Three Types of Racism

Research shows that throughout history, there has always been tension between various tribes and ethnic groups. Even in Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, identification of Jews as evil laid the foundation for modern-day racism. However, explicit racism as an ideological basis did not come to take shape until the development of the West (Fredrickson

2015). Since then, people of color have had to deal with systemic forms of explicit racism like slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, police brutality and mass incarceration. In the present day, explicit forms of racism can also be expressed through racial slurs (Chew 2010) and even symbols like the swastika sign or the hangman’s noose (Leach and Aten 2010), which I discuss later. Participants in my study report experiencing three types of racism: explicit racism,

microaggressions and internalized racism. I explore the first two types of racism in the rest of this chapter and the third type of racism in the subsequent chapter. While there may be

differences in the types of racism various blacks experience, there was little variance in the fact that participants across class, region and gender identities reported all three forms.

4.2.1 Explicit Racism

For many black people, racism is something that they experience and recognize, even at a young age. Giselle grew up in a very poor family in north Florida. After going to college, she graduated and now works as a nurse in metro Atlanta. When asked about her early racial memories, she states:

So, me and my family were getting ready to move into this apartment and the guy had given us the key and everything and my mom speaks very well over the phone, so I’m assuming he thought she was a white woman. So, we go look at the place, and it was a white man. And he saw that we were black. And he took the keys back and said, “no its not available” and basically, we were almost about to be homeless because this man basically reneged on a place just because he thought that we were a certain color.

Massey and Denton (1993) write in American Apartheid that this level of overt racism by realtors has had negative effects on the residential patterns of blacks. The gatekeepers between black homebuyers and white neighborhoods often refuse to show available spaces to black interests to ensure that certain neighborhoods remain all/or majority white. This level of residential racism keeps many blacks from integrating white neighborhoods and gaining access to the types of homes and land that will help their house appreciate and ultimately become the

foundation for generational wealth. Unfortunately, the experience that Giselle had is not uncommon. Often, realtors and landlords will refuse to offer housing to blacks, which can lead to concentrated poverty, middle-class blacks being resegregated into poor/working class areas of town, regentrification and in Giselle’s case actual or near homelessness.

Lenny is a 53-year-old male who grew up as what he described “middle-class poor” in Florida. He lived in a single-parent household, but because he resided in a two-bedroom apartment with his mother and sister, his friends considered him rich. After meeting his husband, he moved to various cities before eventually settling in Atlanta. Lenny is a stay-at- home dad and takes care of his and his husband’s two sons. He claims to live a middle-class lifestyle largely because of his husband’s income. When asked about early racial memories, Lenny recalls one of the more horrendous racist stories I heard in all of my interviews.

I remember this distinctively cause it still bothers me today. I remember I had to walk through a predominately white neighborhood. And they would, grown white people, would sick their dogs on us and tell us to get out of their neighborhoods….I was taught as a kid by white people to hate white people…. [later he stated] To me it was on a whole nother level cause if you’re sicking big vicious dogs on kids and saying get out of my neighborhood nigger, then that’s some crazy thing for a kid to experience.

Racist anti-black experiences are not isolated events that are easy to get over. Many of these encounters linger in the minds of victims for years to come and have long lasting effects on their racial outlook.

Jermaine was one of the few participants from Atlanta that mentioned having experienced racial mistreatment while living in Atlanta. However, his first contact with explicit racism did not occur while in Georgia or even in the South. Instead, his first dealing with racism came about when he visited Canada. Jermaine recalls the following account:

Between visiting New York as a sophomore in school, we had magnet programs in high schools in Atlanta and each high school had a focus for college prep kids. My school was finance, so we actually went to Wall Street on a trip and we got to go to Canada across

the border and we experienced some weird things there which was eye opening….People actually moved across the street when we were walking. It kind of came to a head in the store. We almost fought actually the store clerk of this souvenir shop who was cheaper than everyone else around him. So we flocked to this guy [who] refused to take our money from our hands and he would point to the counter and say put the money

down….This was in Canada. But the white or Canadian patrons, he exchanged money with them. It had to be cause we were black, I mean what else is there? Cause we’re American? That don’t make any sense.

