By Major Cox
The "tar-baby" that trapped Brer Rabbit in an Uncle Remus story by Joel Chandler Harris is something from which it is nearly impossible to extricate oneself. It was in that vernacular that I used the term in a recent column discussing the dilemma of writing about racial issues. Here is another strike at the tar-baby.
President Clinton suggested in an October 16, 1995 Austin, Texas speech for "…white and black people to sit down and seriously talk about what divides us." In this speech, the president discussed what he thought should and should not be considered racist. For example, he said it is not racist for a parent to instruct a child to avoid high-crime neighborhoods, or to express disgust when reading about a horrible crime committed by a black person.
I don’t think anyone has any difficulty understanding and agreeing with the president when he says such prudent and sagacious acts on the part of individuals are not racist. No one can, nor should they, blame an individual for acting in the interest of protecting their family. That’s not racism, that’s self defense.
The line dividing racist behavior from these perfectly acceptable human actions is a fuzzy one today. It is hard to find the "David Duke" in-your-face type racist of the past. These days everyone sings from the same Color-Blind-Society manual.
This brings me back to President Clinton’s Texas speech. Several months after the speech, Columnist Norman A. Lockman wrote about a meeting with the president. In the meeting everyone agreed with Mr. Clinton about what racism was not and asked him to give three clear examples of what racism is.
In the president’s own words: "One, it is racist to affirmatively discriminate against someone on the basis of race, to deny them some opportunity for which they are otherwise qualified or should be considered, simply be cause of their race. That’s racism."
"Second, it’s racist to act or refrain to act in ways that will cause harm to people, either physical or emotional, simply because of their race."
"And thirdly, there is a sort of subtle form of racism that we all have to be careful about, and that is to have presumptions about what kind of people you are dealing with, what they think, what they feel, and what they are likely to do based solely on the color of their skin and absent any evidence to the contrary. And that sort of subtle form of racism, I think, still permeates a lot of our social intercourse in America and keeps barriers up between our people."
If I dare speak for the President, I think in his third example he is speaking about institutional racism. Institutional action provides protective cover for individual racist. Here are two examples: 1. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court declared majority black political districts unconstitutional. That decision in and of itself is not racism. 2. California voters passed the California Civil Rights Initiative…legislation that effectively eliminated affirmative action in that state…this legislation is not racist per se. Yet these are two recent institutional changes that may serve to hide some of the most egregious individual racist acts.
I am not suggesting that our majority white conservative government is plotting a return to the days of separate water fountains, theater seats and bus seats mandated during Jim Crow segregation. However; having said that, Montgomery’s government appears perfectly content with majority black schools, majority black housing projects and majority black police districts. I find it paradoxical that it is unconstitutional for a state to draw a majority black voting district and not be so when a city creates a majority black police district.
There is a contradictory legal and political status existing between majority black police districts and legislative districts. Majority black police districts in Montgomery do not offend the constitution, yet when such districts are joined together to create a political district it becomes constitutionally suspect.
This is an example of institutional racism. Such institutional protection is the main reason we tolerate these racist outcomes in today’s society. In the case of the majority black police district, we want to know the district where the black people live. At the same time, the courts prevent the citizens of these districts from banding together to create a political district.
Together we must find ways of eliminating these subtle manifestations of racism embedded so deeply within the fabric of American society. The responsibility for eliminating institutional racism rests with white America. There is nothing nonwhite individuals can do on their own to prevent or eliminate institutional racism. And by doing nothing; good, non-racist, white people are providing institutional cover for the actions of racist individuals.
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Originally Published: 2 February 1997, Montgomery Advertiser
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