Re-viewing

Remember seeing the picture of two profiles that could morph into a picture of a vase if you just looked a little differently? Or the one of the old woman and young woman, merged into one ... until you identify each of them individually? If you've run into these, maybe in Intro Psych, you may have heard them described as examples of reversible figure-ground relationships—what you see, what is figure and what is ground, can shift when you change your focus to a different bit of the picture or change your orientation relative to it. The picture doesn’t change. Your perspective does. You do.

       

                

So, here's my own recent encounter with a reversible figure/ground moment: 

Walking happily along a favorite trail I spotted this stump with a huge hole straight through it, so cleanly through that you could see the contours of the field behind it. I saw it from a distance, and was stopped in my tracks by the improbable perfection of this hole.

So I moved closer, wanting to see how it was done, this huge, precise hole …

and then closer yet ...

Not a hole at all, but the blunt end of a sawed-off branch, pointing straight at me. I've seen this stump a few times since. Each time, I'm first struck by the surprising hole, clean through. Only when I get closer, shift my perspective, do I remember that it's something else entirely.

Recently, I’ve had some of these moments on a totally different plane—not so much perceptual as conceptual and emotional shifts, in my experiences related to difference, oppression, diversity, and privilege.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to see the movie "I Am not Your Negro." The movie traces the experience of  James Baldwin, the noted African American author, speaker, and sometimes activist, as he decides to re-enter the fray—the Civil Rights movement—abandoning for a time his self-exile/ex-pat status in Paris (and sometime Turkey), where he went to escape the racism of his birth nation. I knew of Baldwin's work before, both because of its significance as literature and because of its meaning to the African American and LGBT communities.  But to be honest, I've never read  his work, not even the novel that I know gave voice to many queer folks' experience, Giovanni's Room. 

Joshua Dysart, in an IMDb review, writes of this movie, “a large part of this film consists of clips from Hollywood's rough history of reducing or falsifying the black American experience, often with Baldwin's own criticisms laid on top of them, weighing the clips down, eviscerating them. There are hard juxtapositions here as well, such as the innocence of Doris Day pressed up against the reality of lynched black men and women swaying in trees. By contextualizing these images in new and fresh ways the film is able to paint an impressionistic portrait of American denial.”

American denial. The shoe fits. I used to love Doris Day (and Sidney Poitier, the “good” Black whose acceptance proved we weren’t racist). I used to not think about—not even know about—lynchings.

The film, Dysart continues, “also ties itself to the moment. Images of Ferguson, photographs of unarmed black children left dead in the streets by police, video of Rodney King being brutalized beyond any justification, all of it means that Baldwin's words ring timeless, his call to action not remotely diffused by our distance from him and his time.”

If you have seen the film, you’re likely with me at this point, recalling those scenes and the awful discomfort they stirred. The self-righteous outrage, of course, but also the memory of when these things happened, and how I, personally, watched from afar, horrified in principle, but not moving. American denial.

Among the most compelling moments in the film came during interviews by then-famous talk-show host Dick Cavett. At one point, Cavett invites Baldwin to sort of absolve the US of the continuing sins of racism, appealing to a common argument: Sure there's still work to be done, but we've come a long way, right? Baldwin refuses the bait, noting instead how far we have not come, how much American society/culture continues to use Black people as an object of projection: whatever is bad among us, we attribute to Black people. Cavett is  caught noticeably off guard by this response, frozen except for his eyes, which glance nervously around like he's looking for help—or an exit. It's here that Baldwin utters the line that rang in my head as the credits rolled: “What white people have to do, is try and find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a n****r in the first place. Because I'm not a n****er. I'm a man, but if you think I'm a n****r, it means you need it. . . . If I'm not a n****r here and you invented him — you, the white people, invented him — then you've got to find out why…"

When I heard it, my breathing stopped the way my steps did when I saw the sawed-off branch that had seemed so clearly a hole, clean through. Racism isn’t just an absence—of understanding, of empathy—It’s not just a hole. It’s the sawed-off stump of our own need for something, someone to contain all of the things we fear, all of the things we hate in ourselves. And I’m talking here not just about individuals—those other “others” whom I can dislike and disown because they have bigoted ideas. I’m talking about each of us, and all of us as a collective. A society that has invented, in Baldwin’s words, others to hold our own disowned shadows—the Red heathens, the Yellow demons, the Black n****rs, the Brown “rapists and murderers.”