The South has historically been the space where America has searched for its identity, largely because of its relationship with racial conflict. Racial drama is carried out in the South and racial meaning is born threr (Hale 1998). Because of these elements, some may argue that the most racist accounts would take place in the South. However, my data shows that some of the more explicit racist interactions occurred with participants who lived up North and the Midwest area. Ressy is a bi-racial middle-class black woman, who grew up in New York and Boston, but spent most of her childhood in Orlando. Although she spent most of her thirty-six years on this earth in the South, she recalls the first time she heard the N-word was when she was in New York:

I don’t really remember a lot about New York. I do remember that that was the first time I ever heard the N word, and it was directed at me. The first and maybe only time. Yeah, that was in New York. I remember I was in the after-school program, and yeah, this girl said that.

Christina also recalled explicitly racist accounts in places outside of the South:

Growing up in [city in Wisconsin], we were the only black family in the neighborhood. I got called nigger more times growing up by white girls in the neighborhood who would be my friend half the time, and then the other time would pick up sticks or push me down…. [later she states] The only fight I got in, I was in 7th _{grade, 8}th _{grade, and I was}

getting off the bus. “Bye, Jimmy”. “Bye, guys”. And Missy said, “bye, nigger”. I whipped Missy’s ass. I beat Missy’s ass, I beat Missy’s ass and got suspended from school for the next three days. Daddy said, “why would you fight”? I said, “she called me a nigger”. He said, “and you chose to act like one”… I fucked Missy up, right?”

Christina, a 49-year-old woman, recalls when a girl blatantly called her a nigger. After

defending herself from such an encounter, her dad punished her. However, her dad appeared to have not addressed the racism initiated by Missy, but the response from the victim.

Recalling early memories of explicit racism was not easy. However, many participants when asked how they cope with racism, responded with some form of “I don’t know”. This response puzzled me because for racism to play such a huge role in the lives of all black people, very few participants had formal organized ways of dealing with it. Responses varied from walking away, suffering in silence, or physical altercations. In other situations, people filed formal complaints, but many times the perpetrator did not receive a punishment. Some participants laughed at these memories, while others cried. The laughter may be a coping mechanism as many participants appeared to be confused about why people could treat others in such an awful way for no reason. Respondents laughed because of how ignorant some whites and white society looked when they perpetuated these racist behaviors. Other coping

mechanisms resulted in tears as many of these racist interactions ruined people’s lives, quality of life or could have resulted in the loss of their own life. While black people appeared to use a myriad of ways to cope with racism, very few could describe formal ways on how they address racist interactions when they become a reality or handle it after the encounter is complete. I argue for further research on the way black people, not only cope with racism, but prepare for it prior to the encounter. Racism in the United States is as old as the Constitution itself; therefore, it is not new to the black experience. Scholarship should speak to how black people stay ahead of the racist encounters, and if they don’t, some of the best ways to help blacks prepare for racism and cope with it in a consistent and effective manner.

4.2.2 Microagressions

Explicit racism is hard to deal with and even harder to get over, however, there are other kinds of racism that may not seem as bad, but can be just as hurtful and have long-lasting effects. Chew (2010) explicates this idea stating, “Racism is not always explicit; it can be subtle implicit or inferred” (p. 201). Implicit forms of racism can sometimes be more difficult to observe in a direct form (Chew 2010). Although explicit racism is a common experience among black people across classes (Feagin 1991, Feagin and Sikes 1994), one of the worst kinds of racism is what we typically refer to as microaggressions. Research defines these microagressions as the “brief everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to people of color because they belong to a racial minority group (Sue, Bucceri, Lin Nadal and Torrino 2007)”. Many times, whites carry out microaggressive acts towards blacks in an automatic or unconscious manner (Davis 1989). Pierce, in Psychiatric Problems of Black Minorities, argues that these microagressions by whites stem from their presumed superiority attitude (Davis 1989:515). These interactions force black men and women into a state of double consciousness, having to constantly think about where they are going, what they look like and how society perceives them when interacting with non- blacks.

Della deals with these microaggressions and subtle acts of racism because she often interacts with affluent whites. Because she is black, people often question her place in these circles, and she finds herself having to prove or defend why she deserves to be in the presence of white people. This feeling of constantly having to deal with microagressions and/or prove one’s worth can drain the energy and enthusiasm of minorities (Crawford-Garrett, Sanchez and Tyson 2017):

I would say when you do move around in white affluent circles you kinda have to prove yourself initially, like that first meeting. You have to show you’re educated or a certain SES and then it’s like okay we can talk to you. Cause one thing about Atlanta is that it’s so highly segregated.

These kinds of interactions are demeaning to black people and is a constant reminder that the dominant society does not value or want them. Having to defend their place is a subtle way of telling them that they have no place in prominent white spaces, unless a white person validates them or they have reached a standard acceptable by white people.

