When the Inner Racist Starts Talking

When I am alone, which I am right now, I spend time listening to the stream of chatter that is the inner, background soundtrack of my life. But I don't adhere to what it tells me, most of the time. That is because some of the self-talk can be dangerously knee-jerk and needs serious scrutiny and critical reflection.

Take the moment yesterday when I was at the Pine Hill gas station on the Ramah Navajo Reservation in northern New Mexico, where I was doing a dump run. I was pumping gas when the little voices started to tell me how disorganized and slow the Navajo Nation has been in responding to the COVID crisis. The voice, to be honest, was more about "those Navajos" than it was about the crisis. That little voice was part of me that I don't want others to see, the part that is unconsciously racist.

Researchers tell us that we humans have a tendency to group with "likes" and to make up degrading, stereotypical narratives about the "others." Articles like "Are We Born Racist?" by Susan Tufts Fiske have summarized research showing innate tendencies to group in "tribes." A complete review of that work is beyond the scope of this little ditty, but the point is that some people contend that we have racist tendencies that are neurologically hard-wired.

I believe that's what was happening as I pumped my gas.

Now, the important piece here is what we do with that tendency. I could launch off on a long story about how Navajos are managing or mismanaging the pandemic, or I could assess that little nugget of neurological chatter and dis-identify with it, standing back enough to ask, "Is that true?" and "Is that really what I think and want to base my actions on?" "Is that the story I want to feed and to share and augment with others into a social set of biases and behaviors?"

I decided not to feed the flames of fear, separation, difference, and unconscious bias and to make good on my debts to the Pine Hill store. 

So, I finished pumping my gas and went in to pay. (No automatic credit card readers in this part of the world.) There I saw markers on the floor for social distancing, a sign saying "no mask, no service," and a very friendly Navajo woman wearing a mask, behind a Plexiglas barrier, who politely accepted my payment. We made contact without making physical contact. Her eyes said "Hey, I see you. Crazy quarantine, huh?" I hope mine said the same.

I felt camaraderie and connection with this person who is very different from me, but still a beautiful, breathing, bright-eyed wonder of living organism. We are both dealing with crises over which we have little control, but that we can respond to with self-critical equanimity.

A psychological dynamic of racism, I believe,  is, in part, a hard-wired stimulus followed by automatic reaction, but can be revised and responded to by a pause in the automatic response that can lead to empathy, contact, evidence to the contrary, and critical self reflection.

If I watch what I think, and assess it for how it works to create the world I want to live in, I can discern between what is worth keeping and what is trash. I was there to dump my trash, an action somehow fitting for the inner work I was engaged with. It takes some attention to sort through the stream of chatter, but it's worth the effort.

That's my two cents for today.*

* I am very aware there is a bigger context here. We are living in a moment connected to a long history of social injustice, exploitation, abuse of power, and subjugation. As a white male, I have lived a life of privilege that cannot begin to comprehend the perspectives of Americans of color. Racism has also been designed into our social, political, historical, economic, and cultural institutions. Personal awareness by itself will not alter institutional racism. That said, what I am looking at here is this day-to-day, minute-by-minute neurological and psychological dynamic that can be sidetracked by self-awareness and intention. Change the self; change the society. Critical thinking followed by action, political or social or other, I believe, is the best way to redress racism and many other social ills. The personal can also be the basis for political action.