Thanks. I agree. It's tempting to come out all guns blazing against an opponent, but that doesn't accomplish anything. All it does is make them double down. Dr. David Campt* has an entire system based on this idea.
In -Faces at the Bottom of the Well-, Derrick Bell says that, historically, anti-racist gains are made when Black and White interests coincide. For example, slavery was abolished in the rebel states because this would weaken their position in the Civil War, and lead to Union victory. De Jure (Jim Crow) segregation was abolished in the mid 20th century because the ruling class saw that continuing these practices threatened their profits and their reputations. So it follows that, in order to make further gains toward racial equality, we need to create or seize those moments when Black and White interests coincide.
This is why I maintain that racism makes everything worse, for everyone. It is helpful to examine racial conflicts, whether between individuals or between systems, from this perspective.
For example, Central Park Karen (Amy Cooper) felt threatened in part because her interlocutor (Christian Cooper) said "I'm going to do something but you're not going to like it" before offering her dog a treat. A lifetime of racist conditioning led her to overreact. This could well have left Mr. Cooper dead, while also leading to her public disgrace and loss of her job and reputation.
Another example: Everyone is impacted by crime in low-income (predominantly BIPOC) neighborhoods, to the point that outsiders are afraid to pass through, and residents are afraid to venture outdoors at night. There are strong correlations between crime and poverty, and between poverty and race. These low-income neighborhoods are created through redlining and other forms of racial discrimination. So, by exacerbating crime and poverty, racism hurts us all.
Recently in my neighborhood I saw a routine dispute over a parking spot almost turn deadly when the racial epithets started flying. Even my stint at student-teaching* flopped because my blundering effort to respect the students' autonomy chafed at ancient racial wounds. A new perspective appears when we look at interpersonal or systemic conflicts between members of different races thru this lens, that racism hurts everyone.
Guilt-tripping people only goes so far. Ally-ship gets real when we realize that none of us is free till all of us are free.
