are disportionately arrested convicted and incarcerated these policies are devastated families and created cycles of poverty and disenfranchisement economic policies have also failed black Americans from discriminatory iring practices to wagees gaps systemic barriers prevent black individuals from achieving Financial stability education is often called the great equalizer but for black Americans the playing field has never been level funding for school is often tied to property taxes living schools in black neighborhoods underfunded and overcrowded black Americans face significant disparities in healthcare these issues are rooted in both economic inequality and systemic biases why these issues are deeply ingrain change is possible it requires B policy reforms community-driven Solutions and accountability at all levels of government systemic change start with awareness and action speak out advocate for policy reform and support organizations working to dismantle this system of Oppression what are your thought on how government policies affect black communities share your thoughts in the comment box below and don't forget to like this video until next time cheers and have a good one

a little three-minute discussion wasn't a long conversation right but it was enough to let her know that history matters and that the things that she sees didn't just happen that they're the result of certain policies because here's what's interesting about that area that we now like to call the ghetto the reality is the ghetto was created and public housing in particular was created not for poor black people it was created for poor white people and in fact for the first several years of public housing people of color couldn't even get into public housing projects they were essentially seg ated by race only poor white folks could even live there and then what happened is the government created some new programs under the FHA program the VA loan program later on the GI Bill program which allowed those same white folks who had been poor and struggling to leave public housing and to leave urban areas and to hustle it out to the suburbs where only we could live or to the smaller towns where only we were going to be welcome so what's interesting is that the hood became the hood because only people of color now were allowed to live there white folks were literally being subsidized by the government to move to the suburbs the white middle class and make note of this was built by government government programs that underwrote those loans because those families could not have afforded a loan otherwise they were able to get one because the government underwrote the loan and guaranteed the loan in case of default but only for people of color people I mean excuse me only for white folks people of color by and large couldn't get in on any of that so white folks were able to move people of color were not certain neighborhoods deteriorated economically other neighborhoods went up in value at the very same time the government was doing what they called urban renewal which meant they came through black neighborhoods and Latino neighborhoods and they built interstates right through the heart of the community right knocking down black homes black Apartments knocking down blackowned businesses all around the country between 1950 and 1970 about one in five apartments or houses lived in by black folks was knocked to the ground for econom development purposes even though people of color couldn't benefit from almost any of that Economic Development so that's how our communities come to look the way they look but if we don't know that and if I don't tell my daughter that but maybe let's say I don't tell her because I don't know what if I don't know the history what if I don't do this work and therefore don't know the answer what do you think my daughter is going to assume is the answer what would you assume is the answer you know what we would assume if we're not taught the history we would default to the position of this culture which says what wherever you end up it's all about you so if you're living in a poor neighborhood it's just because you didn't work hard enough and if you live in an affluent neighborhood it's obviously because you're smarter right the default position of America is this notion of rugged individualism and meritocracy and wherever you end up is all about your own genius your own effort your own morality your own cultural ethics that's what we believe and we believe that even though there is no such thing as a rugged individual in the history of human beings how do I know that very simple for centuries systemic racism in government policies has disproportionately affected black Americans from housing to education outat to criminal justice this policies have inequality in this video we will explore how the systemic work against black people and what can be done to change them beings are social creatures by definition we've never lived in isolation from one another we've always lived in families and tribes and communities Nations right if you ever meet someone who's actually a rugged individual and hasn't been raised in a social context you need to get the hell away from that person they would be like a feral animal right they would be wild it'd be like being raised on an island by a porpus they wouldn't even know how to have language they'd probably try to eat you because they wouldn't understand there's like a taboo against that right you need to get the hell away from anybody who's actually a rugged individual because there are no such thing and certainly let me just say this If you inherited $200 million from your daddy's real estate Empire you sure as hell are not a self-made any or a rugged individual you might want to write that down so there is no there is no rugged individual anything we're