It Doesn’t Matter if I Think Black Lives Matter

March for Racial Justice, Washington, D.C — September 30, 2017 (Photo by Philip N. Cohen from photo essay, “It’s Better to be Angry Together”)

“Read up about Black history.” “Educate yourself about racism and its impact.” “Engage more with Black literature and media.” “Support Black-owned businesses.” All of these have been suggested as ways of being effective allies to Black people, and as ways of becoming more aware of the experiences of Black people in America. Each of these actions may be said to help people develop a genuine sense of empathy towards the Black experience. And hopefully too the motivation to further engage in action that combats the systems which perpetuate racist values and policies.

And so I read a book by James Baldwin. I read an article by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I watched a documentary about Malcolm X, and interviews of Patrisse Cullors, Cornel West, Larry Elder, and Candace Owens. And I am actively looking for Black owned businesses in my neighborhood to buy my daily needs from. And every time I engage in any of these actions, I imagine a Black person giving me a pat on the back or a fist bump. I imagine them turning to their other Black friends and telling them, “This dude is a great ally. He gets us. Look at how conscious he is of his impact as a non-Black person. Unlike the other fake allies who don’t put in the work to educate and change themselves.”

In those moments, it seemed like I was more focused on my rating or ranking as a Black ally than on genuinely understanding the experiences of the Black Americans I was engaging with. As long as I am checking things off the “Black Ally Starter Pack,” very few people can really tell whether I’m racist or not. It’s not too tough to sound anti-racist. There’s a vocabulary that has evolved over the years to become a staple aspect of the language we use on social media or within discussions and conversations of a socio-political nature. From the language a person uses, we tend to determine whether they align with our worldview or not. And so if I hear someone use phrases such as “systemic racism is a public health crisis,” or “mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow,” or “I am an intersectional feminist,” then I tend to assume that this individual is a social liberal at least, and more specifically has a leftist worldview. And usually, those of us on the left tend not to associate a consciously racist attitude with someone who is left-leaning. Unconscious racism is a different matter altogether, however. Many of us who are left-leaning will recognize that racism can be as implicit as it can be explicit, and that each of us carries within us a generational conditioning towards certain racist attitudes- a conditioning which may show up not only through what we say and what we do, but also through what we don’t say and what we don’t do.

All of the above are however only words. And that’s precisely why I can write this article in a manner which makes use of all the language and terminology that one might associate with the worldview of a liberal, Black ally. Similarly if I choose, I can also write an article which makes use of language and themes that are used by someone who might lean more towards social conservatism. “Black on Black crime,” “the collapse of the Black family,” “self-reliance and personal responsibility” — the usual. And so, even though the citizens of America are technically speaking the same language of English, this shared language doesn’t necessarily imply shared meanings. Different words, different ideas, and different phrases are more or less meaningful to each citizen depending on the full and unique context of their life. I call this context the culture bubble. The culture bubble essentially represents the worldviews, ideas, and environment which an individual engages with through the course of their life- and I believe this bubble is held in place by language.

Inevitably for all of us, our culture bubbles are quite limited. We usually interact with the same groups of people and the same kinds of voices who express ideas and have realities which we are predisposed to engage with. Consequently, we become more familiar with certain types of ideas, certain meanings, and certain ways of viewing our social issues depending on how the people around us exist and communicate. Now, if we lived in small, relatively independent communities, this wouldn’t be a problem. And human beings have for the most part of our existence lived in small communities. What this implies is that smaller the community, greater is the likelihood of the members speaking the same language, and greater is the likelihood of them having shared meanings. Consequently, they are more likely to have the same beliefs, values, and worldviews. And considering that they continue to live within the same community through their lives, they are exposed to a similar range of events and experiences, which reinforce the perspectives they grew up with. I’m not saying that the members are necessarily always in agreement about their worldviews. However, since they are operating within a small culture bubble, even the most extreme experiences wouldn’t be drastically different from the norm. But what happens when communities begin to intermingle on a more frequent basis? What happens when different cultures that have had different languages of communication begin to live among each other?

