Page 6 - RACE HEALER Mag Volume 1
P. 6

Dismantling Racism is the White Man’s Job



                                                            By: Rusty Vaugh


           Many people in the field of racial justice know the name Morris
           Dees. They know that he founded and led the Southern Poverty
           Law Center (SPLC), and that he recently left the organization.
           Among other things for which he was forced out was that he had
           very few people of color in higher positions. Many have written
           on this. One opinion was by Jim Tharpe who knew and worked
           with Dees. That was widely published in April 5, 2019.


           I won’t defend Morris Dees at all. For now, I’d like to use his
           stature, his position, his career, and his gender as an example of
           the typical white males leading our country’s businesses and pol-
           itics, and how the mores of our country have pattered our hidden
           biases and formed us into being quiet, unknowing racists. His is
           a common mindset and male view boldly seen in the 50s and 60s
           and in many cases carried on today by their sons and grandsons.     use that in a MUCH broader brush of total white male inclusion.
           For those of us in this group, it is most difficult to see ourselves   We would be better served to study and identify this behavior of
           here unless we have read and extensively discussed this and have    unconscious bias and the painful oppressive results it fosters. A
           been through painful self-searching change.                         best first step is to acknowledge we are all complicit, and then to
                                                                               discuss and study to work it out.


                                                                               Some call it racist behavior, some call it unconscious bias, some
                                                                               call it supremacy and some are oblivious. The result is the same.
                                                                               It is all of that and much more. Those who proclaim their white
                                                                               supremacy openly are not my concern for the present. They are
                                                                               easy  to  identify  and  avoid  or  exclude.  The  majority  of  those
                                                                               perpetuating racism do not see it in themselves and, rather than
                                                                               openly admitting, they are genuinely denying. They blindly carry
                                                                               out  their  cultural  biases  daily  while  unconsciously  living  their
                                                                               supremacy and giving privilege to those like them.


                                                                               Morris Dees was born and raised in Alabama. He could not then
                                                                               avoid becoming the person he is. Any white male growing up in
                                                                               that time could not avoid a feeling of supremacy over descendants
                                                                               of slaves, descendants of movie Native American “savages,” and
                                                                               more simply anyone who did not look like him… including wom-
           One of the most debilitating issues for America today, which is     en. This default image was placed in white males at every step
           holding our country back from its full potential, is this  uncon-
           scious racial bias that manifests as separation and condescension.
           This fraternity-like dominance by whites imposes growth con-
           strictions on both them and those they dominate selectively. The
           cultural trauma created by slavery is passed to successive gener-
           ations. It is maintained by cultural privilege.


           We cannot move from here to where we need to be by shouting
           it down or marching it away. Taking the Morris Dees and others
           out of the equation does nothing if we don’t learn from it and
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