Covert racism shows up everywhere, when you least expect it'

When I enter a room, repeated experience reveals that I am identified and oftentimes subsequently defined by the color of my skin.

Another frequent observation is the unwillingness by human beings on all sides of the racial frontier to openly discuss the issue of race.

In attempting to engage white folk in discussions about race the ‘reflex reaction’ is one of defense – ‘I wasn’t around when slavery was taking place so why should I now be held responsible?’

Recently, we have borne witness to male world leaders from ‘first world’ nations echoing apologies for the slave trade. The victim (most often female and a person of color) or the victims children’s children are forced to forgive with the ultimatum: we have little alternative but to believe that their apologies are heartfelt and sincere.

Facing reality of slavery’s overt impact which continues to be covertly dumped in present day is a necessary brutality and life experience within the Black Diaspora.

Covert racism shows up everywhere, and oftentimes when you least expect it.

I long for the day that when I show my credentials on paper, in person I am not forced to bear witness to discomfort of the other because my profile doesn’t match a pre-defined stereotype.

The knifing part of covert racism appear when ‘glaring examples’ pointed out to white colleagues, friends, peers, demand Black experiences to be frequently invalidated with such comments as: ‘Are you sure s/he said or did this or that?’

Unconscious of white privilege and entitlement affords a position of ‘power over’ even in these small actions and responses.

Perpetuating racist socialization endorses me to be someone who I in fact mightn’t be; i.e., a [stereo] typical black female – single mother, multiple fathers, drug addict, prostitute, maid, HIV/AIDS carrier, entertainer, athlete.

In an intricate exchange with Danica Anderson, executive director, The Kolo: Women’s Cross Cultural Collaboration, we candidly shared about the impact of white supremacy. Anderson’s work in Bosnia with the frontline women as well as from Africa, India and Sri Lanka prompted her painful look at white supremacy issues.

‘Like the issue of gender along socio-cultural lines, the racial divide will not be bridged until humanity is willing to embrace and honor diversity,’ she strongly feels.

The ‘white supremacy blindspot’ continues to perpetuate, highlighted in the US without meaningful dialogue among blacks and whites about the issue of race, and continues intergenerationally.

In Jamaica, I was brought up being told we are class prejudice. When I went to live in the United States I experienced racism first hand. The racism I felt was blatant, yet subtle – like when I’d walk onto the subway and a white person would clutch their purse a tad tighter.

Of her childhood days in Chicago, Anderson re-counts that her father, a violent Bosnian patriarch, made so many racist comments about Blacks. ‘Many of the references were the recently famous N__ word. I grew up to mouth the hatred against Blacks, Hispanics- Spics who were Puerto Rican and especially the Croatians who, according to my father were responsible for the WWII Genocide of Serbs. When I first saw the fear that the television incited for my father, I asked him about the insecurity, in a rather blunt-like manner that any child of eight would do. Terrified by his response, I made sure I never did that again and grew to fear people of colour and somehow knew it would be associated with something bad happening to me.’

Even where there is solidarity amongst women, there is a fine point at which this ‘sisterhood’ diverges.

‘White women are treated differently and differentially. It is mind-boggling how quickly white supremacy rushes past the skin color into the psyche. It is embattled on an overt and covert basis to the point where I as a white female cannot even recognize my privileged life,’ says Anderson.

White supremacy forges on with ruling leaders irrespective of skin color. Subtle and overt indoctrination driven from a need to be at the top of the white pyramid at the expense of humanity triggers their survivor mechanisms into overdrive, resulting in our modern age super genocidal chapters.

Black men are behind bars at alarming rates and [heterosexual] women of color between the ages of 25 and 44 years old are among the fastest growing HIV/AIDS rates in the United States of America. And yet we have failed to engage each other in meaningful dialogue.

Racial paralysis now threatens to render us mute.