Is There Widespread Resistance Among White Americans to Too Much Black Progress?

Thank you for tuning in to Healing Race. In this video, Andre and I discuss whether there is a pervasive need, a kind of shared psychology among white Americans for Black Americans to stay in their place and occupy lesser roles in society. With whites having controlled power throughout the course of US history, have they made, and do they continue to make deliberate choices to sustain racial inequities, or white reactions to black Americans defying black stereotypes a sign that they resist black advancement or just a product of what they've been socialized to expect of black people? Let's get to that conversation. Enjoy. When we were brought here, not only were we brought here to work, but it clicked to me. We were also brought here to occupy a role. So being that this country was founded by British people, English people, who are already living in a very rigid caste system themselves with the aristocracy, etcetera. And I know a lot about that now after studying history English history on my own. There was really none of that existing here even though it was a part of their psychological makeup. So by virtue of having slaves, it was natural that we would occupy that lesser role. And that has served as, you know, one of the rungs in a caste system for, you know, now centuries. Right? And that's kind of what I mean is that when I talk about the right to a life, I'm also interpreting that as a no, you remain in your role. You remain you remain in your cast. You know? You and when you see things to the contrary to people who seem like they're not a part of that cast, then it challenges a world view of white people. I've had white people. I've had people who are not black. Tell me that this I don't think I don't consider you black. And I didn't become offended because one of my good friends say, always question people. So don't just jump in react. Okay. Don't get don't get offended as I said. So what do you mean by that? And so first of all, that takes a lot of psychological restraint, not to sort of jump to a place of anger. But I'm like, oh, so what do you mean by that? And they told me, they said, in from what I gleaned is there is an image of what a black person and now since we have social media meme, what a, you know, the meme of a black person and what they are and what they stand for, whatever. And what a person in who is a part of a cast where black people are supposed to occupy should present in life. And those people were saying for whatever reason, in their own observation of me, and keep it in mind, these are also people who've known me for years. I don't fit that bill, don't fit that mold. And so they saw me not as white. I'm not trying to sit here and give myself an equivalence to a white person but saw me as something other than other than a member of that cast by virtue of being of African American slash black heritage. So, and that all to me, that's why I kind of double down on language, feeds into this. There is this idea. There is this role. There is this place that black people, not only were not as servants, but are supposed to occupy. Individual blacks can do well. Individual African American people can ascend to astounding heights. But as a collective, there feels to me in this country a need for people for the rest of us or to for the majority rather to remain in that cast, to remain in that place. And it allows the people who are of the higher perceived cast to, like I said, have access and right to their life. Because when you have just very much liked an aristocracy, when you have one cast of people creating the playbook for how another cast of people get to live and manifest and present in this world, that's power. And all I'm saying is that the white people, like I told you before, I said they've been in charge from the day they landed on this country till today, and that is not happenstance. That's not look. That's not being better in life. That's called that in my opinion, that's deliberate. And it's deliberate from the perspective of having values and how do I say? Not connection but ensuring that ensuring that enough of the other people are in the lower cast or in a different cast, and that your cast maintains the grip on influence and power and whatnot. Even if it means that sometimes you steal that from the lower cast or if you are just downright or press them with what your ideas are. And that's how I feel about it. So let's just take this conversation as a starting point that you had with this friend. What were the kinds of things that he or she mentioned that made you seem not black? Now we're talking about the meme. Yeah. Exactly. Like, what were the things I'm trying to understand the attributes or oh, I can answer the question because I because that's the question I asked. When I said, also, what do you mean? I knew what you I knew what the I knew what the person was going to say. Mhmm. Black people out there forgive me because you know the things that people say about us, but I'm just gonna repeat them for the sake of clarifying for Todd. Yeah. And number 1, you speak so well. Mhmm. Number 2. Number 2, you're so cultured. Number 3. Number 3. But you're well-traveled. Number 4. You know how to present yourself. Mhmm. So these were so Wow. This person has a perception of what it means to be black in these ways of communicating and presenting and education. And the kinds of experiences that one has had. Right? Or engages in in their life being cultured, educated, well-traveled, and the like. So they have a certain a certain You know what? I even had a person so just for people to know, I subscribed to the New Yorker. I love that magazine. And I had a person who was of a different race, not black, be surprised that I was a subscriber to the New Yorker because I was because I was around a group