It is not simple being a recovering racist. Just as I think I am making progress I go and make a rookie error that leaves me aghast at my lack of progress.
I recently met a friend and colleague at a restaurant in Durban. At the next table was a black lady and a white man, working and drinking cups of coffee. They were clearly happening: Well dressed, laptops out, suitably adorned with the right brands and very chic.
My friend and I finished our meeting, paid our bill and got up to leave, but as I swung round in the direction of the “cool couple”, the woman was also getting up from her table and gathering up her things.
In my mind – my recovering racist (or perhaps more accurately, my recovering-stereotyping, recovering-patriarchal mind) I just saw a black woman picking things up off a table in a restaurant where a white guy was sat – ergo the waitress. She turned to face me at the precise moment I turned and faced her. Our eyes met and in my typically overly-friendly-white-guy-cum-recovering-racist-voice, I thanked her for her service and gestured to the tip I had left on the table for her. I realised my mistake mid-deed. She paused for an instant that felt like a lifetime to me, put on her outsized Dolce and Gabbana shades, and mercifully decided to ignore this white idiot and walk out.
Burning red with embarrassment, I pretended to be referring to the waitress who was indeed standing directly behind her. This only made matters worse because that waitress wasn’t our waitress at all! She just stared at me bewildered. The damage was done.
I am a 45-year old white man. I have an adopted black child whom I adore as mine. I genuinely have best friends who are black. I have done years of processing of my own racism; I read the work of black feminists and I mostly agree with what they say about white people and white men particularly.
And yet I am still – frustratingly – a recovering racist at best. I still catch myself thinking and acting in ways that belie my genuine and passionate desire to live a non-racist and totally non-discriminatory life. Why?
Because racism is hard-wired into us. Period. We are products of a world that pumps racism and discrimination into the atmosphere in the same way as industrialisation pumps greenhouse gases. We just breathe it in. My parents were never racist – I grew up in a typical liberal South African home. But the garden boy was the garden boy. The maid was the maid. It’s just how things were. And we must work daily, hourly to dismantle that often untaught, often unintentional discrimination that placed us in “the big house” and black people in the “servant’s quarters”. Black people were always the servants.
So, in an unguarded moment I revert to type. I swing round and I give a big beaming liberal thank you to a woman who is my age, clearly very successful and a long way from her waitressing years. In
This piece is not intended to be an exercise in self-flagellation. I left and smiled an ironic sort of smile at myself and how long I still must go.
No, this piece is just an exercise in vulnerability and a humble invitation to join me on this journey – regardless of where you are along the road. It’s the most challenging but deeply rewarding journey you will ever take.
My name is Justin and I am a recovering racist.
Thank you for this gift Justin!
I agree Racism is of this world, we need intentional , continuous renewal of the mind to guard against it.
Admitting it and asking for forgiveness is the first step toward that continuous change process. Never compromise and go with the flow. I have 2 partime Black Foster children and it is an ongoing effort.
Nellie
Thank you Nellie. Lets keep doing the inner work…
Thanks Justy. Am also on the journey to non racism☺g
I so admire your honesty Justin. I can remember pulling out of a parking lot some years ago and from habit, locking my door as I started driving. A young man was walking past and as he saw me doing so said: “Dont worry, I wasnt going to rob you.” I wanted to get out of my car and explain but these things sometimes can’t be explained away. Such a gap between races in South Africa and so hard to break it down however much we try . But hopefully admitting that we get it wrong sometimes may help. Well done!!
It has helped me tremendously to admit my own racism. I can now stop justifying myself and do the work that needs to be done…that is where i want to put my energy.
“We are products of a world that pumps racism and discrimination into the atmosphere in the same way as industrialisation pumps greenhouse gases.”- I loved this so much??
Firstly thank you for your vulnerability…I have recently shared some thoughts with a mutual white friend of ours and I tried in the most tactful way to discuss the privilege of older white men within the engineering sector. I saw her wince a little and she then told me how her own father had not come from a place of privilege. I felt horrible for having lumped all white men together into a privileged group. I consider myself pretty forward thinking most of the time but this was a lesson to myself to be more aware of my own biases.
This is such a complex journey and one we can only navigate by talking through our experiences…I salute you for showing us how to start the conversation, Justin.
Thank you Kamie! And from my side – white privilege is not necessarily linked to whether we have lived a privileged life or not. “I grew up in poverty/sickness/struggle etc so i am not privileged”….i disagree with this. Whiteness is all of its own privilege – even within the context of a lack of privilege…thats what makes it so hard to see and swallow…
Yes, assumptions are a dangerous thing…………In any context !!!!!
Indeed….interesting to me just what a gut response it was/is
go listen to John Vlismas on the subject too (the Good Racist – on Youtube), Justin – some of the language not to everyone’s liking, but the content is superb – and v aligned to your piece