all social beings some have had opportunity others have not unless we're honest about that unless we're willing to have a conversation we end up misleading ourselves and we can't understand what we're seeing and then if we can't understand it we're not going to fix it right we're not going to fix the disparity in housing if we don't understand where it came from so if the data says and it does that white folks on average have 15 times the net worth of black folks 13 times the net worth of Latino folk right we just assume we must have worked harder is that right that's interesting because actually the black folks and brown folks have done some of the hardest work in this country ever since the country was founded were it not for the labor of African descended peoples there would be no country at all in fact it was my family it was my family white slave owning family in the South that got black folks to do all the hard work cuz we were lazy asses and did want to work at all white folks in the south on the plantation used to want to sit on the porch and drink mint jeps and have carriage rides rather than work while black folks did all the real labor and yet we decided that black folks are lazy which I find fascinating right and then people write to me and say well these black people they're just taking all the jobs okay which is it precious because it can't be both people of color can't take all the jobs and be lazy I don't ask much of racist because I expect very little but you cannot be lazy and take all the jobs are we at least clear on that like if you took all the jobs you were like the opposite of lazy if you are indeed lazy you probably did not even take one job let alone all of them so I just need racist to get their damn story straight that's all I ask I just don't like moving targets that's all right but if I don't tell my daughter the truth she defaults to the position of the culture and then she can't understand what the problem is the same is true with policing you can't understand the black lives matter movement and the importance of it if you don't know the history and the relationship between law enforcement and black and brown peoples if you understood that history you wouldn't ask one question about why this movement is necessary and why it's righteous if you knew that history but you don't know it and it's not your fault you weren't supposed to know it and nobody taught it to you right so you don't have to know that modern policing traces back to slave patrols that black folks first experience with law enforcement was having you know who workingclass and poor white folks on Horseback going around keeping black folks in line on behalf of the rich master that owned all the property that sounds a lot like modern policing cuz ain't no rich people policing right it's workingclass folks who are out there protecting the property of rich people against the depredations of poor people that's what modern policing is and it traces back and we know that's what modern policing is by the way because we will lock you up for 10 years for $100 worth of food stamp fraud but if you take 12 a half trillion dollars on Wall Street 20% of the net worth of this country you will not do one day in jail so we know that law enforcement has got nothing to do with enforcing the law it's got nothing to do with good people and bad people law Breakers and the law abiding it only has to do with controlling certain people and black and brown folks know who those certain people usually are because it's always been them see black folks know that it was cops who were involved in race riots and racial terrorism against black communities for the first 50 years of the 20th century you didn't learn about that in class either and that's not your fault it wasn't taught but in fact every single year year just about from 1900 all the way to the 1930s 1940s at least there were race riots where white folks would just go into black communities burn them to the ground bomb them from the air like in Tulsa Oklahoma RI people out of their homes beat them in the street and police Sat by watched it happen and participated that doesn't mean that every cop in the modern era is like that but it means that black folks can be excused for being not so clear on the decency of police in their communities because there's a history there it was police who dragged black folks and white allies off of those sit-in stools at lunch counters in the South to enforce segregation see when your job is to enforce the law and for most of American History the law was against you as a people then enforcing the law means you are the first line of Oppression people of color know that history and need to be excused when they don't just get over it because that continues how do we know it continues very easy we know from the data on racial profiling that black folks are twice as likely as white folks to be stopped and searched for drugs even though white folks are more likely to have drugs on us on the occasions that were're searched white folks use drugs and sell drugs at the same or higher rate than black folks and Latinos and yet it is black folks and Latinos who in any given year make up 85 to 90% of the people who get arrested and incarcerated for a drug offense see people of color know that and if we don't we don't understand when black folks rise up and say black lives matter well what do you mean all lives matter yes sweetheart I know they do yes they do and that is a totally irrelevant and unnecessary point to make you see you don't have to say all lives matter we take that for granted what we've never accepted in this country is that black and brown life mattered you have to Proclaim that which is ignored you see that's why we have black history month right now and not White History Month we don't have to have white history month