When Is The “Racist” Label Deserved?

Thank you for tuning in to Healing Race. In this video, Andre and I ask, what motivates people to support policies that perpetuate racial inequities? Is it self-interest, ideology, racial bias, white supremacy? As part of that conversation, I share how I myself reacted to a property tax bill that would dramatically lower my taxes but would take away from public schools that support opportunity for many local black children. Let's get to that conversation now. Enjoy. You probably don't know this about me, but I've been sort of, a de facto aficionado and teaching myself a lot of British history. And I've started with British Royal History, and it started from binging the television show, the Netflix show, The Crown. And then I didn't really understand what monarchy was, so I started watching a lot of documentaries about the history of their royal family. And then, of course, that includes the story of how the United States came into being. Now I see why the United States came into being. But it also told me these people have been in deep white people, let me let me say not say these people, white people, have been in power from the day they land on this country until today. And that's not an accident. That's not that's not happenstance. So somebody somewhere is having a conversation about how to organize ourselves into longevity and into perpetuity. Mhmm. Like, that that that is a that's a when someone may say that's not on a you know, it's not maybe I'm being, you know, I would just say, paranoid or something like that. I'm like, I hear what you're saying, and I could take your point, because I'm not saying that's happening in every white household. Mhmm. But in key white households, it's happened enough to keep them in power from the day they walked out of this land until today. Mhmm. And that's like I said, that's not happenstance. That's deliberate. I think on the history of the United States and how power is distributed and that it's not distributed equally among people proportionate to their percentage in the, you know, population. Mm-mm. Like, um-mm. There there's just this I think some of the things that get lost sometimes in this I think when the topic of something being deliberate comes up. I feel like there is greater specificity that is needed on that topic. Here's why. So I'm happy for that. As to tell white people to be transparent. Yeah. Are so when I so let me ask you. What do you think what is your opinion on who is making deliberate choices such that power is unequal, continues to be unequal? Now is this to you well, let me just answer the, I guess, answer the question as opposed. I won’t even propose any ideas beyond that. I have an answer. Yeah. So I see it as a pyramid where in your look all places my mom okay. Let me absolutes. Right? So many places Mhmm. Have influential people, people who are wealthy, people who are connected. You have those that participate on the school board. They are probably, involved in charities, etcetera. And when that network of and these people know what another United States. Right? And so when that network of people starts to come together, and as I've learned in the form of think tanks, that's when they start saying, okay. We can sway events and make sure our influence is protected if we come together and we all decide on a common approach to deal with whatever is going on, whether it's the economy, race relations, or whatever. Mhmm. And because you are in a society that is not quite a caste system but does have systemic race-based inequity throughout its history. Mhmm. And it's hard to believe that those same people aren't influencing things to make sure whether liberal or conservative. So I'm not even I'm don’t not think of this in terms of a democrat or republican thing. Yeah. I know you've had plenty to plenty to critique the left Yes. The left leaning. Yes. They're doing it too. K. You know, like in Michelle Obama's book, she's like, I have been at homes. Like, you just wouldn't believe. And, like and, you know, at these dinner parties and things, people are discussing. These people have real money. I mean, these people, what we in the black community, what we call a legend money. Like, whoo. Like, there's money out there to buy commercials, to sway opinion, to create Twitter bots, to really, really influence society. These people are connected. They're connected through universities. They're connected through think tanks. They're through professional associations. I mean and I'm not saying that the network is one big sinister cabal on what I you know, I more see it as a patchwork, but the patchworks are informed about one another. Yeah. So I guess what I would I guess what I would what I wonder about is there are there are actions. Right? There are actions that have create outcomes. Mhmm. K. And then there are the intentions behind the actions to create outcomes. Right? The motivation behind it. And I'm familiar with this argument. And so there's probably more categories of motivations, than the ones I'm gonna I'm gonna put out there. And then I and then I have more to say about this, in terms of people making decisions now versus in the past. So one we could imagine that people who have, let's say, power and influence and money, they can make choices to protect their interests, whatever they think they are. Right. That could be to maintain power. That could be to maintain wealth. Right. So we might think that they support decisions to protect their interests. We might think that people take actions because they have a view of the world. They have a philosophy. They have an ideology. And they want to see to it that their ideology is the one that is represented in America. And if I think that if I have strong free market a strong free market