Four white people had a discussion on racial relations between black and white people during an episode of “The Problem With Jon Stewart” three years ago. The panel included Charles “Chip” Gallagher, a professor of sociology at La Salle University who researches social inequality and race, Lisa Bond, “The Resident White Women” for Race2Dinner, and Andrew Sullivan, editor of the Weekly Dish.
Their conversation centered on how white people can take responsibility for systemic racism, why it hasn’t been done and how we all can take action to quell racial tensions in America.
I contend many white people uphold systems of white supremacy indirectly through denial and colorblindness.
‘What holds back conversations on race in America?’
Jon Stewart asked the question to the panel, “What holds back conversations on race in America?”
I agree with his answer as it was along the lines of white people putting blame on black people and thinking that white people must necessarily lose for black people to gain. This creates resentment which ultimately makes conversations difficult to have.
This reminds me of an episode of Donald Glover’s “Atlanta,” in an episode titled “The Big Payback,” where white people whose ancestors owned slaves were held personally responsible for paying black people who were descendants of those slaves. The episode explored the concept of black people getting their reparations for slavery.
This concept exists as polls show black people believe they have not received reparations yet because the U.S. is a racist country.
Reparations would narrrow the wealth gap between blacks and whites and give African Americans the resources they need to invest to start their own businesses and revamp black neighborhoods for better housing and schools.
A news segment from MSNBC agreed with the episode from “Atlanta” as it was an unrealistic idea of how black people could get their reparations through the white gaze.
The white gaze is an idea that frames how white people view non-white people as a threat while not recognizing its own position of power. Is this what Stewart meant when he said that white people think that they will lose something for black people to gain something?
Dr. Jason Johnson, MSNBC political contributor, stated that this is not how reparations work in different states and cities like California where they have entertained this idea. He added that white people always see slavery, just like racism, in general terms of individual action as opposed to a societal guilt.
“The massive resistance of reparations is because individual white folks think that [a black person] is going to come to their house and say you’ve got to give me money.”
Tim Wise, a participant in the MSNBC segment, said reparations should be done by the state because they enshrined the enslavement of black people in America. Wise explained how the episode explored the moral to indebtedness and the practical application of this scenario of reparations.
If this episode became reality, it makes sense why white people would not want to go through this as the main character of the episode, Marshall Johnson, ended up getting a portion of his salary garnished.
This event in the episode occurred due to Johnson’s ancestors’ enslavement of a black person named Shaniqua.
Would reparations create resentment towards black people? Perhaps, because white people don’t feel responsible for their ancestors’ actions. They had no direct impact on systemic racism but yet are being punished for it.
Yes, white people may not have a direct impact on systemic racism, but have they ever thought about their indirect impact on it?
A white man in the episode said slavery is a cruel unavoidable ghost that haunts black people in ways that white people can’t see.
Indirect impact on systemic racism
A significant amount of white people attach no meaning in terms of “livelihood” to other races, according to Charles Gallagher. They see their environment as race neutral.
Stewart talked about how white people don’t see how privilege factors into their lives as they have no active participation in structural racism in America. Bond talked about how white people see being called a racist as a character flaw.
Andrew Sullivan is a part of this group of people who see their environment as race neutral. He doesn’t agree with white supremacy as an actual concept, but he does agree with some of the premises members of the panel uttered.
Does Sullivan agree with the sentiment white people will lose something for black people to get their reparations from slavery? That scenario is what happened in the “Atlanta” episode as Marshall Johnson lost his money.
Does Sullivan agree with colorblindness and white privilege? Does he agree that the idea of being called a racist is a character flaw? He indirectly impacts systemic racism by not acknowledging or even considering white supremacy as the cause of systemic racism.
He relates black people to immigrants to further explain his perspective that white supremacy is hyperbole. Because the United States is so diverse there’s no way white supremacy can exist. His answer doesn’t prove his point because the diversity of our country doesn’t relate to white supremacy.
