Clannism and Racism—Part II (Radical Inclusion)

In a previous post, I made the case that modern racism is one of the many examples of “clannism” that has been present throughout human history. You may want to refer to the earlier post. I promised that I would share possible solutions, and it’s taken me some time to document them. Racism is a complex problem, and as such, approaches to dealing with it should be multi-faceted.

For fear of sounding like a politician, I will not regurgitate the legislative proposals that have been suggested to address problems related to racism. Yes, solutions at a macro level are needed and I’m happy to share my views by email if interested. But friends, policy changes are in the hands of politicians. On the other hand, I believe that what everyone of us can and should do is to practice radical inclusion.

What would radical inclusion look like?

My recipe is to embrace people as they are, with their biases. For my liberal friends, whether someone is conservative or in the tea party should not be a deterrent for befriending them, and likewise for my conservative friends. We should actively visit places and interact with people outside our routine. I am amazed that, even these days, people have lived in an area for years and there are entire neighborhoods they’ve never been to. Go to a park or church in another neighborhood. Shop at the ethnic store you’ve always noticed but never visited. Purposefully go to places where people different than your race, ethnicity or socio-economic status congregate.

A byproduct of staying within one’s regular circle of friends and family is the creation of an echo chamber that perpetuates the clannism of “us versus them.” By visiting areas that one rarely frequents or people outside of one’s usual social circles, you are not only building a stronger social fabric, you are also building a better self.

Next, I believe we must acknowledge each other’s shared loss of innocence. Personally, I connect with individuals based on their humanity. The first label that I carry is that I’m a human. So, I connect with people as parent, dad, husband, what we like, don’t like, what moves us, where we have visited, or schools we’ve attended, and so on. Lately, when I meet people, the thread that I find that unites all of us humans is that at some point in our childhoods, we each lost our innocence. We discovered that something was off with the world, or at some point we felt that we did not belong and we had to protect ourselves. It is fascinating to find that the universal story of all Sapiens that unites us is that we are all essentially broken men and women. We carry this brokenness, and it  leads us to seek a false sense of security within the clans we align with.

Third, we strive to find that balance of tolerance and being our unapologetically vocal selves. I will let you in on a secret. Some of my friends would be considered by most people to be racist. Other friends, including limo liberals, intellectual elites, and leftist social justice champions, likewise still hold implicit racial biases. In the case of the latter group, many seem to be easily clouded by a holier-than-thou sensibility, as if “I can’t be racist since I am so active in supporting progressive causes.” Someone I admire deeply, a sweet gentle soul and ardent advocate for the poor and racial minorities, once told me over a beer “you are very educated for somebody who comes from Haiti.” It was almost like getting stabbed. I did not say anything – not out of fear of his reactions (he would have taken it very well), but because we had a lot to cover, and truth be told, I did not see the point. What was I going to achieve? I don’t see this gentleman often enough that correcting him would have magically cast all the demons of implicit racial bias out of him.

Now, this doesn’t mean that we have to stay silent and that we must not discuss racism with our colleagues, friends, or even family members. In conversations, I talk openly about my experience as a Black man. I mention instances of racism in my neighborhood where I’ve had a flashlight pointed in my face, or someone changing directions once they saw a Black man jogging towards them. I do make it clear that I don’t agree with honoring traitors such as General Lee, who took arms against the United States. I’m not afraid to call total BS on the idea that the civil war was only about state rights, when those state rights dealt with whether someone who look like me could be held against their will. And yes, I do say loudly that Black Lives Matter and explain what that means for me personally. The explanation I like the most regarding that is that if you are at a table and Johnny is not given anything to eat and he says “Johnny deserves to eat,” clearly he’s not saying that others don’t deserve to eat; they are eating!

It doesn’t mean that I change minds when I make the arguments above. I state them so that my friends know where I stand. It is less about changing their opinions. What I find that changes not just opinions, but hearts, is to simply be me around people and share my humanity with them. Perhaps if more of us do the same, more of us will realize that the only clan that matters is the clans of humans. We all belong to that clan. This clan trumps all others.