cuz we got May and June and July and August and every other month where we learn about white folks we don't have to call it that see how slick that is that's how white supremacy operates you don't have to call it White History Month you just call it History Literature and theater and poetry and art you don't have to racialize where it came from right that's what maleia Sante at Temple calls universalizing the particular which is the Hallmark of eurocentric thought right not everybody's experience is the same and so when certain people have been left out of all you have to called that out by name cuz see we've always said all and we didn't mean it we said all men are created equal and we didn't mean that right we didn't mean women but we didn't even mean all men we said all and it was a lie when we said it right and so in a sense when you say black lives matter to respond with all lives matter would be like going in a time machine back to 1971 y'all won't remember this those who were students those who were older will around 197 7172 the big phrase was black is beautiful right there was this desire to take back the beauty narrative from a beauty industry fashion industry glamour industry that had hijacked it and denigrated black physicality and Beauty right so folks we're saying black is beautiful to reclaim a sense of Beauty for themselves it'd be like getting in a time machine going back to 1971 hearing somebody say black is beautiful and tapping them on the shoulder and going but we're all beautiful in our own way yes shut up we know not the point it'd be like going back to the early 80s when the HIV aids crisis started and it took several years for the president president of the United States to even utter the word Ronald Reagan didn't want to even utter the word let alone Cut Loose with funding to deal with the problem until his buddy Rock Hudson died of it and then all of the sudden he was willing to talk about it a little bit right so for the first several years what' you have you had activist out in the street you had act up Gay Men's Health crisis out in the street demanding research and funding for HIV AIDS right and what they were saying in effect was people with AIDS lives matter that wasn't the actual phrase and we didn't have tags but that was essentially what they were saying right people with AIDS lives matter and we need to pay attention because right now we're not paying attention to that and we don't seem to believe it as a society so we need to start believing it it would be like getting in a time machine going back to 1983 82 in the middle of an act up event or a gay men's Health crisis event and shutting down the protest by saying yeah but what about pancreatic cancer people die all kinds of things right sort of not the point you have to claim that which is ignored and if we know the history we understand that right because if we know the history we know that it is indeed black life and I would suggest Brown life life of color generally indigenous life that is usually denigrated demeaned ignored on a sexual level it's trans lives that are demeaned ignored right it's women is women so sometimes you got to Proclaim that which is not in the obvious frame of reference there's nothing pernicious about it it's not about saying black lives are worth more than other lives it's about damn it these lives actually do matter and even though the history says they don't we're here to tell you that they do and there's nothing wrong about that at all but if you don't know the history it might seem untour and I get it and again it's not your fault that you don't know the history but it is our responsibility to learn it and then apply it to what we see same is true with immigration this immigration drama that we have right now is only possible because we don't understand our own history as a country and particularly those of us of European descent we have lied to ourselves about how we got here and for what reason see black folks know why they're here native peoples know why they're here and how they got here a lot of Asian folk know particularly if they're Chinese American they know they got here because their ancestors were brought over to work on the railroads by the railroad Barons who didn't care if thousands of them died laying track 19 20 hours a day but for those of us who were from Europe we have this fiction that we've told and we believe it even though there's no truth to it you know what the fiction is it's two parts number one we say things like with regard to Mexicans coming over the border with regard to immigrants coming but only that border that's the only one we care about right the southern border I find that interesting we're not flipping out about Canada right we don't have any of the Minute Men or the anti-immigrant group sitting off the coast of Nova Scotia with a gun and a scope trying to like pick off the sneaky Canadians that are trying to sneak in here for our Superior Health Care system which after all would be pretty stupid thing to do but in any event we only care about that one border forgetting for a minute that that border was created at the end of a war that was started on false pretense by this country after which we jacked half of their country and you weren't taught that in school either because our history books aren't interested in telling the truth they tell this very patriotic history that has no relationship to the fact so that border is artificial Mexican folk who are coming here documented or not let's be clear are coming home their families were here before our families were here in almost every instance but we forget that and then we say things like well I don't mind them coming I just want them to come legally like my people did the hell is that even mean come legally there was no law to break when our people came the fact