Stewart disagreed with Sullivan because of how black people were kidnapped from their home country to be raped, murdered and enslaved.
Sullivan has an extreme definition of what white supremacy means in real terms — no rights for minorities and the proliferation of the Ku Klux Klan.
Yes Magazine agrees with Sullivan’s idea of white supremacy. The article points to this idea as another example of white fragility, which is white people being uncomfortable and defensiveness when discussing racial inequality.
For Sullivan to expand his perspective, he should educate himself about the black perspective so he can explore the topic with curiosity, rather than see it as a character flaw. This is what Rachel Happe proposed in her blog from Medium.
Critical race theory
We need our schools to teach our youth about critical race theory in order to help race relations in America to be better.
If students learned about critical race theory, then conversations about race would be more practical and the relationship between white and black people would be better. Both communities would have more of a common ground.
Critical race theory is a framework used in academia that was developed to understand the relationship between race and ethnicity in social and political laws in addition to mass media.
Why don’t we all agree on what white supremacy means?
Sullivan had an extreme definition of white supremacy which was the the proliferation of hate groups like the KKK and no rights for minorities, but CRT teaches us it relates to power and privilege.
Critical race theory posits how we structure society benefits white people, the majority, over black people, the minority. Race-based systems were put in place to distinguish whites and blacks from each other, as Bond explained.
Those systems like Jim Crow laws and the GI Bill allowed for white people to benefit from them, not black people.
Why did that happen?
White people during those times appeared to have thought they were the superior race so they deserved access to those systems and black people didn’t because they were inferior. If you’re white then you are positioned in a higher status than a black person, seemingly.
Sullivan still believes these systems led no credence to white supremacy which added to how he still saw race through a colorblind lens.
Why did Sullivan think those systems were put in place? Why would society operate in a way where the majority were allowed more resources than the minority?
An important piece Bond and Stewart talked about is how white supremacy has grown due to the influx of white immigrants to the U.S.
Was white immigration promoted through official policy?
Do we need more racist dog whistle tropes?
Yes, we do need more racist dog whistle tropes showcased by the media. Will any people in the audience identify with that specific trope? Will that trope being showcased make for good content?
Sullivan’s dog whistle trope showed when he never acknowledged Stewart’s explanation of the systems of racism in the history of the United States and Gallagher’s reasoning for why Sullivan can’t equate the experiences of white immigrants to black people because of how different they were.
For example, racial tensions existed partly existed because white people had access to land, jobs and buildings while black people didn’t. This is why black people pushed back and events like the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956 and the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020 occurred.
Bond’s stance is that white people can’t do anything about racism. She was being divisive when she said that and that’s the last thing we need to be advocated on a platform where race is being talked about.
How about all these laws and policies that have been passed to better the livelihoods of black people?
White people contributed to laws and policies such as the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and police reforms that have helped advance the equity of black and white people. Bond is wrong. White men have helped with race relations in the U.S. There is just room for improvement.
Sullivan called Stewart’s position on the topic a product of anti-white extremism. This makes sense as his argument is the opposite of Sullivan’s. Though Stewart’s argument does lose popular support because of it being “anti white” especially as the majority of the nation is white.
How many people resonate with Sullivan’s position more than Stewart’s? How do white people react when they are called racist? Do they get defensive?
This is what Bond was talking about when she said white people see being called racist as a character flaw and Sullivan fell into this racist dog whistle trope.
What makes Stewart’s position on race relations extremely anti-white?
Is it that Stewart and other members of the panel are talking about issues facing black people and how white people’s ideas and laws still linger?
Anti-white extremism is tied to violence and hatred for white people. There is no instance of the discussion where any member of the panel is advocating for violence so Sullivan is hyperbolizing parts of the question as his definition of white supremacy.
Does he think just because black people have been treated poorly by white people and societal structures were controlled by white people in the past, that we hate white people for doing that?