There might arise the need for a shared language so that these larger communities can engage in discourse about establishing norms and structures which reflect their heterogeneous nature. But as it has been in America, and in almost every other society, there is rarely an equitable establishment of norms and structures. Consequently, the language of one group takes precedence over the language of the other group. And so when one of the languages is effectively erased from usage or relegated to the fringes, the shared language eventually becomes the language of the financial or racial/ethnic majority. But say that through a forced or collaborative process, a somewhat shared language is “developed”; how then do these different cultures establish shared meanings?

Meaning is highly specific to cultures and communities, and is formed over centuries of conditioning and exposure. Let’s take for example the word, “racism.” For someone who has been socialized in the United States, the word “racism” may conjure up a plethora of associations unique to them, based on their racial background, geographical environment, and years of conditioning and exposure to certain experiences, contexts, people, literature, and media. The meaning of the word, “racism,” for someone who has grown up in the States is very much rooted in the history and culture of this nation, and is almost synonymous with the historical experience of Black slavery. This is also why the word “racism” may bring up different associations for someone in Germany who might associate “racism” more vividly with the atrocities of the Third Reich against Jewish people. And for someone like me who grew up in post-colonial India, the word “racism” may not evoke as visceral a response as “colorism” or “casteism.”

So when I view present-day America in all its heterogeneity, I recognize first that this heterogeneity has only become apparent over the last two centuries or so. And while English may have inadvertently become the shared language of this nation, I don’t know if this shared language has given the vastly different groups in this country shared meanings in the issues that matter most to them. For a certain elderly, affluent White male, the statement “America is the land of the free” may hold the meaning of being true to their lived experience. But this statement may not have the same meaning of “trueness” for a Black individual or POC who has personally witnessed or experienced the consequences of racially motivated police brutality. Without making any sort of judgement on the White male’s political stance or values, what is still evident is the tremendous gap in how the same language has very different meanings for two separate individuals. Essentially, these two individuals are not in touch with the experiences that comprise each other’s culture bubbles.

And this is the issue that each of us is coming up against in some way or the other today. Since our communities have grown larger, and the experiences of our community members have become more varied, it becomes even more necessary for us to step out of our culture bubbles if we are to recognize the experiences that are excluded from our awareness. The ideal way to do this would be to personally reach out and communicate with those individuals and groups whose culture bubbles we are less likely to acknowledge in the course of our daily lives. This is how we might bring nuance to our awareness. This is how we might begin to understand the different meanings that are held by the individuals who exist (or don’t exist) around us. Each new individual whom we interact with from these alternate culture bubbles paints a part of the whole canvas; a part which we could have no way of knowing or caring about unless we reach beyond ourselves. And this process requires a tremendous amount of time and effort. It requires interacting not just with individuals who we naturally feel inclined to support, but also those individuals who we are more likely to avoid or overlook. For people who work in helping professions or in socio-political activism, this form of outreach may be more within the scope of their daily routines. However, what about those people who don’t work these professions, or for whom the prospect of social outreach is daunting or not viable for other reasons? How might they become more aware? How might they participate? How might they contribute?

With those questions, I return to the answers which some of us on the left have provided to them- read up, educate yourself, post and share resources via social media, have difficult conversations. What is common to each of these acts however, is that they can occur purely in the realm of thought and speech, while completely bypassing the feelings that are felt when people express these thoughts and speech. Our thoughts are a mental representation of our ideas, beliefs, morality, and attitudes, either in the form of words or images. Our feelings are the visceral response we experience within us towards our thoughts, and they may or may not be aligned with what we are thinking. For instance, I may voice my thought that I support defunding the police. However, while voicing this thought, I may be feeling a combination of confusion, anger, helplessness, or indifference. These feelings may indicate that I do not actually consider defunding the police to be a good idea, or that I am experiencing social pressure to support defunding the police, or that I simply do not care one way or the other whether the police is defunded or not. This poses a question which I believe comes up when verbal or written language becomes our primary mode of communicating socio-political views and ideas. I may not think “racist” thoughts. I may not make “racist remarks.” But do I feel “racist” feelings?

