John Lovchik - Racism: Reality Built on a Myth

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Racism

Reality Built on a Myth

John Lovchik

Racism

Reality Built on a Myth

Copyright 2018 John Lovchik. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, W. th Ave., Suite , Eugene, OR 97401 .

Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

W. th Ave., Suite

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-4822-9

hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-4823-6

ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-4824-3

Manufactured in the U.S.A. 10/25/18

Table of Contents

To those on whose shoulders we stand.

We dont start at the beginning, but we have a long way to go.

Acknowledgments

I want to acknowledge and thank first and foremost, Mr. Ronald Chisom, co-founder of The Peoples Institute for Survival and Beyond, who is one of those on whose shoulders I stand. He has been in the struggle a long time; yet he retains his good humor and youthful enthusiasm. I have been educated, inspired and challenged by him and by the results of his work. I also want to thank all of the trainers I have had the honor of working with, and learning from, at The Peoples Institute For Survival and Beyond workshops, especially Mary Flowers and Dustin Washington who initially threw me into the deep end of the pool. I am honored by their friendship and their faith, not in what I knew, but in my willingness to learn. This work is about organizing and motivating people, and you will not meet more skilled organizers than Ron, Mary, and Dustin.

I also want to thank Diana Bender, Julie Nelson, Colleen Kelly, Martin Friedman and Scott Winn who were among the first white people through whom I got involved in this work. They remain as committed as they were when I first met them. Through them I have learned, been inspired, and been supported. They are true friends who help make this difficult work enjoyable, though we all wish it were not necessary. Martin is also a trainer with the Peoples Institute for Survival and Beyond, and his knowledgeable presentations on the history of racism led to my realization of how our general ignorance about that past has distorted our view of the present.

I want to thank the members of the Seattle Race Conference Planning Committee, past and present. As members of a committee organizing conferences around racism, we began to recognize the extent to which the committee itself has manifested the ills of society as a whole. Our efforts to heal ourselves have drawn us closer and taught me a lot. I do want to thank individually Dr. Pamela Taylor, whose knowledge and wisdom on this subject, and grace in sharing that wisdom, have influenced me more than she could know. A special thank you is also due to AngaLee Alexander who read several versions of the manuscript. Her genuine interest in this project and her constant encouragement were invaluable, particularly during those inevitable periods of uncertainty.

Bryan Tomasovich of The Publishing World provided developmental guidance and editing that helped bring a first draft by a novice to an organized and readable end product. This book would not have been possible without his participation. I am grateful for his support and encouragement that went far beyond merely doing a job.

I feel I must also acknowledge the many authors who I have referenced and quoted throughout this book. Some are long gone, but many are still with us, continuing the work. We definitely stand on their shoulders. Their extensive research ensures the past will never be forgotten. It also allowed me to present this book as an overview, in no way intended to either diminish or bury the past. The horrors are in the details and, though it serves no purpose to dwell on them, we must be aware of the realities of our past. I highly recommend all of the books listed in the bibliography, especially those published most recently.

I also want to thank my incredibly supportive family. My daughter, Jennifer, was always ready to provide research materials for me, or assist me in locating what I needed. My sister, Kathy Devine, read an early draft and proofread the final copy. Her guidance early in the process and her review at the end, as well as her constant encouragement throughout, were helpful beyond measure. Finally, but most importantly, I thank my wife Vicky. From the first tentative drafts through every new and challenging step of the process she has been my sounding board, my counsel, and my most honest critic. A project such as this involves many years of distractions from the normal routines of life. She cheerfully endured the distractions and never wavered in her support.

Introduction

T his book reviews the long history of racism from its origin in colonial times through its evolution and intentional promotion and use in subsequent periods. It is also the story of how I became aware of the importance of knowing this history in order to understand racism in our time and how each of us is connected to it. I am a white man who was completing my education and beginning my career and family during the civil rights movement in the 1960 s. I was naturally troubled by the plight of people struggling for their basic rights. But I saw it as their struggle. I was detached from it by where I lived and by my focus on my own family and career. I did not see a role for myself, either in the underlying problem or in the solution.

But while I did not join in the struggle, I did try to understand it, and had continued to do so over my lifetime. What was this thing that regularly bubbled up in small incidents and major events? Needless to say, hundreds of such incidents and events have occurred in my lifetime. As I neared retirement, and with our daughter grown, I had time to pay more attention to current events and public policy regarding racism. I began writing letters to the editor, expressing my views. When a syndicated columnist demeaned the work of Malcolm X by writing that he had spent most of his adulthood describing the racial problems of America, not doing the hard work of creating solutions,

I saw the attention I was paying to the subject, and the critiques I was able to get printed in the newspaper, as part of that hard work. I also felt I was becoming much more knowledgeable about the subject of racism. When I read a letter to the editor signed by a group of white people calling themselves European-Americans Against Racism, I saw the opportunity to expand my efforts by working with other like-minded white people, and in turn share what I had learned. I write that with some embarrassment now, because the first thing I learned from my new friends was how little I really knew about racism.

But that discovery did change my life. That small group of white people has expanded into a network of white friends and acquaintances who continue to provide support and encouragement as we continue this work together. They also connected me with a number organizations led by People of Color that helped me gain a perspective not available in my all-white world.

Most importantly, they introduced me to the Peoples Institute for Survival and Beyond, an organization founded and led by People of Color that has been conducting Undoing Racism workshops since 1980 . Part of each workshop addresses the history of racism, and that brief exposure encouraged me to follow up with my own in-depth research into the subject. The more I read, the more the pieces began to fall into place in the mosaic of racism. As a white man I did not experience racism and all of my knowledge had come from outside sources in random bits. I dont easily process random bits of information like some people do, but when I began looking at the history of racism chronologically, the random bits of information began to make sense to me, and the true nature of racism became more clear.

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