that we didn't break a law that didn't even exist you don't get cookies for that you don't get like a pat on the back and a gold star because your great great great whatever was law abiding when there was no law that he could have violated even if he wanted to but we've told this lie that we came for these upstanding principles so we'll say things like well you know our people came for Liberty and freedom democracy these people they're just coming for Stuff they're just coming for jobs they're just coming for health care they're just coming for stuff we came for high-minded principle right because we believe that what kind of third grade version of American History is that right like when Donald Trump says well Mexico is not sending their best what the hell you think Europe sent their best Europe no our people were The Losers of Europe I'm not trying to be an  I'm just telling you the truth like our people were The Losers of Europe the winners didn't get on the boat you understand what I'm saying the winners didn't leave why the hell would you leave if you were winning only the losers left because they had no choice they were dying they were starving they couldn't support their families a lot of them were convicts who were sold into indentured servitude to Rich to work for Rich European people they were barely above the level of a slave themselves the idea that we had these high we didn't believe in Liberty and freedom and we know that because once we got to the colonies we set up the opposite of Liberty and freedom and I don't just mean that for like black folks and Native folks I mean even for other white folks like we spent most of the time in the early colonies trying to figure out who the witch was right it was like well you're not a Christian well no you're not a Christian well no you're not a Christian I'm going to hang you from a tree really well I'm going to drown you in the Stream well I'm going to set you on fire like that wasn't Liberty the colonies were some of the least free places in the history of the cosmos but we act like we came for Liberty and they're just here to take advantage let's be clear our people didn't come for Liberty they came for stuff they came for stuff like land they came for stuff like opportunity they came for stuff like the ability to feed their families and there's no shame in that none at all but just like there's no shame in our families having done that there's no shame in in brown families doing that and coming over that border from Mexico Central America or wherever else they might be coming there's no shame in any event but we've told a lie it's like we have this image in our head that sometime in like 1650 this was a common scene in England all the nice white noblemen got together and one of them gathered his children around the fireplace in the middle of the 1600s and said well now children uh I think you'll agree with me that we're doing quite brilliant here and we have this big mansion and we have all this gold and you remember last week when the king invited us to the palace and you played out in the garden with his children I know it was brilliant right it was great it was great it was great I bet it was lots fun but Daddy thinks that we need to stop all that nonsense and maybe strike out on an adventure so here's my plan even though we're doing so well even though we pretty much run the show here in England I think that what we should do this summer follow me stick with me I know it's going to be a stretch but I promise it's going to be great is we should get on a big boat a rickety Old Ship I don't even know if it's seaworthy children it might sink we might be eaten by sharks we might get hijacked by Pirates we might get scurvy and die a horrible death however I think you will agree it will be an adventure a great one indeed that did not happen noblemen didn't leave those who were doing well did not leave only the losers got on the boat people say things like when my family came over on the Mayflower okay sweetheart you might not want to talk about that if you actually knew who was on those early ships I'm not sure who was but I know who wasn't The King The King was not on that ship nobody the king really wanted to keep around was on that ship right so our inability to see this though understand the importance historically if we don't understand that we came for the same reasons that folks come today be they documented or not then we can't see them in us and we can't see us in them and that's why we have this drama because we're spending all this time pretending that our motivations and our even human decency and ethics are different when they're not you see this is why history matters so much we can't fix any of these problems whether it's immigration issues whether it's criminal justice issues whether it's wealth disparity all of that we can't do anything about that if we're not willing to understand history but let me close with this and it's a point that I think needs to be made because sometimes when we talk about racism and we talk about the heavy weight of History sometimes people assume that there is an attempt on my part or other anti-racist activists or Educators part to instill guilt in white people I have no interest in white guilt none and people of color surely have no interest in white guilt guilt will not liberate anybody from any thing it will not liberate any of us from systems of inequality it isn't about feeling guilty it's not even about white people per se it's about whiteness as a system right sometimes people get tripped up on that right and they think like oh you hate white people actually let me be clear I love me some white people I totally absolutely love me some white people like my wife is white I totally love her um those daughters that I've been telling you about they're white cuz that's what