Heavy, huh? No wonder Cavett was stunned into (at least temporary) silence. So was I. As we were driving home, talking about the film, my partner said that Baldwin was her first anti-racism teacher. I can see why. I've added Giovanni’s Room to my iPad library so I can catch up with the 1950s on my next trip, just 60 years late.

Shortly after that, we attended an event at History Colorado, organized by the Japanese American Citizens League. The occasion was the 75th annual Day of Remembrance commemorating Executive Order  #9066, issued on February 19, 1942, just weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, launching the US into WWII. Order 9066 opened the way for a program of mass eviction that would eventually see about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry—at least 70,000 of them US citizens—moved from their homes, their jobs and businesses, and their lives along the west coast and imprisoned in concentration camps elsewhere in the US. The ostensible rationale was, of course, that they might prove a danger to the war effort, since any Japanese attack would likely come from the west. Disregarded in this rationale was the fact that only a small proportion of Japanese residents of Hawaii—fewer than 2000 of the 150,000+ living there at the time—were similarly incarcerated, despite Pearl Harbor. Not to mention that infants and people with 1/16 Japanese ancestry were included (remember the “one drop” rule for who was considered Black?). In reality, no person of Japanese ancestry was ever convicted of espionage, treason, or sabotage during the war.

The camps were scattered around the West, mostly in desert or cold mountainous regions. One, called Amache, was in Colorado, in the south eastern plains, near the town of Granada. Not far from Sand Creek, the site of one of post-Civil War America's most horrific massacres of indigenous people (about which I’ve written here before). The Colorado connection tugs at me. It reminds me of this state’s checkered past in matters of racism—the Indian Wars and Sand Creek in the late 1800s, the dominance of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado politics during the 1920s, Amache in the mid-1940s. It belies my idyllic image of this gorgeous, complicated state, seen in my early years through the eyes of a child born and raised here, sheltered and privileged, oblivious to it all.

The Day of Remembrance, like “I’m not your Negro,” was full of moments of insight and disarming new awareness. A few of these stand out in retrospect. One was when the organizers were making introductions. After recognizing a few dignitaries, they asked, “If anyone here is a survivor of the camps, would you please raise your hand?” Maybe 20 hands went up—I can’t be sure, because my eyes filled with tears. Here, right here in this room, I thought, are people who were forced to leave everything behind—everything, that is, but one suitcase—and climb on buses to nowhere. They survived, and here they are, sitting scattered among us. Still here, still in America. After all that. Later, after the keynote speaker (who was very interesting in a detached, academic sort of way; not exactly what I was wanting at that point), they opened the floor to people’s stories.

Not surprisingly, I guess, there were many stories of the racism that preceded the war—taunting, harassment, overt discrimination in employment and housing, inability to own land, limitations on educational opportunities and professions open to people of Asian descent. So reminiscent of more familiar tales of racism in my own lifetime—especially directed at African Americans—recently 'managed’ by non-discrimination laws and increased social censure for such attitudes and behaviors. Until, that is, the presidential campaign that made it all OK again.

Then there was the story of a man whose family had lived in Peru. The US government went to Peru to pick them up, and transferred them to a camp in Texas (where, incidentally, there were also German and Italian detainees). And the now-90-year-old woman who recalled the kindness of friends and allies who had made it possible for her to go to college. And the woman, an ally, who helped her friend, a Japanese American, whose recently deceased mother had been in the camps, to take care of her mom’s possessions after mom’s death. They found money hidden all around the house and multiple bank accounts, each with a substantial amount of money. Breadcrumbs pointing to lingering fear of being taken away. Again. Though it had been 70 years.

