Page 6 - RACE HEALER Mag Volume 1

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