philosophy, I'm sure as hell gonna want to have power and influence and to use my megaphone to ensure that we're a country that leans in the direction toward free market capitalism. Right? And then I might have motivations that are influenced by my racial biases. Right. And so I might whether in some overt, very supremacist way, think that whites are better than blacks or other groups as well. Or I might have more, you know, implicit biases, as they say. Right? And so the decisions you know, what motivates my decisions are just these little unconscious biases that tell me maybe black people are more likely to be lazy or whatever the other things, or to, what did my, one of my interviewees, who talked about this. He's like, I, you know, met with a Ku Klux Klan member, which he did for, like, you know, met with a bunch of them over the course of years, decades. And he's like, you know, this this one conversation we're talking about is like and this is basically what I hear, you know, heard over and over again in these conversations is that black people are lazy, stupid, and criminal. That's it's just inherent. Just being open and blunt about it. Right? And, you know, he was about his conversations. He's like, and so maybe there are those unconscious biases. Right? Those are people who overtly think that. But maybe through media and socialization, there are just these implicit biases that have me use my power in in ways that forward decisions that are influenced by those biases. Right? All of those are different motivations, and I'm not saying they can't be overlapping. Maybe I have my interests, and a certain philosophy protects my interests. Right? Or maybe I have racial biases that influence my like, these things can be related. I grant you that this I'm trying I'm not telling you know, saying this is a clean story. I follow you. But the reason I bring it up is because you could have someone you could take 3 people. 1 who is strongly driven by racial biases. Maybe they have some of the others, but really strongly, prominently. Let's take 3 different kinds of individuals driven by racial biases. You could take someone who is just a fervent believer in a certain philosophy of how we should run our society ideologically and you could take someone who is very strongly motivated by their personal interests, and you could have them produce the same behavior because of those 3 different motivations. And the question is how do we know what's driving the bus? If those three motivations can produce the same behavior, then when we see that behavior for that individual, what do we know? Or a group of individuals, how do we know what's driving the bus? Does it matter if one particular group or is always on the losing end often? Or it does not matter when it comes to the motivation of why we should wanna rectify the situation. Not at all. And it does not matter to me, when it comes to why it should be problematic for you who feels you are part of a group that gets the short end of this pick. It should not matter. I hear you, and I know I hear you. You said I just can I just finish one more thing? And then I wanna hear what you Of course. Of course. The only other thing I wanna say is the only thing I'll suggest is that the telling of the story when it's said that something is deliberate, what I think sometimes drives people away from conversation is whether someone thinks it's deliberate because of race. And I'm not suggesting that it's never deliberate because or influenced by race, but for the people for whom that might not be the case, the word deliberate tied to racial equities sometimes creates the feeling upon those people that or the suggestion that it's completely racially motivated or largely racially motivated. So to quote a person, they should lean into that discomfort Yeah. And explore why they feel that way. I wanna share a recent experience of mine Yeah. That well, I'll share the experience. So, we're going through, like, a special election here right now in Texas, and I know I try to stay up on all of the elections to participate in democracy. And one of the bills was a constitutional amendment to increase the amount of a homestead exemption that we get to claim against our property taxes. And it was increasing this amount by, like, 60%. So this is in my financial best interest to vote for it. But the amendment deliberately said that it would take the money away, meaning reduce the amount of money that is being passed to school districts, public school districts. And when I so I looked up the ballot before early voting started, And I said, wait a minute. Then a lot of black kids go in public school. And, you know, I know how much my property is worth. So if you increase the amount that I get to deduct by 60%, because I was like, oh, score. Right? Then so the financial part is like, oh, yeah. And I'm like, woo, Republicans. And but they're the racial equity part of me and I really struggled with this, and I told the girls about it yesterday. I was like, if I vote for this, that that mean class teachers already spend part of their income in order to be as educators. In public school, I mean, you're talking about less money, more crowded classes, and you do it just could make education really worse. And 60% increase in the deduction, where's that money gonna come from? Because you're talking about property taxes. Right? Mhmm. So if they don't get that money, you're talking about either a bond sale, which puts the district in debt. Keep in mind, the Houston School District is, like, the 3rd largest school district in the country. So we're talking about millions of children. This is a Texas constitutional amendment, which means it would apply to all of the state, which means all of the city. Right? It would be legal in every county to have to increase