There was no dearth of explicit parallels drawn between those years and today—particularly for people of color, especially immigrants. The threat of profiling, the possibility (however remote it may seem) of similar Executive Orders, similar restrictions, evictions, even camps. The fear of the police, who are helpers to the privileged, but sources of danger to the targeted. And American denial writ large. 

The museum has an excellent online exhibit about Order 9066 and the Japanese Internment. I recommend the whole thing, but especially check out the propaganda video on “Japanese relocation,” obviously designed to convince Americans (non-Japanese, non-German, non-Italian, non-Jewish, etc. Americans) that not only were these camps a good idea, but the people being moved to them were delighted to go. It’s chilling. American denial.

But importantly, another, very different part of this experience was my awareness that this huge room was full to overflowing, and some large proportion of people there were not apparently of Japanese descent. Allies. The room was not sprinkled, but splotched with allies. One of the best moments in the Women’s March—and, by the way, one of the most empowering moments in my partner’s video about responding to this political moment—was the recognition that many, many people really do believe we’re all in this together. 

This morning, I heard a radio show in which one of the guests, who is Jewish, pointed to the oft-repeated caution in the Jewish community: never again. And that means, he said, never again. We must stand up right from the beginning so that what happened in Germany can never happen again, to anyone. I saw a sign in photos from one of the Women’s Marches—in D.C., I think. It evoked the famous Martin Niemoller quote, written after the Holocaust:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

but this sign had a contemporary twist:

First they came for the Muslims

and we said, not this time, f***ers!

It was really heartening to see that, almost 4 months after the election, 6 weeks since the inauguration, it is still possible to fill a large room with people who are genuinely interested in and standing with marginalized groups of which they are not a member. 

That, my friends, fills me with hope. Which is hugely different from the emptiness I would feel, the despair at history repeating itself, if I didn’t notice this joyful part.

© Janis Bohan, 2010-2017. Use of this content is welcome with attribution and a link to the post. 

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Amazing race - Part 2

The other day, I posted a quick note encouraging everyone to visit the History Colorado exhibit on “Race: Are We So Different?” I hope some of you saw it—whether with or without that bit of encouragement. Since then, I’ve come across two columns that spoke exactly to some of the points raised in “Race.” The whole experience—the exhibit, the articles—has been eye opening for me. Even though I’ve thought quite a lot about these issues, I keep encountering new ideas that stretch me.

 First, a few comments on the exhibit, then some reflections.

This was a traveling exhibit created by the American Anthropological Society—which helps explain why it’s so remarkably thoughtful and thought provoking. I was especially struck by how well it avoids the easy slippage into focusing on racial categories in favor of challenging the very concept of race itself. That’s a stretch for any of us who were raised in a culture that categorizes people by race at every turn. And to convey this idea, the exhibit has tons of interactive features and cleverly designed, concrete ways to illustrate the point. But it didn’t avoid challenging concepts in the service of simplicity.

For instance, the introductory video dismantles the notion of race as a real “thing,” explaining in straightforward terms how race doesn’t actually exist, how we have come to believe that it does, and what are the underlying dynamics (economics, power, privilege) that generated and still perpetuate the illusion of racial categories. This isn’t necessarily an easy set of concepts to introduce to an audience many of whom may have little experience in thinking deeply about race—except, perhaps, to be well aware that racial bias is problematic.

The central theme that runs through the exhibit is this: the social and economic differences that we observe today are direct results of our belief that racial categories are real. Those beliefs have fueled actions like these: generations of genocide practiced against Native residents of America, theft of their land, and “re-education” efforts to “kill the Indian and save the man”; wartime internment of Japanese citizens that required them to leave behind their businesses, homes, and possessions; “red-lining” that prevented non-white servicemen from using the GI bill to buy houses in the suburbs, when home ownership in those areas would have allowed them entry to the emerging American middle class. Over time, such differential treatment and its material and psychological toll unavoidably resulted in social and economic divisions marked by “race.”

