When a Sentence Begins with “I’m not a Racist,” What Does this Really Mean?

by Irene Daniel

 

Richie Incognito says that he’s not racist, and as far as his intentions go, I give him the benefit of the doubt. He, like most people when asked point blank, probably does not harbor an intentional malice or bias against those that he perceives as different from himself. Most of us would say the same thing about ourselves. However, the truth is, that we are all, me included – and sometimes especially so – biased in some manner or another.

Perhaps from a learned response, or from our own personal experiences, we process this information, and it becomes a third, and invisible, eye. I know that this fact is no less true of me than any other person, and yes, I am aware of my biases and how they evolve into social blind spots. And that is why I find myself not so much angry with Incognito, as I am curious about his world view.

Many of my friends accuse me of a bias against white men, and this is a bias to which I must honestly admit; although it is not one of malice. Rather, my wariness of white males is one born of my many negative experiences with a society dominated by white heterosexual males; one that I found detrimental to just about all persons who are not all three of those things. For that reason, I find their perspectives largely lacking in insight and, therefore, less credible. Far from being a character flaw, it is merely the logical extension of living in a world socially engineered for their success by people like them. They learn what they need to know in order to succeed in a world where the top of the food chain is reserved by and for other white males. They don't know what they don't know, mostly because knowledge of "the other" is largely not required of them. The institutionalized and overt messages of white superiority have dominated our culture to such an extent that we are all affected by it, whether that message was intentional or the subliminal consequence of centuries of indoctrination.

 

In fact, I have often found myself astonished at how very little white males know about Civil Rights -- even educated ones, even liberal ones. For example, a dear white male conservative friend of mine, who is now of retirement age, possesses a J.D. from UCLA, has clerked for a United States Supreme Court Justice, and has served as an officer in the U.S. Navy. From such an impressive list of accomplishments and experience, one would not expect such a person to be ignorant of American racial history. However, a few years ago we were discussing the movie, 'The Help,' in which he revealed to me that, until he saw that movie he had no idea how prevalent and malicious was the example of white supremacy in the south in 1963. Really? He clerked for Supreme Court Justice, and he didn't know how bad racism was in the south prior to the Civil Rights Movement before seeing a movie? If he could achieve so much, knowing so little about what made my success possible, what state of unknowing must the rest the American white male population be suffering? And 'The Help' was much more fantasy than historical fiction, for it did not even begin to reveal the extent of the constant terrorist activity of the KKK right in the middle of the setting of the story, i.e., Jackson, MS. This story was milk-toast compared to the real thing, and this is what opened his eyes to the cruelty of racism? Wow, is about all I could say to that cheery news.

 

I am not trying to justify my bias here, for I realize that there is a difference between being discerning and being dismissive; and I am often dismissive to those who don’t see the world my way. And for that dismissiveness, I apologize. In being honest about my bias, perhaps my readers will be encouraged to do the same. For it is only in honesty and unconditional love that we can safely discard our defenses from one another, and hopefully create a dialogue in which we can examine and discuss our biases without fear or need for venom. I know why my viewpoint makes sense to me. Do you know why yours makes sense to you?

 

We know that in professional sports, what makes sense is winning. Sports is a physically objective measure of skill, and because of this I believe that many sports have lead the way in accepting nonwhite players who could accomplish the number one objective – putting points on the board. However rocky along the way, most people don’t judge anyone’s athletic ability these days based upon the color of their skin or other immutable characteristics. Statistics speak for themselves.

And with sports we also get athletic locker rooms, which can be hotbeds of backwards thinking, given the youthful and often socially naïve players in a testosterone-laden environment. This is especially true if there is no effective leadership to educate and refine the crudeness, recognizing the potential for things to get out of hand. Incognito wants us to think that he is a product of his environment, and I suppose to some extent that's true. 

However, the use of the “N” word is pretty universally thought to be a word based in negative connotation. That it is still used in certain environments, e.g., hip-hop and, apparently, professional sports locker rooms is, in my opinion, unfortunate. While I understand young African-Americans who want to recapture a word that brought fear and shame upon their ancestors, I just wish everyone would stay away from it – especially white people.

 

Because it is impossible to replicate the degree of human degradation experienced by slaves, it is impossible for any of us in present day to truly understand how it felt to be called that word every day, instead of your name. Unless you’re black and lived prior to the Civil Rights Movement, you have no idea of the pain of that word. It would be a good idea for white conservatives to stop comparing anything to slavery for this very reason. It creates a very unattractive image for those of us who know better, and reinforces yet another negative stereotype about white ignorance and insensitivity that we all need to get past, instead of having this barrier to unity reinforced.