this deduction. And I had a real moral dilemma about it because it was hard to feel like that wasn't deliberate, that it wasn't some politician trying to sneak in this sort of defunding of education, especially education that impact a lot of black and brown people in disguise in this very advantageous amendment because what homeowner if you use I mean, Todd, like, oh, guess what? We're gonna drop your taxes by 60%. We've had it. We had issues. We've had issues on this, on this front in California. There was Yes. There was, a very important proposition that, limited that restricted the ability to raise property taxes. Mhmm. So and it's had, you know, not great effects when it comes to edge the educational system. So I'm yeah. Let me ask you a question about that. That's a I think I think bringing it down to a specific example is really important. Do you wanna know how I voted? No. I don't wanna know how you voted. I wanna know how you would feel if the public schools in your area were 90 plus percent white? How I would feel. I would still feel that we were taking away something very key from children who need it. So I guess the answer to your question is that, personally, I would feel no differently if they were 90% way. I would feel no differently. Yeah. So but the sting but it felt more of a sting Yeah. Because I know HISD is, like, 60% black. Yeah. I understand. For just so you know, I'm a product of HISD, of Houston Independent School District. Yeah. And it must it did something. Right? It got me to Stanford, so I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I so I think any yeah. And I think that totally makes sense. All the more because you came out of that out of that political system. Right. And so and I think anyone would understand that who hasn't felt like they were, you know, if they were supported by some institution, education or whatever it might be, the military people feel this right. Hey, I have been improved because of the military. And when people start bashing the military Mhmm. They get defense. So I totally understand. And I and I appreciate your answer. Both the honesty of the sting was more makes sense to me as well as that you still feel the same. So this is an example, I think, where you can imagine people in all sorts of situations that we can play around with whether you as Andre thinking about this as black or white, whether the school system is more black or more white. And you I don't know how you wound up coming out on the on you on your vote, but you had this personal interest and then you saw the effects. And the effects were bad, generally, no matter whether they were black or white kids. I'll tell you the way I I'll tell you how I voted. Because I think you've been I'm if I tell you how I voted, it will inform, it will just inform what you're about to say. Yeah. I voted for the amendment. So I voted for the increase in the in the reduction, meaning, basically, take that money away from public schools. I voted for my own economic best interest. Yeah. So But I felt like I felt like really bad person for doing that. Yeah. And so I think you I think you showed that these are complicated issues. Very. I struggled with it for about a week. Right. And so imagine in advance. And so I wanna I wanna just now you could have gone the other direction. Right? So let's just say you could have you weighed these things. There's whatever reason you had for saying I decide to support in the end. I think what some white people would say is that if they were Andre telling this story right now and they shared the decision they made I know where you're going. They would be assumed to be to have done that, to at the very least have not cared about black people enough, right, to seek equity, right, for their personal interests or at the very most just being flat out not just caring but flat out being racist. Right? This is a good example for our conversation. I'm glad I shared it with you. Yeah. This is a good case study to examine. Yeah. And now it could be totally fair for you to say, I think this is the right thing to do. Okay? It's personal of personal interest to me. It's the right thing to do. I think we need to get public funding in a different way. I support public education or maybe I don't. Maybe I support, you know, other forms of education, you know, that are and anyways, you could have all sorts of ways that you might actually think the right way to get to educational equity is just a different path. Mhmm. And even though it's gonna have this effect, this this specific proposition Mhmm. This specific way, maybe Mhmm. There I actually support a different way of getting there. Mhmm. There are all sorts of ways that people might feel about this for all sorts of different reasons. And I know where you're going. And the choice is deliberate. No matter what, your choice was very deliberate. Right? It wasn't just instinct. You really thought about it, which is like the essence of deliberation. You thought it through and deliberately made a choice. More weak. Yeah. And so when you say the idea going back to the idea of when you say these things are deliberate, all I'm saying is yes. People do make decisions, and some people are more powerful. And based on our historical trajectory, those people are more likely to be white. Right? Yes. And the reason for their decisions could be so various is all that I'm saying. They could be based on so many different reasons. And I don't wanna take away the fact that they could be based on outright or unconscious biases as with regard to race. I think the political science literature, you know, I studied political science, bears out that we have racial biases that influence our decisions. Like, not everyone has it equally. These are average effects. But when you add up the