I was browsing my Facebook newsfeed today and I came across an interesting interview with Mike Wallace and Morgan Freeman. In it, Morgan Freeman (an actor I greatly admire) says we should stop talking about race. Of course, this got me thinking. Why should we talk about race? Or why should we talk about gender?
There has recently been a definite uptick in the amount of chatter about race and gender recently. Between Ferguson, MO and GamerGate, or even the Kim Kardashian photo "scandal" (a two-for-the-price-of-one: race AND gender), discussions about racism (particularly in a white vs. black context) and feminism are not only being discussed in the serious circles in which they've long been discussed; they're now permeating even the most benign pop culture. Unless you've been living under that proverbial rock, you've heard about at least one of these issues recently.
But does talking about it just perpetuate the problem? If, as Mr. Freeman seems to suggest, we are contributing to the problem of people with brown or "black" skin being treated differently than those of us with beige ("white") skin just by talking about that difference, then the easiest solution is to stop talking about it. I have a former professor who is terribly brilliant and successful. She lives and works in an all men, very powerful world. She has told me that her approach to making career opportunities more equal for women is to simply live it. And kudos to my former professor and Mr. Freeman for their abilities to live beyond the everyday discriminations facing the majority of women and people of color in this country. But will stopping the conversation make it better for the rest of us?
I must at this point in our conversation offer a clarification. I am white. And I am a woman. I absolutely benefit from white privilege so my observations about race are fully subject to scrutiny from those people who may speak from a place of personal knowledge (i.e. people of color). I am not saying I know better than Mr. Freeman or any other person who has been the victim of racial discrimination on a firsthand basis. However, I live in this world and desperately want to see it become a better place where people of all color and gender live in harmony. From that perspective, and my perspective as a woman, I offer a reason not to stop talking about these issues.
If we stop talking about it, hate becomes the only voice in the room.
By not talking about these important issues, we amplify the messages of those who want our differences to hurt, diminish, stunt, restrict, constrict, limit, or incapacitate us. Many of those who are perpetuating these messages do so because it gives them an advantage. Many others continue these ideas because they don't know better: it's how they've always done things. Why is it so bad to have a majority of men in the media, or the CEO office, or the White House? The world has been running just fine that way-we even finally put a man of color in the latter. Why is it so bad that black mothers teach black boys how to avoid looking suspicious to police while white mothers teach white sons that police are our friends? The black boys are probably up to no good anyway, right? Why else would a police man target them? Their ignorance may be bliss for them, but it is hell for those on the receiving end.
We cannot allow people to continue in their outdated, harmful, ignorant ways. It would be lovely if, by not talking about these issues, we could erase them. If by not pointing out that Morgan Freeman is one of only a handful of award-winning, black leading men (and even fewer leading ladies) we could just even the playing field in Hollywood, I would recommend we just shut up. But not pointing out the issue, not speaking up, has gotten us even further into the mire of discriminatory practices. We must point out all the ways girls and women are disadvantaged from infancy so that people will begin giving them not an advantage, but an equal footing. We must point out that people of color are hindered at many points in their lives so that we can begin to remove those hindrances-not so that people of color have more opportunities, but the same ones as the "white majority."
Please, please, until things are much, much better (and maybe not even then), don't ever stop talking about it.
