Hate Crimes in Chattanooga

These are two very different statements:

"I am not a racist."

"I am an anti-racist."

 Many people think of racism solely in terms of the first statement. They reduce racism to individual attitudes, beliefs and actions. Many white liberals believe that they should be "color blind" and that "we are all just one race, the human race." 

The second statement is the one that is adopted by many radicals. It is a recognition that racism is more than mere bigotry and prejudice. It is a recognition of the history of racism and how it has fundamentally structured the world and created institutions and social relationships that perpetuate the domination of one group of people over another. To be an anti-racist is to recognize that racism is a historical reality that has fundamentally structured our present world. To be a white anti-racist is to recognize that while I may not personally hold bigoted or prejudiced views towards people of color, I still actively benefit from living in a racist society:

I have greater job and educational opportunities. 
I am more likely to have access to quality health care and nutritional food. 
I am more likely to be taken seriously, trusted and respected by others.
I am more likely to have my worth and value constantly confirmed by broader social narratives and images.

It is not enough to "not be racist". We must be "anti-racist". We must realize that the world is clearly structured to the benefit of certain groups of people (white folks, men, able bodied, straight people) over others. To promote mere "color blindness" is to completely obliterate this truth about how the world is structured in favor of a shallow reduction of racism to individual attitudes. White liberal "color blindness" also absolves us from taking personal responsibility for the social privileges that we have, regardless of our own individual attitudes.

We must take responsibility for these privileges and actively seek to dismantle them and build a new world based on shared values of equality. We must also accept the leadership of marginalized communities and actively listen to them because we value the insight they can provide us about how the world is structured to our privilege and their detriment.

To this end I would like to encourage folks to watch the following videos. This a local documentary entitled "Hate Crimes In Chattanooga" and was produced by Allison Rhodes. To understand how the world has come to be structured the way it is, we must look to history. If we are to understand the reality of white supremacy and how it has actively shaped our city, institutions, relationships and identities - and how it continues to do so today - then we must look to history.

Hate Crimes In Chattanooga Part One:
Part One features interviews with Chattanooga historian Raymond Evans and Chattanooga author and attorney Leroy Phillips

Hate Crimes in Chattanooga Part Two:
Part Two features interviews with Chattanooga author and attorney Leroy Phillips and former NAACP chairman James Mapp who led the desegregation lawsuit against Hamilton County schools. Also featured are Mr. Saul Hyman, Chief Skip Vaughn, Dr. Albert Cecil Rhodes, and Leonard Chill in interviews concerning the 1970 bombing of the Chattanooga synagogue Beth Sholom.

Hate Crimes In Chattanooga Part Three:
Part Three features interviews with Leonard Chill about surviving anti-Semitism, Chief Skip Vaughn discusses white supremacist murders, and Ms. Kathy Willis and Elizabeth Willis discuss current day struggles with racism in Chattanooga

Hate Crimes In Chattanooga Part Four:
Part Four features interviews with Part Four features interviews with Ms. Kathy Willis, Chief Skip Vaughn, and Chattanooga Historian Raymond Evans