of people. We all know each other. I said, you know, I was reading in New York, the New Yorker the other day, and this person whipped their head around. They said, the New Yorker. And I'm like, oh, here we go. I said, yes. I have a subscription to the New Yorker. I love that magazine. Then I talked about whatever article I wanted to bring up in conversation. But, yes, that's the kind of thing that happened. No one would be surprised if you said, oh, yeah. I'm a subscriber to the New Yorker. But for me, being black, black peep that that that's and I'm answering your question because that's one of the things that black people don't do. I'm although I'm sure the New Yorker has many people who are black or African American who are subscribers, but that's not popularly known. That's not part of the meme. The meme is not that we're sitting around reading New York or considering important questions of the day. Yeah. Well, that are outside our own racial identity. People know people know that we consider important questions of the day, but they only believe in vis a vis our racial identity. They don't feel, in my opinion, that we consider important questions of the day that are outside of that. What I would say about the New Yorker person, and I'm not taking a position either way, just so you know, is I'm always hesitant about jumping to conclusions about what someone's motivations are when they question something. So when they say The New Yorker, I don't know what the context was of this particular conversation. It could be it could be because of your race. It could be because of the, you know, the region that maybe she doesn't know, or he doesn't know anyone who reads the New Yorker. And I know you I see you looking at me with skeptical eyes. I'm not saying that because it's a person that I am that. So the of these people that I'm talking about, they weren't I do accept your point. You I'm not in another person's mind. I do accept your point. But the people I'm talking about are people at the times of these incidents that I had we had known one another for years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I mean, again, I don't know the whole history of your personal relationship with these people. And I trust you obviously in a relationship that you have to kinda know where someone's coming from. At the same time, we're all we've all been in relationships. Most of the world out there has been in relationships. And even with people who we know well, it's sometimes easy to go to what's in someone's head based on what we've experienced as being in people's head. Right? I accept that. And to and to so, you know, with that particular example, I don't doubt that there are people who would question whether, you know, you read, you know, question or have expectations, stereotypes defied by you reading something or engaging in some action based on your race. I understand. I accept that that would happen. In that particular case, you know, again, I'm always hesitant to jump to conclusions about it. Now all of that being said, here's one question that I think is important about your example of the first person. Right? This first person who you defy expectations. Right? And in this person's mind, that's, you know, who you are and how, you know, how you communicate, what you've experienced doesn't line up with their expectations. I guess the next question as it relates to our conversation in this clip around psychology of ownership and related things that you've said, is does that person have a problem with you defying expectations? Right? Because there was part of your part of you expressing this idea of psychology of ownership or whatever, you know, whatever might be the best terminology for what you're expressing is the idea of keeping people in their place. Right? Keeping black people in their place in particular. And I don't I don't disagree or object to the idea that there are people who feel that way. That person who for whom you defied expectations, right, for him or her to want to keep you in a place means she would have a problem with you defying those expectations. Right? And so maybe Not necessarily. So remember the other part of what I said. Let me not wag my pen. That's insulting. Is that individual blacks will do well, but enough need to remain in the lower cast. So my answer my retort to what you're saying is if enough of a that's why things like the United Negro College Fund and stuff are so powerful. If enough of us start to, quote, unquote, defy expectations, that's when it's a problem. It's like, hold up. They don't wanna remain in their cast anymore. They now all of a sudden want to embody what we consider an ideal, and now that I have a problem with. Yeah. And I accept that. I accept that there are again, I will accept that there are people for whom that's a problem. Let me let me express, I guess, where I was coming from with this particular individual. I think that there is a plausible story where she or he is socialized into our country, into the media environment, into, you know, all the rest of our environment that gives us information about people. Yeah? And that through that, she has constructed in her or his mind what a black person is like. And she they, I'm just gonna say they, are responding to you in the way that they are because it defies you defy those expectations. I think it is plausible for that person simply to have had their expectations defied, but not to find it that that defying of expectations and their reaction to it doesn't necessarily equate to them having a problem even for many people to do that. It simply defied their expectations. Right? And I don't I don't necessarily see the 2 as equivalent. Right? There are expectations we have to fight all the time because it's just not what to what it's not what we're used to seeing. I even expressed it to you, just to go back