averages, as you've said before, on a societal level, those averages add up. But at the same time, it's the people just get defensive when it comes to intentionality. And on one side of the ledger, as my Jewish friends will say, right, is That's a good point. There's a lot of bad intention out there. There there's a lot of bad intention out there. Don't dismiss it. Mhmm. Right? And you would say the same thing. Don't dismiss the racial bias that exists. And let's not make it everything. Right? Let's just let's just not assume on individual cases or assume something about a broad population. And if that's hard because people can hide their intentions. Right? Yeah. And so they can say, oh, no. My intentions are different than race when their intentions could very well be race. Yes. Very true. So it's anyways, That I can racially motivated. Like, I wasn't doing this out of some malice toward black people. For me, its God. I hate I'm not hated to say it, but it was just like a savings. I'm like, seriously? It was it was like, that's a pretty steep amount. Yeah. Yeah. And you could just you could just bad idea, but I don't know. No. No. I mean, I definitely think it is no. I think your example is such a powerful example. But I feel like I voted against black people because I like I said, I come from the school district. I know what the what the racial makeup is of the school district, and the amendment did say that it was gonna take the money away from public schools. Mhmm. Like, that was literally I'm quoting. Now you might say so here's an argument that I think someone might make in your position, and they could be whatever color they are, of skin. But I'm just gonna you know, maybe it's the case, Andre, that through your greater increasing wealth, you in your life wind up doing a whole bunch of good with it that helps to remedy racial equity or solve some other problem that maybe you care about. Now maybe you don't, and there's a lot of people out there who make a lot of money and pass it down and, you know, maybe it never trickles out to kind of an improvement of society. Some people have that point of view where they actually feel, well, I know in the short run, I'm doing a bad thing in the sense of, like, I'm taking away money from what could be a good cause. But maybe I can invest maybe I feel confident that I can invest that better or differently, or it's gonna help me get to a place where I'm more able to help. And so even someone making the choice that you make, I know you're a good person. I know you want to do good in the world. Like, I have every confidence that whatever, you know, whoever Andre becomes, whoever Andre is and becomes is going to do good things in the world. With that savings? With the savings or otherwise. Or where maybe the savings just brings you to a place of influence, and maybe it's influence that you wind up using it. Right? Mhmm. Maybe it you could just imagine all sorts of scenarios where this improving your life an investment in you is to become the person, you're gonna be, and the person you're gonna be is gonna have a whole lot of effects. I mean, there's people who make that argument about the Elon Musk’s of the world. Right? Mhmm. Who say, you know, the fact that he's rich is probably a good thing because he winds up, you know, throwing the money down on big investments that can improve our lot and lot, you know, as a society. Mhmm. Whereas others don't. Right? You know, and then others make the counterargument of like, well, why should we, you know, shouldn't this be a collective decision? Why do we just leave it for these individual do gooders to just trust that they're gonna do good things? Right? That's why we do need to tax and make these collective decisions. These are tough things to figure out is all that I'm saying is. And the reason your example to me is such a good example is it's the way I'm gonna say this in a way that I hope comes out okay that you feel good about, because I want you to feel good. You made the decision. You hopefully feel good about it. You're torn about it. Clearly, you're torn about it. But you made a decision. About it. But now I can't reverse it because I have to remember this quote. The thing is that there are I think we just have to be careful with people's motivations, right, with assuming their motivations. You yourself now can see the way that people get coaxed into policies that have deleterious effects. Yes. That are not racially biased. Right. And there's just some people who support policies that do magnify or at least maintain racial inequities, who are not doing it because of the effects that it creates in that way. They're doing it for whatever other motivations that they have. And the net effect of everyone making these personal choices is to not have policies that might rectify them. Right? And that's why people who might either purposely, like, like those racial inequities or maybe are just okay with them staying the way they are might even promote certain ideologies that lead to policy choices that might not rectify them. Right? And so you have some sometimes, you know, people who are claiming ideology and maybe they have ulterior motives. Right? So there's a whole cast of characters is all that I'm saying. Understand something. You're really helping me understand something. Because the girls and I went in on why white people get so offended when you call them racist. Right? We're like we really win. That was like an out part because we were on the phone for, like, 5 hours yesterday. Yeah. That was that was part of it in, like, an hour. And you're helping me understand how especially when you said people get coaxed in into policies, and you need to be careful about people's motivations. Because when you say when you said that, when people, Lisa, when I've