Carmen Van Kerckhove poses the question in her post, “Why Should White People Fight Racism?”

 If we define -- as many activists do -- racism as a system that benefits whites at the expense of people of color, then how do we convince those reaping the benefits to change the system?

 A few things struck me.  First of all, in response to her post, reader dNA responded,

     “She's saying something important, which is that racism affects white people too, particularly in the way they see themselves. Black people aren't the only ones who internalize racism.
     It's much safer for white folks to pretend they don't have a dog in this fight, beyond "fighting racism" on behalf of black people. The scary part is that many people don't realize how deeply race and racism are ingrained into our own personalities, and affects everything from how we talk, behave, and act to the food we eat or music we listen to.
      More importantly, we rarely acknowledge how we use them to define ourselves, especially in relation to those we consider "different."

I was reminded of something I learned about Thomas Jefferson long after I left classrooms.  It is something that is rarely taught in our textbooks.  We all know that he spoke out against slavery, and yet he owned slaves.  When I was in school, that topic was essentially verboten.  Recently, it has made it into textbooks.  Prior to that, it was apparently too awful to acknowledge any fault or hypocrisy of a founding father.  What we never really delve into beyond a superficial level are his motives, his beliefs, his thoughts on slavery and race.  We know that he said, “Under the law of nature, all men are born free.”  We can all recite the words written in the Declaration of Independence.  But in truth, it seems that Jefferson contained within himself the moral struggle representative of the larger argument over slavery and race and racism, a moral struggle that still exists today, although it has evolved.  He believed that blacks were inferior, and writes much on the subject.  An example, after noting political differences between the races, he states:

 To these objections, which are political, may be added others, which are physical and moral. The first difference which strikes us is that of colour. - Whether the black of the negro resides in the reticular membrane between the skin and scarf-skin, or in the scarf-skin itself; whether it proceeds from the colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races? Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immovable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the Oranootan for the black women over those of his own species. The circumstance of Superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man? Besides those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidneys, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold than the whites. Perhaps too a difference of structure in the pulmonary apparatus, which a late ingenious experimentalist has discovered to be the principal regulator of animal heat, may have disabled them from extricating, in the act of inspiration, so much of that fluid from the outer air, or obliged them in expiration, to part with more of it. They seem to require less sleep. A black after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present.”

In some of his writings it even seems as if he speaks out against slavery not out of the moral wrong of enslaving someone, not out of a condemnation of the unspeakable cruelty slaves endured at the hands of slaveholders, but out of a desire to free himself and other white men from the sin of slavery.  Not to help others, but rather to help oneself.  To view his motives as essentially selfish is certainly a far cry from the Thomas Jefferson we learn of as a hero. It should also be said that we have no real way of ever actually knowing what his motives were, and one would imagine it was a combination of many things.

So back to Ms. Van Kerckhove’s question:

 If we define -- as many activists do -- racism as a system that benefits whites at the expense of people of color, then how do we convince those reaping the benefits to change the system?

 I wonder if we don’t have to separate it’s manifestations in order to move forward? What I mean is, if we are going to move forward, I think we have no choice but to begin by combating the manifestations of race rather than the mental state of being racist.  That might sound backward, I know.

The reason I say this is because I am not sure that it is possible to change the hearts and minds of people who have long-held views about race.  I can’t help but wonder if that is something that can only change with the flow of generations.  How can we begin to convince someone who was raised to believe that blacks were inferior and who has believed it for years?  How can we begin to convince someone who experienced Jim Crow and discrimination first hand that not all white people aren't cruel?  I don't mean to generalize here.  I'm not saying that all older Americans hold those views.  I'm also not saying that all young ones don't.   I expect that if we approach trying to end racism by trying to change minds first, we’ll make progress much, much, more slowly.  Minds are a stubborn thing: they are notoriously hard to change. But instead, if we start to fight the ways in which racism manifests itself, then perhaps those who think they were benefiting from racism will see that they have nothing to lose from fighting it, and perhaps something to gain?