By Jose Ruiz-Escutia

Contributor

In Zach Schanzenbach’s article “Racism is two-way street: The truth about racism and why we need to hear it,” he argued that “racism is… a two-way street,” that “it goes both ways.”

In support of this statement he urged the reader to look up the definition of racism to see for herself or himself that the definition would not read “when a white man hates a black man.” Instead, Schanzenbach affirmed that racism is defined as “the belief that one skin color is superior to another.”

On that note, it has come to my attention that right after he defined racism as the belief that one skin color is superior to another, he stated that, “if a black man hates a white man because his skin is white, he is just as racist as a white man who hates a black man because his skin is black.” In this statement, Schanzenbach included the word “hate” instead of the word “belief” to make his point that a black man can be racist. That is, he is using the definition of racism that he suggested the reader would not find in the dictionary (i.e., “when a white man hates a black man”).

In another statement, Schanzenbach argued that “a white man who calls a black man racist as a result of a hateful…action against a white man will be ignored.” Once more, he is using the word “hate” as part of the definition for racism, but in this instance he related it to a black man’s actions. This raises the question of whether Schanzenbach uses the word “hate” unconsciously in his statements after he defined racism without that word.

If we use the definition for racism he find in the dictionary, then, the first statement he made would read along the lines of, “if a black man believes he is superior to a white man based on his color then he is racist.” This statement might be closer to what Schanzenbach meant to write to support his argument that racism is, as he put it, “a two-way street.”

Overall, I cannot agree with Schanzenbach that racism is a two-way street because he might be speaking from a privileged point of view. That is, he recognized that racism is still embedded in the fabric of this country, but he would rather focus on how the black folk, and not the white folk, can be found guilty of racism and not be called out on it by members of this society.

In other words, he wants the reader to recognize that the white folk will be condemned at the slightest sign of racism on his or her part, while the black folk will not. In Schanzenbach’s own words, “the world will sympathize with the black man” when he or she “calls a [white] man racist as a result of …a racist action against a [black man].”  However, if we look at Michael Brown’s death, we would see that some people did not sympathize with him (e.g., the officer who shot him, the jury who did not find the officer guilty and the media who obsessed over the riots after the verdict). In addition, Schanzenbach does not seem to sympathize with Michael Brown, that is, instead of calling him by his name in the article he refers to him as a “black criminal.” Instead of paying respects to a victim of our racialized social structures, he would rather reinforce the idea that blacks and crime go together.

Further, Schanzenbach posed that the media downplays when a black folk is racist towards a white folk by excusing the behavior “as just venting.” However, that same media he mentioned did not shrug when the Michael Brown verdict was given that night. In fact, that same media as aforementioned obsessed over the riots creating an image of the black folk that reinforces what some Americans already implicitly expect of the black folk.

I understand that it is easier to attack those individuals who are part of a minority group. But what if instead of using his energy to explain how the white folk gets ignored when he or she calls out a black folk for being racist he directed that energy to deconstructing our racialized social structures.

Further, what if instead of using the school paper during Black History Month to help maintain our racialized social structures, he wrote about how racism came to be in the United States of America. Or why not shed light on how slavery in the South was justified using the concept of race. Even further, he can remind his readers about the Slave Codes, Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws and mass incarceration.

By arguing that the black folk can be racist just like the white folk and not be called out on it is attempting to silence him or her. That is, he is promulgating the idea that black folks should be challenged on their racism towards whites when in fact we know that racism only benefits white society.