And what does it mean to feel or not feel racist feelings? The way I see it, there is no such feeling as a racist feeling. It’s not like racist individuals have special racist feelings which non-racist people don’t have. But this is what happens when we use thought and language to categorize what racism is and what it isn’t. Based on the culture bubbles within which we live, each of us has a mental representation of what a racist thought is, what racist speech is, and what racist action is. But because many of our culture bubbles don’t consciously interact, different individuals and different groups have varying mental representations of what racism means to them. Consequently, many of our discussions about racism devolve into unproductive conflicts of meanings. For one individual, “racism” might be associated only with explicitly offensive language, or acts of physical discrimination and violence against Black people and POC. For another individual, “racism” may comprise a wider range of speech and actions which include more implicit or subtle acts such as micro-aggressions. If these two individuals aren’t even operating on the same meaning of “racism,” then what is the standard through which we categorize them as racist or not racist?

Fortunately, in the realm of feelings, our attempts to categorize racist and non-racist feelings will be futile. As I said, there is no such thing as a racist feeling. But there is hatred, there is pride, there is anger, there is fear, there is greed, there is disgust. These are feelings which are present within every single one of us to some degree. And when these feelings have taken hold of certain individuals and groups, and overwhelmed any attempt to regulate them, acts of marginalization, discrimination, and violence have occurred. These same feelings which have motivated the horrific acts of racial violence in America, have motivated the holocaust in Germany, mass killings under the Stalin regime, and the genocide in Rwanda. The feelings which motivate racist speech and acts are no different from the feelings which motivate misogynistic speech and sexual assault, and neither are they different from the feelings which motivate homophobia, transphobia, or caste-based discrimination.

Simply a thought cannot motivate action. Consider how many times you have “thought” about going to the gym. Simply speech cannot motivate action. Consider how many times you have “seized the day” after hearing a TED talk about seizing the day. It is the emotion associated with the thought or speech that motivates action. We thus seem to be diverting our attention from the feelings that motivate racism, and finding comfort in hiding behind thoughts and speech that can be safely categorized as racist or not racist. Depending on the culture bubble we live within, we either want to be seen as “not racist” or “anti-racist.” And we consciously use certain types of language and terminology, and think certain thoughts, in order to assure ourselves of our political stance. But in a way, this disconnects us from how we are feeling about the situations we find ourselves in.

I feel as though an example might be called for here. A few days ago, I was helping my friend move apartments. Towards the end of the process, I was feeling exhausted, and my motor skills were definitely not at peak functioning. I was by myself in the elevator, going down from the 22nd floor to the basement to grab the last of my friend’s stuff. The elevator stopped on the 20th floor, and a middle-aged Black woman walked in. In a matter-of-fact tone, she asked me if I could press the button for the 16th floor. I immediately felt annoyed. I thought to myself “Come on, that’s just four floors down, just take the stairs. I just want to be done with moving this stuff and you’re delaying me.” But I immediately started hovering my hand over the large columns of buttons, looking for the 16th floor, and unable to locate it.

“Sixteen! Sixteen!” the woman said, suddenly, in a significantly louder tone that conveyed annoyance and exasperation. I immediately felt taken aback and hurt, and almost instantaneously, my feeling of hurt morphed into a feeling of anger. And a thought simultaneously flashed in my mind, “Man, why doesn’t she fucking press the button if she’s in such a hurry! Why the hell are Black women always so aggressive!” And almost as if to neutralize and do away with this thought, another thought came in saying, “Hey stop! That’s a racist, dangerous stereotype, which you know is not true! Maybe this woman is just having a rough day, and you happened to catch her at a bad moment. Or maybe she is an abrasive person, but that doesn’t generalize abrasiveness to all Black women.” Poof! The bad, racist thought was gone, and I had redeemed myself with a more empathetic and accurate thought. My anger started to dissipate, I quickly moved my hand to locate the button, and pressed it. I spent seven more seconds in the elevator with the woman, feeling stupid and annoyed and angry. She then got off at the 16th floor without a word, and my thoughts slowly went back to being about moving my friend’s stuff.