Rea experiences these same microaggressions when she enters high-class white spaces: I feel like there are places where people don’t think you belong, and it could be a section of town, a store, or an organization where people felt like why are you here? Atlanta is a place where so much can be hidden. Like they don’t wanna say it blatant, but they wanna know who you are. Kinda like, I went to a forty under forty event and this particular one did include some black people, but mostly white. And people were looking like, “So what do you do”? Which is code for “Why are you here”? They don’t talk to other people the same way, like “Hey I’m Joe, how are you”? But to me it’s like, “Hi, so you are…”? So, I’ve experienced that.

Like Della, at times, Rea wears her success and class on her sleeve to show whites why she deserves to be in certain spaces. However, white people never question white males regardless of class, education level, or occupation. In fact, people expect them to inhabit affluent spaces. If you are black in a white space, then that means you must be extraordinary, know someone or be special to sit among affluent white people.

The effects of microagressions can be devastating. According to Solorzano et al (2000) victims can suffer from self-doubt, frustration and isolation. D.W. Sue (2003) argues that this form of racism can be more problematic and damaging than explicit racist acts (p.48). However, many blacks deal with and tolerate these implicit styles of racism to maintain a certain class status and help their families achieve economic mobility. Terra, a working-class woman, says this about her dad:

Hearing my dad talk at the dinner table. He was in corporate America. And so I knew because he was black and the way he carried himself that he made certain sacrifices at work. Of course, certain things happened to him at work.

She knew that her father carried a lot of burdens and never really talked about them. He endured these burdens so that his daughter could have the opportunity to attend Spelman College and live the middle-class lifestyle that she would experience later in life.

4.2.2.1 Racism in the Workplace

People can carry out racist behaviors in various social settings, my research has shown that large numbers of racist interactions (both explicit racism and microaggressions) occur in the workplace. With residential segregation, educational segregation and blacks typically attending black religious institutions or being around people in their own race, the only time many blacks interact with whites for an extended period is on the job site. It is in these spaces that blacks and other minorities come in contact with racist behavior (Cose 1993; Higgenbotham and Weber 1997). Feagin and Sikes (1996) find that in middle-class workspaces, blacks experience discrimination, pay inequity and other forms of mistreatment. Harvey (2007) finds that black men experience gendered racism in the workplace and often felt ostracized from social groups, silenced and perceived as threatening. In my study, I also noticed how blacks experience racism from white clients or patients. Carver, a physical therapist from Tennessee, recalls the following story:

Now when I’m in a white environment, I’m always very conscious about myself being an African man. Being bald tall and standing out. And when I worked at [a hospital], I had white patients usually older, and their caregivers would see me and make comments like “make sure you take care of my mom or grandmother”. And in my mind, I’m like what does that really mean? Do you see me as someone that wouldn’t take care of her? I’m a physical therapist. I guess I’m a big guy. I’m bald. I don’t have gold teeth. I’m not any of the other stuff, but they would make comments like that, so it always made me think, what does that really mean? Why would I not take care of her? That’s my job. So those microaggressions, I see.

Although Carver is a physical therapist, white patients still feel they have to remind him to do his job. However, if he were a white doctor, many patients would feel comfortable knowing that the white doctor was already competent enough to do his/her job and would not feel the need to remind him of that. Carver mentions twice that he is a big black guy. He knows that he stands out, and society perceives black men who are large in stature as threatening. Harvey finds this in her research. Black men who are large in stature and in the presence of whites may have to appear extra nice, docile, and weak to protect whites from the fear they have about big black men. Black men do this to prove to whites that they are not out to hurt them. These kinds of racist microaggressions in the workplace make it difficult for black people when they are on their job. They are either devalued, disregarded, or must prove to people that they are in a position of authority and are trustworthy. Alma is a nurse from Mississippi and she also experienced racism from whites in a similar form:

As a nurse I’ve gone into my patients’ room as an RN and the CNA would be under me and I’ve gone into the room of a white patient and tell them who I am and say I’m Alicia, I’m your nurse today. (patient says) “Well, will you get my nurse”. (Alicia replies) “Well I am your nurse today”. (patient says) Oh you’re my nurse? And its happened quite a lot and I find myself explaining who I am. And even though I’ve given you your medicine, I come in and you still want me to send the nurse in. Or we’ve had a white nurse assistant and they want me to send her in to give the medicine and do all these other things. Nope that would be me. So sometimes I think there’s an assumption that we’re