 

When nonwhites hear these comments, it only reinforces a negative stereotype about how very little white people know about any American history outside of a revisionist historian's Manifest Destiny dreams. In other words, they know little or nothing about how the Mexicans taught the Europeans how to cowboy in the first place; about Los San Patricios, Irish-American immigrants who fought for Mexico during the Mexican -- American War of 1846-48, because the Mexicans treated them better; how our nation's very impressive Capitol City was built by slaves; as well as the extent of the medieval cruelty imposed upon slaves in the 19th century American south, methods that would have given even Queen Isabela's Inquisition pause.

 

But back to today's NFL; the evidence suggests that not all NFL locker rooms allow the free use of that word, or other kinds of bullying behavior. Shaun King, former Tampa Bay quarterback said that this atmosphere is not prevalent in the NFL and is unique to the Miami Dolphins and to Richie Incognito. On Monday night's ESPN coverage, Trent Dilfer commented that, ". . . there are certain lines you do not cross and they were crossed." Steve Young argued that bullying is not necessary to create great football players or winning teams. He went on to say that, "Bill Walsh got rid of hazing," and further offered that neither Coach Walsh nor his teammates, like Ronnie Lott, would have put up with that kind of conduct. And these gentlemen played decades ago.

 

So, who is responsible for creating a hostile work environment? For that is clearly what it became for Jonathan Martin. He, like many victims of bullying, don’t want to appear weak and thus subject themselves to further ridicule, so they put up with it and put up with it until they simply cannot any longer. And then they seem to erupt in an emotional explosion. Many of us who have been bullied are familiar with this pattern.

So the question we come to is this: where was the leadership in Miami Dolphins’ locker room? Who is responsible for creating an atmosphere so wrought with racism and emotional abuse?  Why did Richie Incognito feel so main-stream in his conduct?

 

Now, quite frankly, I think any grown man, no matter what color he is, should know better than to use that word; much less in a bullying manner, much less even when it is a white man delivering those words to a black man. Failing that instruction in common decency, NFL locker rooms are union workplaces, where union rules should dominate – or at least instruct a particular code of conduct – thus commanding management to provide a safe working environment, free from discrimination of any kind. This obviously did not happen.

So, back to Richie: is he a racist? Or is he a victim of his environment? Every single American receives lessons in Manifest Destiny, even to this day, albeit subliminally. To this day, little black girls still choose white dolls as more beautiful than black baby dolls. We have all been fed the influence of a false white superiority, and we are just beginning to wake up from the nightmare of the overall and long-lasting effects of our original sin of slavery. Many white people are unaware that, what they call Manifest Destiny, others call the American Holocaust. It has been reported that when Hitler was planning the Nazi extermination of the Jews, he studied Andrew Jackson's cruelty to Native Americans and African Americans, slave or free, as an example to follow.

 

Until we can own up to the real American history, instead of the constant “whitewashing” by white revisionists who can only see America as God’s gift to white people, we cannot truly deal with our racial woes, and thus it will be harder to heal them. Eventually, this will be bad news for white people, for they will very soon be an American minority; and if they are unwilling to honestly relinquish an unearned advantage over others, it may be necessary to accomplish true American equality in ways that may be unnecessarily humiliating for them.

I don’t think that Incognito is maliciously racist. I think that he is ignorantly malicious, and racism is just something that was a convenient tool in this particular instance. I think that he is probably not the sharpest knife in the drawer and is more follower than leader, except when it comes to making someone else feel small. Because it is in making others feel small that he sees himself as a champion. How sad for him. Racism hurts white people too, when the unintended consequences of the unjust humiliation of "the other" are revealed for what they are: the tactics of an insecure coward.

 

That is an indictment not only of Richie Incognito, but of those who permitted him to verbally and emotionally brutalize his teammate in a professional workplace, albeit an NFL locker room. Where were the grown-ups in the room?


The most profound words of the day on Monday came from Steve Ross, the owner of the Miami Dolphins. During the press conference on Monday, he was visibly shaken and seemed lost; unable to figure this out by himself. And it is that wisdom, knowing that the largeness of this social cancer is beyond any one of us to handle alone, that we must all embrace. For there is not just one right answer to our chronic and dynamic racial woes here in the land of the free. Like it or not, we need each other to figure this thing out.


With a downcast and 'deer in the headlights' look, Steve Ross said, "We all need to look at ourselves." Isn't that the truth?