heard people call out the other person racist, you're saying you have a discriminatory deliberate discriminatory kinda like motivation in your action or in your support of a policy. Right? And as I hear you talk, you're saying that's not necessarily the case That you then, yes, that could be possible, but a person could have a completely like, for example, an economic point of view why they would have voted for, you know, in this this particular amendment that is not even motivated by race. But and for you to sit for you to call a person a racist because they voted for it is a loaded statement. I get it now. I see. It's a loaded statement even it's a loaded statement. It's a loaded statement, period. And it's accentuated if you actually, in your heart of hearts, try to be the best person you can be when it comes to race. So imagine an individual who makes that decision. I've had literally a person who has said this to me. Yes. I have done I worked for racial equity in New York City. Like, I literally supported policies and philanthropy that sought to do that. And because I support why this, I'm now being called a racist. And he, I mean, he when he told me about the things he did in his past, he started, like, tearing. He's like, I'm a person who not just tries to, in my everyday interpersonal life, try to be open and welcoming. And even though maybe I'm ignorant, right, he didn't say that part, but I'm sure he would even acknowledge, like, I don't really know what it's like to be a black person. Right? So it's not just that that person is just interpersonally tries to be a loving, open, kind person, but he actually was active in trying to make schools better in a way that, like, he oh, he was oh, it was actually, like, private religious schools that had racial equity motivations and produced results to that effect. He's like so imagine that person who has put energy into the cause in some way because he doesn't support x, y, or z or has a problem with a, b, c. So, like, defund the police or changing the police or whatever it might be. Mhmm. I don't know if those were the policies, but whatever the policies policy, he's like, I've been called a racist because of that. And so not only does he get a loaded term thrown toward him that doesn't match his motivations for whatever policy, but he knows his history. Right? And one could make the argument that he probably hasn't owned all the bias that he has. I'm sure one could legitimately make the argument. Right? But just imagine a person who's really tried, who has a motivation that isn't racial, support something and then gets called that loaded term. That's a hard pill to swallow. Like, that's a really hard pill to swallow. And it's not that I negate people's drive to, like, make people not make people, but drive people, like inspire people, encourage people to be uncomfortable and to own the smaller ways that they might have these biases that affect, and that other people might have biases. You know, there was a study that was done. I can't remember if I mentioned it at all in any of our conversations where they looked at traffic stops on the I don't know if it was on the freeway or certain part of the freeway or the whole city it might have been. And they looked at the disparity between black and white, traffic stops at nighttime and during the daytime. And what you see is a disparity during the daytime, and you see that disparity close when it's nighttime. Now I don't know how else to tell the story, that story, other than during the daytime, you can see someone's skin color. I don't know how many people that's right? Right. People are less visible. Right. And so is it consciously doing it? Is it unconsciously? Is it consciously for some and unconsciously for others? I don't know. I don't know what that story. But is there some bias of some kind that leads to that different result? Right. I understand the drive to want us to want us to wake up and listen to and acknowledge those biases. But on an individual level, even someone who has those biases and may not have owned them, sometimes things get thrown at people that are just assumed and not justified. And I accept that. But like I said, it's hard. It's also a hard pill for us to swallow when many times you and your race end up on the losing end. Yeah. I'm There's only just so much grace I can give that argument. Thank you for watching this episode of Healing Race and stay with us for a scene from our next video. If you wanna see more conversations like the one you just watched, please subscribe to our channel, share this video with friends and family, and like and comment on the video below. If you'd like to be a guest on one of our episodes and have an open real conversation about race, email us at guests at healingracehow.com. And if there are topics you think we should cover, we'd love to hear them. So please email your ideas to topics at healingracehow.com. As always, thanks for your support. We look forward to continuing the conversation with you. Now, here's a scene from our next Healing Race. What would you want fellow Americans who are white to know about you as a as a black person or and or the black community generally that you often feel they as a community generally, right, or at least some portion of them don't know? Like, what are the things that you think is are misunderstood about you because of your blackness or, again, about the community generally that We are a community with a lot of heart, and there's no reason to be afraid of us. We are a loving, beautiful people with a lot of heart, you know, with a lot of heart. To watch the rest of that episode, go ahead and click the video below me. To see a different compelling healing race episode, you can click the video below me. We look forward to seeing you in the next video.