Does human nature tell us we should hate white people for their ignorance and actions that perpetuate systemic racism in America. Our collective religious background has taught us the power of forgiveness.
All that Stewart’s panel members are doing is explaining the idea of individual reasons why white people don’t take responsibility for systemic racism in America.
Sullivan is not critically thinking about what Stewart said about systems and about how white people typically react to the conversations about racial relations between white and black people in the U.S.
He said Stewart’s position helps elect Republicans and has a negative impact on society. Stewart’s position is for white people individually and societally to be accountable for their absence of support of black issues.
The conversation would have been better if Stewart asked Sullivan, why he thinks his position would elect a Republican, over a Democrat?
Is it because Republicans are more conservative than Democrats, so he thinks the idea of acting on concrete ways of improving the livelihood of black people is not conservative?
Sullivan told Stewart that his opening for the conversation about race is one-sided, biased and reductionistic.
What makes Stewart’s opening the main reason why conversations of race between white and black people are not being had because they are one sided, biased and reductionistic?
Stewart should have asked Sullivan how and why he thinks the opening segment was one-sided, biased and reductionistic.
The reason is because the goal of the conversation is to reach a common ground on racial relations in the U.S. Asking Sullivan questions to get some more insight on his psyche bodes well for the conversation because it tells the audience where he is coming from. That’s how we diagnose the problem, by speaking to these people and getting an understanding of where their perspective is coming from in totality.
It seems as if they have not lived in the same country as everybody else in the past 30 years because both men have different experiences that were their perspective on the topic of race.
How can we have more productive conversations on race?
Jon Stewart is incorrect when he said they (including him) can’t have a conversation. A conversation is an exchange of ideas and that is what happened. He is right saying that everyone differs in how to come to a solution on how to improve race relations in the United States.
Yes, Bond said it best. We need to hold each other accountable with grace and compassion. That’s easier said than done and we can look at the conversation as an example.
Sullivan’s stance was to focus on youth education and he didn’t think white people talking about issues facing black Americans helps their plight.
White people talking about issues facing black people does help their plight because they are the ones who can lend their resources to black people for their socio economic status to increase.
This idea ties to why we need to focus on youth education, intensely.
Where this conversation takes a turn is when he mentioned the idea of a stable family tying into the reason why black children “don’t succeed in life.”
Sullivan doesn’t know why the pathology of black families is the way it is. His reasoning is tied to marriage being less prevalent, in addition to sex outside of marriage being more frequent.
Both are fraudulent.
Why is that? Is it because women have had more freedom to do what they want so they don’t have to rely on a man for financial support, for example?
Sullivan claimed that he is talking about every race, but what does that have to do with race relations? He doesn’t explain that well as Stewart challenges his reasoning by claiming how he is talking about black people.
Sullivan believes children have a better quality of life when they have two parents who take care of them until they leave home. What if the child’s two-parent home is a toxic environment?
Sullivan is wrong when he tells Stewart black culture is destructive to the family. Black culture is not destructive to the family. It’s like saying any other culture is destructive to the family which can’t be the case because there’s no evidence for it.
The only way to have more productive conversations about race is to focus on a specific issue step-by-step and critically think about it.
Solution
We all need to learn about the history of black people so we can know the reasons contributing to their socioeconomic status.
The history books need an update from a more diverse group of people. It appears they were written by those who want to control and preserve the narrative of American history.
We can be informed of different perspectives and new information on the history of our nation if we let a more diverse group of people write the history books.
I am only speaking for myself, but it’s okay that my people, along with other racial groups, were mistreated by white people.
That was in the past.
The only reason why it is still a problem is because of how we are being treated today with police misconduct, negative racial verbiage from others, hate crimes and other forms of discrimination and racism.
How can we reach those who are older who are ignorant about the history of black people and their socioeconomic status right now?
Featured image: Photo by Anthony McKissic on Unsplash
Edited by Abbigail Earl, Steven London & James Sutton
