Fear is an emotion that affects how we as humans shape our lives, influencing decisions, and interactions that we have. While it is a tricky emotion, it has the ultimate power of not only negatively affecting but can give someone the push that they need. That being said, I want to explore how fear relates to racism and how people have race talks. In Dr. Sue’s chapter, “The Characteristics and Dynamics of Race Talk,” there is a mention of the concept of four different fears involved in how white people feel towards talking about racism. This idea of “fear” all stems from the fact that white people are innately privileged and some individuals unfortunately grow up learning the wrong way to speak about talking about race. Personally, like many other white people, I grew up in an extremely privileged school and community that was predominantly white and we did not talk about race nearly as often as one should have. Even though I learned about it in my schooling, it did not actively help get rid of those fears.
Those four different fears involved the following: fear of appearing racist, fear of realizing their racism, fear of confronting white privilege, and fear of taking personal responsibility to end racism. All of these fears are pretty self explanatory and interesting to think about in this specific context. While I believe these are a good overall synopsis and sense of the multiple fears individuals have, there are so many other confounding factors that are involved like rejection, change, stigmatization, etc. For example, people have a fear of rejection meaning that their own anxiety takes over and they fear being ostracized from their community or being judged by others. Another example is how white people fear change in the sense that society could change and how those changes could affect the personal lives of that community around them. Another fear could have been stigmatization, being worried about having a label of racist and/or being associated with racism. Those are just a few more examples and explanations on how white people are so fearful for a multitude of reasons. While I acknowledge and understand the multiple fears one could have that does not negate the fact that individuals SHOULD know and talk about race as it has always been a prevalent issue within society. In general, privileged communities and schools need to do a better job teaching and perhaps systematically change how they go about talking about racism.
Some questions to then think about could be, are all of these reasons justified? Is it okay to be fearful, and if so it is a matter of what that individual then does in turn to actively go against that fear and be anti-racist. With everything being said, how can we then take that fear and turn it into action? In other words, what specific actions can individuals take to convert their fear of talking about racism and actively stand against it? Additionally, what personal experiences can individuals share and then turn into action?
I really like what you have done with this blog post, it highlights the key reasons of why people are afraid to step into the realm of race talk and some questions to consider. I do agree that privileged schools need to do a better job of implementing systematic changes to positively reshape the idea of race talk. How do you think schools could get the students involved with these efforts? How would the school encourage race talk in an appropriate manner.
I think this blog post does an awesome job of shedding light on some of the factors that go into avoiding “race talk.” The rhetoric around colorblindness loves to use words like “impolite” and “uncomfortable,” and you did great cutting through all that to drive home that it is really fear controlling the narrative.