I’ve known about this train of thought for some time, this argument that categories of people are invented rather than discovered. That once created, these categories have real, concrete impacts on people sorted into them. It’s directly related to my own academic work, so I get it, and I am convinced it’s correct. Still, once in a while, someone presents it in a way that’s especially striking. A few of these moments came up at this exhibit:

You could look at an individual from Kenya and an individual from Norway and easily believe that they represent two different races. But if you walked from Kenya to Norway, there would be no point along your route where you could say, “Here it is—the dividing line where people change from one race to another.” There is no dividing line because there are no actual categories.

Imagine sitting on a bus going to, say, Disneyland. Regardless of who the person next to you is, somewhere around 93-97% of your genes are identical to theirs. Regardless of their nationality, racial or ethnic category, or sex/gender.

We know that the human species first emerged in Africa and migrated from there through the Middle East and into Asia, Europe, the Far East, and the Americas. Only a small sample of the African population made the trip—which means that only a small slice of the full human genome made the trip. As a result, despite subsequent mixing, the largest proportion of human variation is found among Africans—which is to say, Africans have virtually all of the genes of other groups, and those other groups have just some of the genes that Africans possess.

Still, illusory though race may be, these categories have huge impacts on our lives. Some of that impact is seen in privilege, some in oppression. Some of it is overt, some more subtle. Some of it is intentional, some is non-conscious. It’s this latter sort that’s tricky: the “stuff” we all carry around that we aren’t even aware of, biases that we would in fact deny if asked our conscious beliefs. One person in a video at the exhibit called it the “smog of racism.” We all breathe it in and are damaged by it, whether or not we acknowledge it. Acknowledging it, he said, is the first step.

This is where those two recent articles come in. The first was a New York Times column, “Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions” by Sendhil Mullainathan, a Harvard economist. It’s a good, brief article—well worth the read, and you’ll find it right here. Mullainathan summarizes several studies that show inadvertent racial bias, and then points out that most people are unaware that they carry these biases. These attitudes are so well learned that they affect our actions even without our knowing it. Here’s a telling line from the column: “Even if, in our slow thinking, we work to avoid discrimination, it can easily creep into our fast thinking. Our snap judgments rely on all the associations we have—from fictional television shows to news reports. They use stereotypes, both the accurate and the inaccurate, both those we would want to use and ones we find repulsive.”

And the second was another NYT column called “Privilege of ‘Arrest without Incident’,” this one by regular columnist Charles Blow—which you can read here. Blow describes an incident that happened just over a week ago in which a white woman drove around a southern city, shooting at people from her car, then leading police on a chase and even aiming her gun at an officer. The news story reports that she was “arrested without incident.” This is a good outcome, Blow agrees. But, he asks, shouldn’t everyone have the right to an “arrest without incident.” Consider the starkly different fate of black men who have done far less in recent months but have not had that right, that privilege. He notes that every case is different, and we cannot know all the relevant circumstances. Still, he writes, “Police officers are human beings making split-second decisions—often informed by fears—about when to use force and the degree of that force.” Those are the split-second decisions, the “fast thinking” that Mullainathan talks about in his column. 

Hanging out in this topic area for a few days has got me thinking about my own responses, the “fast thinking” moments when I realize that I’m not finished with my own work here, not by far. How often I try to wish away the thoughts I don’t want to have, the things I wish I’d thought to say differently, the tiny actions that reveal my unthinking biases. And how often I must miss those things, not realizing that my actions don’t always match my conscious beliefs.

But smog causes lung damage whether or not we admit it, and I’ve been breathing in racial smog for a lot of years. Acknowledging it is just the first step.

© Janis Bohan, 2010-2014. Use of this content is welcome with attribution and a link to the post.

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Amazing race!

I'll follow up soon with a longer discussion of this, but I wanted to pass on a quick heads up. We just returned from the History Colorado exhibit on "Race: Are We So Different?" It's an excellent exhibit, and you really want to go. Quick!

The urgency to get this posted comes from the fact that it only runs through January 4 -- that's this Sunday. So, if you get this in time and can possibly arrange it, GO! Trust me: it's well worth postponing that movie or whatever else you were sort of considering for the weekend.

For more information, visit the History Colorado site by clicking right here.