to a part of our conversation that I actually think viewers won't have seen by at this point, but they will see in the future where I told you how impactful Black Panther was to me. Right? And how I didn't think it was gonna be impactful for me. I thought just thought it was a movie. And I knew the background, and I knew that it was you know, that it had black heroes. And so I understood what I was getting into watching. Right? What I knew what to expect, but I didn't realize how much I would notice how much showing black people as heroes was lacking previously until I saw it. It was jarring, not in a bad way, in a way that was like, this is different than what I've seen before. And that jarring of expectations because of what, you know, I, in that case, had seen through movies, throughout all the movies that I had seen over the course of my life and doesn't mean that I would be uncomfortable with black people having lots of positions of power. It just means it's jarring because it's different. Right? It's unexpected. And so I just don't know if I can accept that. I take that for the individual and of whom we're speaking and for you. But I don't accept that for the for people for white people who are in positions of influence and power in this country. Because if the individual experience would aggregate to what you're talking about, then you would see a lot more acceptance of black heroes. And when I mean acceptance, I mean, a lot more not of the sort of the big people of Martin Luther Kings or whatever, but a lot more of modern people becoming sitting in in in places of influence and spheres of influence over large swaths of white populations. Right? Elected leaders, maybe. You get some of that maybe with elected leaders. And that that's why I mean, I accept what you're saying for an for a particular individual, but I struggle to see where that individual experience has had enough of a critical mask and mask in society to metastasize being like, oh, well, people don't have a problem with blacks transcending or being a part or doing away with the whole cast system, just being excellent in general. I think on mass, they're, you know, those same people of which you like you said, I you don't deny that they're out there. I think enough of them are out there to send a message. There is a problem with, and often have a saying that I won't say on this show, but there is a problem with having a black person who many black people were in control over large parts of white lives. I'm saying all of that's related or the genesis of it, if you will, is the fact that we were once property and not only were we brought here to serve with respect to labor, but I'm also saying we were brought here to occupy a role. And that role is to be a to be I don't wanna say permanent, but what feels like a perpetual less than vis a vis white people. Mhmm. Whether it's vis a vis education, vis a vis beauty, vis anything. It's like, you know, I kinda have a problem if a black person not me, but I'm it feels like an ethos. There's a bit of a problem if a black person outdoes a white person in this area. Whether it's college admissions, whether it's winning a beauty contest, whether it's, you know, wealth. You know? What if what if the world turned on its head and now black people occupied most of the wealth in this country? Yeah. That would upend a lot of people. Yeah. Yes. And the question is, so there's a there's a there's a broad question here, which is you see in large part, not completely, but in large part, what you see is a perpetuation of a level of inequality when it comes to economics and power. And you want to know, and you are you have a story that you tell about how that how that could be possible. Right? And that's important to just say this is a narrative that has crafted based upon my observation of life in the United States in my own lived experience. Yes. Yeah. I'm not suggesting that this has no foundation in your experiences. Yeah. Or if I did suggest that I apologize for that. That's not what I meant to get across. It's just that we're always all of us are con you know, trying to develop theories about why something is the way that it is when it matters. And I guess where we differ, now that I'm understanding what to you gives you proof or signals this kind of a broad a broad existence of this psychology of ownership is I just think I think we could tell a similar but different story that would just be slightly different or maybe very different. I don't know how different, but that just would be different to, as to why inequality still exist the way that they do. And over the course of our conversations, I think we have talked about various forms of prejudice and discrimination. And there are some that I think we are in agreement on being decently prevalent, and I think there's some that we disagree on in being prevalent. And what I noticed in thinking and reflecting on those is that the ones where I have hesitation, not about it not existing, but about it being prevalent are the ones that are more proactively damaging, for lack of a better term. Mhmm. I've noticed that. Got you. Yeah. So the ones that are about physical violence, for instance, I don't doubt that there are people who have a propensity to do that, based on racial, for racial reasons, based on racial motivations, around ownership and kind of the taking of things from black people or at least I mean, there's 2 ways that you described it. 1 was the taking. Right? So taking parts of one's culture, and one was the right to a space that might be competitive. So the example of college admissions. There's only a certain amount of spaces. Right. And so I have a right to that space because of my whiteness versus a person who's black. Right. Which you can see as a taking. But right until someone actually has that space, you're not taking anything. You're just vying