happens when white people make babies I love them uh my mom love her nice white lady and my dad and I don't get along but it's not cuz he's white it's about some other that we don't have time to process tonight but if you read my book White like me you'll know what some of that is um we don't have to talk about that it's not about white people it's about white Nest it's about a system of white supremacy that has turned us against one another right and so I want to tell you a story that tries to explain the difference between guilt and responsibility so you'll know what I mean when I say those things are different because it's one thing to say that it's another thing to really understand why so let me just share a brief story with you and then I'll take questions and I'll let you out of here and I'll be happy to sell you some books if you want one cuz I got a college fund to pay for um so you know feel free to come buy some merchandise but anyway the story is not about racism so that part of the speech is over right it's not about oppression it's not about privilege it's not about inequality it's about something totally different but I think the story has a lesson in it about those subjects so it has to do with something that happened to me when I got out of college I graduated 26 years ago this may from Tan University in New Orleans and when I graduated for some reason I'm still not totally clear on this I thought it would be a really great idea to move into a very large house with nine other people let me just give you a little life advice all right like if you haven't already figured this out okay do not think for one minute that it is ever a good idea to move into a very large house with nine other people it usually is not nearly as fun as you think it is going to be it has all kinds of problems but we didn't think about any of those we thought it was going to be great why because it was going to be cheap and we needed that because we were broke right we were right out of college we didn't have any money rent was $525 a month I don't mean per person I mean total right so again not good at math but I can do those numbers 5250 per person per month man you add the cable bill the uh utility bills we split the food right it's still less than 100 a month so like on that level this was a great idea right this was brilliant right hundred bucks a month man even in $1 19990 that was good right it'd be ridiculous today but it would be good even by 1990 standards so on a financial level it made sense but about 6 weeks into this little experiment in communal living we came to understand or at least I did why it had been a terrible mistake and this is what happened I was working downtown and I was living Uptown so I get on the street car to come back up Uptown in New Orleans I get off the street car I walk uh you know five blocks or so into the house on Robert Street I go up the steps at 1805 Robert I open the door and I'm met by this incredible smell and I mean that in a good way which is important to point out cuz when you live with nine other people there's all kinds of smells they're usually not good this one was actually really nice it was the smell of dinner being cooked for the whole group CU we also took turns making dinner for each other and this particular night one of my roommates was making dinner on the left front burner of the stove there was this big pot of gumbo right and man that's you know that's what you do in New Orleans big pot of gumbo and it smelled good and it looked good and it even had shrimp in there not many like I said we were broke but it had like three three of those really little bitty ass shrimp those shrimp that are like so small right that they make jumbo shrimp look like lobsters or something right and so I looked at it and I smelled it and I thought man that looks great and when my roommate asked me if I wanted any I normally would have said yes but as it turned out I didn't know he was going to make gumbo for the night and so i' had already had dinner down town before I you know came up town after I got off work so I said hey man I already ate but do me a favor um smells great great looks great take me some of that put it in the container put it in the fridge I'm going to take it to work tomorrow for lunch and he said okay great and so he does that and then I go upstairs and you know listen to music watch TV hung out with some friends or whatever and did whatever we did for fun in 1990 there wasn't much wasn't much like social networking in 1990 was pretty much you just walk down the hall to your roommate's room and you're like hey what you doing and they were like nothing it's 1990 there's nothing to do go back to sleep get with us in like 15 years and there'll be something maybe or 20 years right so we all sort of go to bed early I went to bed sort of early woke up the next morning at like 7:30 came downstairs to get some coffee get ready to go to work and I noticed that on the left front burner of our stove was still the same pot of gumbo and man it did not smell as good or look as good as it had the night before and my roommate had neither saved any of it for me nor had he cleaned it so I was pissed on two levels right now the food had gone to waste I definitely wasn't going to eat it now but he also left the mess for me or you know maybe one of the other roommates to clean so I sat there and I thought about what I wanted to do part of me wanted to wake him up right get him to clean it you know give him hell for it but then I thought no I'm going to be nice I'm just going to clean it I'll take it up with him when I get home so I took the pot of gumbo and I brought it over to the sink and I got the brush and the soap and I started running the water into the pot of nasty day old gumbo and I stopped myself halfway through and I said man I don't