Now, since I was able to replace my “racist” thought with a “non-racist” thought, I didn’t really pay much attention to what had transpired within me in those moments. I didn’t pay attention to the very real feeling of anger that I felt towards the woman, specifically in regards to her Black-ness. And it is important for me to recognize that feeling of anger, because as long as that anger comes up in response to Blackness, I know that I’m not free from whatever prejudices I have continued to hold against Black people — either consciously or unconsciously. Thoughts can always be neutralized by other thoughts. But feelings, if strong enough, can’t be neutralized. They will be expressed in some form or the other. I may not consciously express feelings of disgust or superiority towards a Black co-worker, but those feelings can always be expressed implicitly, sometimes unconsciously. For instance, I might break their favourite coffee mug “by accident,” or I may choose not to hold the elevator door open for them. But I may choose to ignore my feelings because consciously, I want to believe that my colleague’s Blackness has no effect upon how I relate to them. I then go home, and put up a few posts on social media about defunding the police and holding Breonna Taylor’s murderers accountable. I thus effectively distance myself further from my feelings of superiority or anger towards my colleague, and consequently reassure myself of my Black allyship.

Look, I’m not at all implying that there isn’t value to reading books by Black authors, or listening to interviews of Black scholars, activists, and commentators, or expressing support and action over social media. All of these are extremely important to increasing our awareness of the lived experiences of Black people. The knowledge we gain is extremely important in bringing a concreteness to our often abstract sense of empathy. And thought and speech are the single most important means through which we communicate our allyship, and engage in action. But no amount of awareness will equip us with the subjective feeling or experience of being Black. No amount of knowledge can produce empathy and compassion if the source of our empathy and compassion itself is blocked. No amount of rigorous posting and sharing of resources can shield us from feeling the negative feelings we feel towards Black people.

As an Indian man, it doesn’t matter to me if you’ve traveled to India, if you love Indian food, or if you watch Bollywood movies. I don’t care how much you know about my culture, how many Indian friends you have, or how many books you’ve read by Indian authors. Because if I do not feel like I’m being respected by you, and if I feel like you’re not accepting me as a human being simply because of my racial identity, then none of the above matters, right?

If I’m not able to experience feelings of safety, security, and trust in my interactions with you, then it means that your knowledge of my culture is divorced from the feelings you feel towards me. And how would I sense how you feel towards me? The look in your eyes, the tone of your voice, the expressions on your face, the gestures of your body. We think that our words inspire trust. But they don’t. It’s all the non-verbals surrounding those words which inspire trust.

I can only imagine that this is how a lot of Black people might feel. Skepticism towards our sweet words, and suspicion of our attempts to help. Because if I read a book today, but don’t actually value the lives of the Black people I am in contact with, my knowledge is hollow. It means nothing, because it helped nothing. The goal of our allyship should not be to receive applause from Black people. The expected result of our learning should not be a certificate of excellence in the subject of anti-racism. “Anti-racism” is not a subject to gain expertise in. It is only a word, the definition of which is again a gross simplification of the feelings which we need to cultivate within us. Because in the same way that the feelings which motivate racism or sexism are one and the same, the feelings which motivate anti-racism or anti-sexism are also the same. The feeling of compassion, the feeling of empathy, the feeling of healthy anger towards injustice and unfairness, the feeling of determination towards upholding the humanity of those who continually experience dehumanization. I can’t provide proof of these feelings to my followers on social media or to the Black people I interact with. These feelings will manifest as action if they are present. They won’t manifest as action if they are not present. We would do well to keep in mind that performance is not action. Performing Black allyship will be sniffed out sooner or later, and I don’t imagine that it could truly effect change in the long term.

In a long overdue conclusion, I believe that our priority during this time may be to focus less on the thoughts we express, and more on the feelings we are experiencing. The feelings which I experienced in that elevator are much more real than the carefully selected thoughts which I have expressed in this article. It is my feelings which will guide me in my understanding of the ways in which I perceive and impact the Black folk around me. It is my feelings which shall serve as an indicator of whether Black lives matter to me or not.

So really, it does not matter if we THINK that Black Lives Matter. Do we FEEL that Black Lives Matter?