A Larger Picture of Racism
The story of Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia has been all over the place. It is not a pleasant story. It revolves around the picture in the Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook that shows a person wearing blackface and another dressed as a member of the KKK. Reprehensible stuff.
Yet there is an aspect of this story that I have yet to hear discussed. And that is this: why did the medical school feel this picture was appropriate to put in a yearbook? This was not a yearbook from the 30s either. It was from 1984.
Surely someone along the way would have said, "Is it really a good idea to put this picture in our yearbook?" Why is no one talking about the corporate responsibility of this picture? True, Northam has to deal with this as an individual. But why aren't we asking about the culture that thought this was (a) an okay event and (b) an okay picture to publish?
One of the issues we have to recognize when talking about responsibility and race relations is the fact that the response whites and blacks have to the issue is different. Whites often call for personal remorse and repentance. The person has to take responsibility for their actions. So, should we look at a police shooting, whites typically focus on the individuals involved.
Black culture argues differently. The call includes personal responsibility as well as a call for responsibility from the institution involved. So, going back to the idea of a police shooting, the responsibility for the actual shooting is the individual, but there is also the question of the culture from which the officer emerged. What is the thinking of the department towards persons of color, various ethnic backgrounds, or religious dispositions? Because the officer involved may have a department that feels a particular way that is not in keeping with societal norms.
So, in the case of Gov. Northam's situation, the question is not so much that he take responsibility or explain away his action, there also needs to be some kind of institutional reckoning with regard to the decision to print the picture.
There are issues of racism that are embedded in the normal operations of institutions and are invisible to most white people (Emerson, Michael and Smith, Christian Divided by Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) p. 9). "Because racialization is embedded within the normal, everyday operation of institutions, this framework understands that people need not intend their actions to contribute to racial division and inequality for their actions to do so." (Emerson and Smith p.9)
As a white person, I have to recognize that, as Emerson and Smith state, I may not personally intend any action to add to or cause racial division. However, I may be part of an institution that has or does create that very thing (as a part of a Christian denomination, I know that our particular history has been grievously damaged by slavery in our action, reaction and inaction to it). That has to be addressed just as much as my own culpability.
So, while the Governor has to answer for the picture and his role in it, so to does the school have to answer. Because not only was the school okay with the picture being a part of the yearbook, the fact of the picture also demonstrates that the school was okay with the actions of the picture.
When the detestable pictures of mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay surfaced, the individuals involved were reprimanded. Yet those in charge were not. Not really. Because the pushback to the issue was that these were the actions of a few. Yet those few represented the whole, no matter how bad the action. They were doing these terrible things while enlisted, while serving. There is clearly a systemic issue that needs to be addressed.
The same is true of this picture. Northam is the focus of the issue at the moment. But he is the tip of the iceberg. The picture represents a larger problem: a school that thought this was an acceptable picture and had no qualms with publishing it in a yearbook.
This picture is worth a thousand words. It is also pointing back to the school setting from which it emerged. Why was that ever okay? I wonder if we can ever get past Northam to ask those kinds of questions.
Yet there is an aspect of this story that I have yet to hear discussed. And that is this: why did the medical school feel this picture was appropriate to put in a yearbook? This was not a yearbook from the 30s either. It was from 1984.
Surely someone along the way would have said, "Is it really a good idea to put this picture in our yearbook?" Why is no one talking about the corporate responsibility of this picture? True, Northam has to deal with this as an individual. But why aren't we asking about the culture that thought this was (a) an okay event and (b) an okay picture to publish?
One of the issues we have to recognize when talking about responsibility and race relations is the fact that the response whites and blacks have to the issue is different. Whites often call for personal remorse and repentance. The person has to take responsibility for their actions. So, should we look at a police shooting, whites typically focus on the individuals involved.
Black culture argues differently. The call includes personal responsibility as well as a call for responsibility from the institution involved. So, going back to the idea of a police shooting, the responsibility for the actual shooting is the individual, but there is also the question of the culture from which the officer emerged. What is the thinking of the department towards persons of color, various ethnic backgrounds, or religious dispositions? Because the officer involved may have a department that feels a particular way that is not in keeping with societal norms.
So, in the case of Gov. Northam's situation, the question is not so much that he take responsibility or explain away his action, there also needs to be some kind of institutional reckoning with regard to the decision to print the picture.
There are issues of racism that are embedded in the normal operations of institutions and are invisible to most white people (Emerson, Michael and Smith, Christian Divided by Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) p. 9). "Because racialization is embedded within the normal, everyday operation of institutions, this framework understands that people need not intend their actions to contribute to racial division and inequality for their actions to do so." (Emerson and Smith p.9)
As a white person, I have to recognize that, as Emerson and Smith state, I may not personally intend any action to add to or cause racial division. However, I may be part of an institution that has or does create that very thing (as a part of a Christian denomination, I know that our particular history has been grievously damaged by slavery in our action, reaction and inaction to it). That has to be addressed just as much as my own culpability.
So, while the Governor has to answer for the picture and his role in it, so to does the school have to answer. Because not only was the school okay with the picture being a part of the yearbook, the fact of the picture also demonstrates that the school was okay with the actions of the picture.
When the detestable pictures of mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay surfaced, the individuals involved were reprimanded. Yet those in charge were not. Not really. Because the pushback to the issue was that these were the actions of a few. Yet those few represented the whole, no matter how bad the action. They were doing these terrible things while enlisted, while serving. There is clearly a systemic issue that needs to be addressed.
The same is true of this picture. Northam is the focus of the issue at the moment. But he is the tip of the iceberg. The picture represents a larger problem: a school that thought this was an acceptable picture and had no qualms with publishing it in a yearbook.
This picture is worth a thousand words. It is also pointing back to the school setting from which it emerged. Why was that ever okay? I wonder if we can ever get past Northam to ask those kinds of questions.
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