for it. Right? And so those are the things that I don't doubt their existence, but I think we differ on their prevalence. Where I think we have agreement on or large agreement on is the hesitation to give up advantage in one's life. And I think importantly for the psychology of ownership, the inequality of supports that exist. Right? And the reason I bring up the supports is because you heard me in that clip talk a lot about confidence. Right? And I don't think I was clear on why I was even focusing on this idea of confidence. I think early on in our conversation, we had agreement on the idea that we've inherited a set of conditions in this country whereby white people on average generally will have more access to information about supports, right, that support their thriving in life. And I don't know how one can look at the data and not see that as the case. Right? There's plenty of data out there on the environmental supports, on the economic resources, educational resources, and the like that are disparate across racial communities. So, and my reason for focusing on confidence was I think those supports breed confidence, right? If you are supported in life, you are presumably gonna grow up in a way that gives you greater confidence to go after the things that you desire in life. Alright? Dude, dude, you're proving my premise because, yes, those supports give you confidence, but those supports are based on racial inequity. Right. So this is the maybe you think this is a distinction without a difference, but I actually think it's a distinction that matters. And that's why I wanted to bring this up because I felt like maybe we're actually closer and maybe it's an issue of language, but I think there's still a difference between us. See, I don't think let's take that, let's take a white individual who has received greater supports, right? Then a counterpart who is black, right? I think I, and I can even speak from personal experience, and I'll relate it to my personal experience in our conversation in a moment. But I think that person can passively receive these supports, can out of those supports develop a sense of confidence and be benefited by a system that has within it a certain kind of white advantage. At the same time, still not think that that position in the admissions, right, in in in a college that he or she deserves it more than that black person because of race. I think they can have an approach to life that is the product of inequality, but where they don't necessarily absorb a difference in the value of people based on color. They don't have to think they don't you know what? What's so what's so beautiful about what you just said? They don't have to think that they have a greater, you know, right to it than a person of color, than a black person because they already come from an environment that would support them to the extent that more than likely on average, they would do better in the whole game than a than a black person. So my point is when the institutions were put in place, whether white people wanted to accept their privilege or not, it's for the privilege to be there. Yeah. And so what I am So call great granddaddy white dude because great granddaddy white dude thought enough to, you know what? I want my people to thrive. So whether no matter where on the spectrum they are on this, you know, social justice, they still even if they don't want are still gonna benefit. Yeah. Okay. So they’re gonna not only when they we have when they have white children, since most people do marry within their race, or they're gonna pass it on to their children. Yeah. And I so I can accept that story a lot more than the story that someone who's white on average over a month That's cool. Brought to other people. I can provide whatever clarification you need. That is cool. No. But I guess my question is, are we really on the same page on this or not? Because the way that you express it and maybe what I'm hearing and what you have in your mind is different. Okay? So I can accept that as possibly being the case? But when you say that someone has a psychology of ownership, meaning that they have a right to black lives and whatnot. Saying both exist. You have the person who has the right, then you have the person who doesn't feel they have a right, but still who benefits. Okay. Because the institutions are in place for them to benefit. I'm saying both people exist. Okay. So both people exist, and there could even be overlap between the 2. Mhmm. I guess I'm just curious. I see the person who has passively benefited from what was inherited through generations. Right? And now perhaps supports policies that maintain that benefit. Right? That that don't seek change in some way as being more prevalent than the person who really thinks that they have ownership over what black people produce or have because of the color of their skin. I just seen that as being more prevalent and but funny how the optics there. I mean, I guess, what is your opinion on that? Like, do you are you in the same camp that most of it is just a preservation of benefits or that it's and a kind of more active belief that it should stay the same because whites deserve this, that they have an ownership to it. Thank you for watching this episode of Healing Race. To see the answer to the question you just heard, stay with us for a link to our next video. If you wanna see more Healing Race conversations, please subscribe to our channel, share this video with friends and family, and like and comment on the video below. To be a guest on one of our episodes and have an open, real, constructive conversation about race, email us at guests at healing race show dot com. And if there are topics you think we should cover, we'd love to hear them. So email your ideas to topics at healing race show dot com. 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