Awkward, uncomfortable conversations about racism worth it

Jocelyn Briddell remembers feeling paralyzed several years ago during a dinner conversation with co-workers at a colleague’s home that took on an unexpected racial overtone.

Over an elaborate homemade Italian spread, her colleague’s husband launched into a lengthy monologue in which he denigrated Jews, Latinos, African-Americans, Mexicans and lesbians – despite having guests that included two Jewish women, a lesbian and Briddell, who is African-American.

“We were all just sitting there looking at one another, frozen,” Briddell says. Finally after an hour and a half Briddell went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, thinking “what are you doing?” She and her co-workers left, drove a block away and got out of their cars to talk about what happened.

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“We were stunned at ourselves for not saying anything,” says Briddell, now executive director at the Scarritt Bennett Center in Nashville, which promotes racial justice through trainings and conferences.

“Everyone goes through this when they’re sitting at the dinner table with family and friends and you think you'll just let that comment go, because it’s a social gathering,” says Briddell.

“For me it was a defining moment. I will never again not speak up. I could have told him it was offensive. I could have asked questions about why he was making those comments. But I didn’t.”

In recent years, there have been calls for a national dialogue about race and racism, prompted by everything from police-involved shootings of African Americans to the lack of diversity in Oscar nominations to Beyonce’s Super Bowl half-time show and her song, Formation.

But often, those conversations in day-to-day life can be awkward and uncomfortable.

Rinku Sen, president and executive director of Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation and publisher of news site Colorlines, says that sometimes the best way to begin a conversation about race is by asking lots of questions.

A few years ago, Sen was waiting in line at the Sundance Film Festival to buy tickets. Sen, who is Indian-American, began chatting with a white woman behind her. The woman told her she had adopted two African-American sons. Sen told her she did racial justice work.

The woman told Sen that she had attended a two- or three-day race workshop and felt like she was hated by all the people of color there.

“If I hear ‘white privilege’ one more time, I’m going to hurt someone,” the woman told Sen. For Sen, whose career is devoted to openly talking about white privilege – the notion that white people have inherent advantages in American society – the response was offensive.

“There were many, many times I wanted to roll my eyes during that conversation,” Sen says. “But the interesting thing I noted as we wound our way closer to the front…is that she’d say something not so great and, then, if I asked her a question, she’d talk her way in my direction, philosophically speaking. At one point, she said she felt that white people see themselves as individuals, and blacks and Latinos see themselves in groups. I said, ‘you know why that is, don’t you?’ And she said ‘because we get to live as individuals, whereas they are always lumped in with their group.’”

For people of color who may be offended or angered by another’s remarks, Sen’s advice is to “lower the litmus test. Expect people to be less than perfect. People are going to say the wrong things. They’re going to be imperfect. They’re not going to know a piece of history that’s critical to your family.”

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Even if someone ultimately says the wrong thing, the fact they are willing to engage in conversation is important, she said.

Derald Wing Sue, a professor of education and psychology at Columbia University’s Teachers College and author of the book Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence: Understanding and Facilitating Difficult Dialogues on Race, says even when conversations take a turn for the worse, he tries to keep dialogue open.

Sue, who is Asian American, recalled an interaction with a white female student in his class who interrupted him while he was talking about race.

The woman challenged Sue, pointing out that women are oppressed, too. She was uncomfortable and resistant, almost as if she felt like Sue was accusing white students of racism, he said.

“When these interactions happen, I will generally agree,” Sue said. “Women are also a marginalized group in our society. But then I made a process observation. I told her, ‘you’re right about that, but you seem so upset and angry. Where is that coming from?’”

“Eventually we got to the point that she understood what racism was about because as a woman, she had experienced the same things as well,” Sue says. “When we get to the point we can talk about what buttons we are pushing, then we can really hear one another.”

Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina state chapter of the NAACP and author of The Third Reconstruction, says sometimes the most productive conversations about race don’t focus on skin color, but the broader class divisions and societal problems – issues such as police brutality, access to healthcare and childcare, voting rights and economic inequality.

Barber’s work promoting interracial dialogue within North Carolina communities has led to the creation of seven local chapters of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that are predominantly white – and a recognition by some in those communities that Barber is representing interests that cross racial lines.

“When you deal with race from systemic perspectives and examine disparities, you can show how policies that disparately hurt black people end up hurting us all,” he says.

For Briddell, one of the biggest bridge-builders is to tell personal stories so people can see how their upbringings and lives are shaped differently by race.

Briddell had a conversation recently with a white co-worker who talked about his experience going to Ocean City in New Jersey as a child.

Briddell, whose family lives in the area, told him about her dad, an African-American who could not visit Ocean City. The only African-Americans who went to Ocean City in the 1940’s and 1950’s were gardeners, housekeepers or kitchen workers.

“My coworker told me how much he appreciated my personal experience, because it made him think about how our lives were shaped differently because of racism,” she says. “He said ‘there are places I have been going to all my life and never thought about this.’”

So how do you have a conversation about race?

Barber, Briddell, Sen and Sue provided these tips:

– Ask questions rather than make assertions, so you can understand why someone holds certain beliefs or opinions.

– Tell personal stories about your life experiences and listen to how they differ from others.

– Don’t be colorblind. Acknowledge racial and ethnic difference.

– Temper your reaction if someone says something that offends you, but try to acknowledge the impact of their words as quickly as possible. Take a break from the conversation if necessary and walk around the block. You can’t calmly respond if you are too filled with emotion to articulate why.

– Take a deep breath and don't freeze when conversations turn awkward or uncomfortable.

– Talk about policies and larger system-wide issues that may disproportionately affect people of color but have a wider impact on the entire community.

– Take a chance even if it makes you uncomfortable. If you make a mistake, you’ll get the chance to have another conversation. Just a willingness to begin the discussion is an important step.

– For people of color, lower the litmus test. People are going to make mistakes and they are going to say the wrong thing. Expect people to be less than perfect, but remain engaged in the conversation.

– Focus on the impact of people’s words and not the intentions behind them. People say racist things with intention and without intention.

– Educate yourself. There are thoughtful analyses and stories available for everyone to read.

– Any opportunity is a good opportunity to talk about race, not just tragedies. Big national stories often spark conversation but there is a version of that big national story probably going on near you.

Follow Anita Wadhwani on Twitter @AnitaWadhwani