have to clean this this isn't my mess I didn't even eat any of this let alone did I make it so now I'm feeling really self-righteous cuz I'm talking myself out of doing the hard work right so now I feel real smart so I take the pot of gumbo and I put it right back where I found it on the left front burner right and I walk out the door head held high knowing that I had not been suckered into cleaning somebody else's mess right so then I come back that night at about 6:15 6:30 and I see one of my other roommates making dinner on the right front burner of the stove but on the left front burner right where it had been now for 24 hours it's the same pot of Gumbo getting Nast nastier more disgusting more crusted on the sides of the pot I looked at my roommate I'm like man what are you doing like I know you can smell dinner from last night how the hell can you make dinner for us now on the right front burner when it's right under your nose why don't you clean that and he looked at me and said hey man I didn't make the gumbo I didn't even eat any of the gumbo I wasn't even here last night how about you I said hey man not me now we both felt self-righteous and we knew what it meant he looked at me and said so you want some lentils and rice and I said absolutely so piled up my plate with lentils and rice I ate my dinner I wiped off the dish in the sink cleaned it dried it put it in the dish rack went upstairs hung out with the roommates did whatever we do for fun in 1990 once again went to bed sort of early woke up the next morning I'd forgotten to set an alarm wake up about 7 but here's a tip if you're living in a house where a pot of Gumbo has been sitting on the left front burner of the stove for what is now 36 1/2 hours you are not going to need an alarm clock to wake your ass up you are going to be awake right because the smell is going to find you it is going to crawl out of the pot of Gumbo on the legs that it grew overnight and I'm not speaking in metaphor English Majors I mean that literally like the stink is going to grow feet and legs and it is going to crawl out of the pot across the kitchen across the living room up the stairs down the back hall go under your doorf frame and it is going to find with the Precision of a laser that thing on the front of your face you call the nose and you will be awake and now I was and I was pissed because I knew what the smell meant right I knew what was waiting for me on the left front burner having not been cleaned by anybody least of all the guy that made the gumbo so I open my door real loud I start stomping down the hall hoping to wake people up hoping to let them know just how displeased I am live with nine other people cannot find one of them and the guy that made the gumbo like where's Waldo nobody knows where in the hell he went he just made the gumbo like a practical joke and disappeared right just wanted to see how long it would take for somebody else to clean up his mess I guess and I get down to the bottom of the stairs I look across a living room into the kitchen I see the pot of gumbo and I'm pretty confident the gumbo saw me right with the eyes that it had also grown it was evolving right there in our kitchen very rapidly yes and it was at that moment not one moment earlier but definitely not a moment later that I came to understand maybe the most important lesson I'd ever learned about any sub and what was it the lesson was it didn't really matter anymore who made the mess didn't really matter anymore who was the author of all this unpleasantness as the old saying goes the only thing that mattered was that I was tired of living in that nastiness I was tired of living with the residue of somebody else's actions I was not to blame but I had to take responsibility because if I didn't it may not get clean you see and the same is true with human society when we decide that we will clean up the residue of what other folks left us even though they did it without our permission and without our involvement when we decide that we're tired of living in that we will clean it not because we are the blame not because we are guilty but because we're the only damn ones left thank you all so much for being here I appreciate your time to understand to this Injustice we must first look at the past policies like Jim Crow law red lining and unequal access to resources were especially designed to exclude black Americans from the benefit of society one of the most gloring examples of systemic Justice is the criminal justice systems black Americans are disportionately arrested convicted and incarcerated these policies are devastated families and created cycles of poverty and disenfranchisement economic policies have also failed black Americans from discriminatory iring practices to wagees gaps systemic barriers prevent black individuals from achieving Financial stability education is often called the great equalizer but for black Americans the playing field has never been level funding for school is often tied to property taxes living schools in black neighborhoods underfunded and overcrowded black Americans face significant disparities in healthcare these issues are rooted in both economic inequality and systemic biases why these issues are deeply ingrain change is possible it requires B policy reforms community-driven Solutions and accountability at all levels of government systemic change start with awareness and action speak out advocate for policy reform and support organizations working to dismantle this system of Oppression what are your thought on how government policies affect black communities share your thoughts in the comment box below and don't forget to like this video until next time cheers and have a good one

Transcript for:Understanding Systemic Racism Through History

Transcript for:
Understanding Systemic Racism Through History