Let's Talk Issues, Not Names

If you have been reading the past few issues of THE HOYA — or if you happened to pass through Red Square last week — you know that these past two weeks at Georgetown have been filled with some incredibly passionate conversation regarding the issue of racism, specifically in relationship to THE HOYA and its treatment of the Jena Six issue and corresponding rallies.

Many Georgetown students, including myself, felt that the coverage of the on-campus Jena Six issue rally was unfair and inadequate, and as such it was just another example of the many ways that minorities at this university have continuously felt disrespected and/or marginalized by THE HOYA. Some unknown and very angry individuals even went so far as to accuse THE HOYA of being the dreaded “r†word — some chalked “THE HOYA is racist!†in Red Square last Tuesday night, while some wrote “Racist†in angry red ink across copies of THE HOYA. And the following afternoon a rock was perhaps not so coincidentally thrown through the editor in chief’s window.

While I angrily denounced these acts as counterproductive, I couldn’t help but understand the reasoning behind them. No one wants to be called a racist, and yet racism still exists. A quotation by Albert Memmi included at the beginning of “Racism Without Racists†phrases it perfectly: “There is a strange kind of tragic enigma associated with the problem of racism. No one, or almost no one, wishes to see themselves as racist; still, racism persists, real and tenacious.â€

Besides the newspaper’s scant coverage of the Jena Six rally, perhaps most frustrating for me and many others was D. Pierce Nixon’s article column (“Jena Six Rhetoric Stops Progress, Stifles Debate,†THE HOYA, Sept. 25, 2007, A3). In it, Nixon condemned the conversation surrounding Jena Six as being angry, overly-racialized rhetoric. This, understandably, made a lot of people mad.

Nixon made the following declaration: “I think that the concept of race is a stupid, dehumanizing method of classifying people into artificial groups for the purpose of discrimination. Period.†He went on to write, “Anyone who takes a position on issues of race presupposes that there is a qualitative difference between the actions, beliefs and values of people from groups of different colors. That’s dumb.†Although Nixon may have had good intentions, his declarations were certainly naïve.

I would assume that being a white male has afforded Nixon privileges that allow him to believe in an ideology of color-blindness without having much personal experience to counter the feasibility of that notion. Yes, it would be nice to believe that, some 40 years after the Civil Rights movement took off, we finally have a society that judges people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. But that is just not the reality. And Nixon’s failure to be sensitive to that made a lot of people angry.

Nixon’s column, though well-meaning, dismissed the true reality of racism, which was the whole point of the dialogue about Jena Six in the first place. Racism is not just about personal acts of prejudice, but it is an institutionalized structure of social hierarchy that continues to systematically afford people in this country (and even at this university — whether we want to admit it or not) nevermind different privileges based on the color of their skin. Race, as a system that consequently puts people of color at a disadvantage, exists throughout every part of American society, from the business boardroom to commercial banks to residential housing to education to the courtroom in the case of Jena Six.

Institutional racism is alive and still thriving, and we accomplish nothing by sitting idly and saying nothing, or criticizing those who do choose to say something. Those who truly believe in the equality of all peoples need to recognize the realities of racism as an institutionalized system and be willing to fight against that, or the injustices will only continue. This was the point of the Jena Six dialogues and rallies, which focused on a particular issue of racial injustice in Louisiana.

Further, we must recognize and be OK with the fact that there is passion that comes along with any conversation about race. Conversations about race are rarely calm. Yet at the same time that passion needs to be articulated in a constructive way. We cannot be so quick to throw the word “racist†around and to alienate individuals who may have the most to learn from these sorts of conversations. We must use our passions to educate, to learn from other and to join our strengths to correct wrongdoings — not add to them. We accomplish nothing by throwing daggers at one another.

Do I believe that Nixon is racist? Honestly, no. But I do believe that any declarations of color-blindness must be paired with an ability and willingness to recognize that for most Americans, “color-blindness†is still not a reality. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun once said, “To get beyond racism we must first take account of race. There is no other way.†If we do not take account of race, we allow racism to persist, and if we do not take account of race we become a passive participant in that racism. And suddenly, however directly or indirectly, the accusation of “racist!†does not seem so surprising.

Niara Phillips is a junior in the School of Foreign Service.