I’ve found myself feeling disturbed over the past week watching the outpouring of outrage about the thousands of immigrant children being separated from their parents at the border from Mexico to the US.
And it’s not because the practice isn’t heartbreakingly painful and against all of the values I hold dear and want my country to stand for.
It is because I feel a deep sadness and growing anger that I don’t see white people expressing this level of intense emotion, passion and energy about the daily violent acts of racism and injustices within the borders of our country, right here in the cities and neighborhoods we live in. I am sad and angry that we aren’t doing better as white people.
Why aren’t we this outraged at the daily acts of racism right in our cities? Why do we go silent? Why no outpouring of emotion, pain, publicity, organizing and fundraising at yet another unarmed Black teenager shot by the police in the back? Where is our empathy in these moments? What happens within us white folks that makes it more comfortable, more likely for us to pour resources into helping the immigrant families at the border than into helping our own Black neighbors who suffer daily?
It took me a long, long, long time to see how much energy I devoted to denying my own racism along with the very reality of Black folks’ experiences of racism and racist attitudes, and I think that other white folks may also make this move towards denial almost automatically when Black folks try to share with us their experiences of racism, bigotry and prejudice.
At the times when they most need us to listen to and validate their experiences, we withdraw in some way: we minimize, justify, rationalize, ignore, doubt, feel guilty, get defensive, express our discomfort with body language and shut down inwardly. In all these ways, we white people communicate that we don’t really want to take in the experiences of Black folks because we don’t want to be that uncomfortable.
So, what does all this have to do with our outpouring of rage and pain at the way children are being treated at the border of Mexico?
I believe this is an easy place to focus our hearts and our empathy because we don’t have to look at ourselves too closely. We can more easily place the blame outside of ourselves. With immigrant children, we have full access to all of our empathy and humanity and sense of personal agency because we are not paralyzed by our guilt, shame and complicity. At least, not like we are with racism in the U.S., which has tragically left a 500-year old scar in our psyches; the effects of which make us question the very reality of our Black friends’ experiences. What I mean to say is that we don’t protest in the same way against Black folks’ suffering or for Black folks’ liberation because, where Black folks are concerned, we are divided from the very best aspects of ourselves–we are not whole; we do not have access to all of our human-ness. This is how we white people are affected by institutionalized racism. It robs us also (not only Black folks) of our fullest potential and deepest humanity.
White people, we have been separating children of color from their parents since the slave era. Is it outrageous? Absolutely! But if our eyes and hearts are not open to the racism that Black folks experience daily, we will stop right there and we will continue to live in a state of constant outrage and shock.
Alternatively, if we really want to see change in our country, we can choose to go deeper and examine ourselves closely—What is the most productive thing for us to do with our denial, anger and fear?
Posting Trump scandals on social media, praying for his impeachment, feeding on outrage at the injustice du jour does nothing to transform the deep soul-sickness internally and externally. In fact, the negativity, blame and unconsciousness, lack of real self-examination and understanding about our personal and collective complicity in racism is precisely how we white people have created and continue to create and sustain the crisis we find ourselves in as a nation. Trump didn’t create this mess we are in. He is simply a mirror illuminating the long tradition that we have endorsed with our silence.
When I allow the Black experience to impact me–and I mean to penetrate way beneath the intellectual layers of denial and white/unearned privilege–when I really let myself believe what my Black wife, friends and relatives tell me of their experiences of racism and prejudice; when I acknowledge that I am racist too, then yes, I am also pained by the separation of families at the border, but no, I am not surprised. It is not new to me. That is because I have become conscious that institutional racism, violence and the disenfranchisement of Blacks have laid the very foundation for this country; that Black people carry the burden of our ignorance and complicity in this racist system; and that we white people will do almost anything to avoid taking responsibility.
In essence: Trump’s overtly racist behavior is really just the dark side of ourselves that we still do not want to see, but must examine thoroughly if we are to collectively heal from and transform this 500-year old pain. This is what I am learning as I watch this crisis unfold.
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Yael Bat-Shimon, LMHC is a Licensed Psychotherapist, Certified Imago therapist, writer and co-Founder, Imago Relationships Providence. If you are interested in joining the conversation about the psychological, spiritual and emotional impact of racism on white people in a safe and healing environment you can contact Yael at yael.bat-shimon@post.harvard.edu.
