The Conversation We're Not Having

Speaking from the heart about institutional power, systemic racism, privilege and injustice has never been easy—but two professors in the School of Social Work are comfortable with getting uncomfortable

Feature article from "The Day After Tomorrow" series in the Spring 2021 issue of Sacred Heart University Magazine

By Crystal Hayes, MSW, and Jill Manit, Ph.D., MSW

As we write this, the world is in the throes of a global pandemic and, sadly, our nation has not been spared. An enemy, a contagion, invisible to the naked eye, has already claimed far too many lives and quashed far too many dreams. It has in some way touched every community, though it has certainly not touched every community equally. Some feel the lingering effects of the disease daily, while others have seen their communities decimated. Ironically, the greatest danger is with those who experience no symptoms, feel no ramifications at all and so cling to the pretense of a status quo—all the while acting as silent vectors allowing contagion to spread unchecked. Differing cultures and governments have attempted to address the problem differently. Some attempt to impose change from the top down, legislatively. Others have called for change from the ground up, demanding action where they’ve seen none. And still others have chosen to do nothing at all, either on the grounds that the disease is exaggerated or perhaps not even real.

But the truth is, it is real. And there is no one and nowhere that has not been affected by it, even if you personally appear to be symptom free.

We are speaking, of course, of racism.

This is going to be a difficult conversation. And that’s a good thing. It’s supposed to be. It needs to be.

We believe you are up to the task.

You can know that racism is wrong and still be racist.

One challenge facing us here, in a magazine article, is the constraint of space and time. In our work in the classroom, in the field as social workers, in our lived experiences, these conversations have the benefit of time, of nuance and even of nonverbal communication—you can see a person flinch when they hear something that sits uncomfortably with them. None of that exists in a magazine article. Here, short of time, we need to get to the point. Here, absent of nuance, we have to hope you will join us.

To do that, let us begin on common ground.

Let us agree that racism, by its very definition, is on every level—morally, socially, ethically, legally, spiritually—reprehensible. We trust that all who are reading this are at the very least agreed on this point.

Second, given this agreement, surely it follows that the dignity and worth of every human being demand that we live in an antiracist society.

However, we must recognize that knowing racism is wrong is not the same as being antiracist. The latter requires action; the former is passive—and to be passive in the face of injustice is to tacitly allow it.

Therefore, like Ibram X. Kendi, historian, author and antiracism activist, we don’t believe there is such a thing as a “nonracist” person. A person is either racist or antiracist, and it’s one’s actions—or lack thereof—that determine into which category one fits.

Are you a racist or are you an antiracist? What do your actions say?

Is this getting uncomfortable yet?

We know that inaction in the face of injustice is itself a form of injustice, but as a society, we avoid saying so in direct relation to racism. Instead, we ask the old, distant, passively enabling question of what should be done about racism. That must stop. We must face the real, immediate and actively engaging question of what am I doing about racism. Because when we do, there is nowhere to hide.

If that feels a little uncomfortable, that’s a good thing. Because it forces a next question: Why? Why does that question feel uncomfortable? Do those freshly considered definitions force you to admit something you’d rather not? Do you feel compelled to reassure us—or yourself—of how nice you are or of how you were raised to treat everyone equally? It would be understandable, but please don’t. Instead, be willing to remain uncomfortable just a little bit longer. Because (trust us on this) there is no greater threat to justice than comfort.

Consider, for example, your reaction to protest. One primary aim of protest is to make those in comfortable institutional power uncomfortable. That you don’t like protest is a sign, both that it is working and that you are the intended audience. What comes next, however, the way in which you comfort yourself, is what is most telling. Do you blame the protester for how they are protesting (rioting, marching, silently kneeling), making your discomfort about their choices, or do you ask why they are protesting—a more uncomfortable, open-ended question that has the potential to lead in some way back to you?

These questions are difficult in the best of times. Even when people want to talk about racism, our own defenses and our sense of dependence on the system that takes care of us—in short, our internalized racism—can easily derail the conversation. Add in a global health crisis and political unrest, and you have people who are just too tired to take it on.

But what is the alternative? Tacit complicity in a system quantifiably unjust seems a lot to ask, too. Both are (or should be) uncomfortable. One has a clear moral imperative.

In a democracy, policy is a product of the culture, not the other way around.

It’s important to recognize that racism is not just about overt acts of harm or systemic injustice. In recent years, there has been growing attention to the terms “microaggression” and “implicit bias.” These terms fail to fully articulate the damage caused by the acts they represent, which are as egregious as overt acts of harm. Kendi rebukes the use of “micro” in describing racism, noting instead that such behaviors (present in the workplace, in classrooms and in relationships) contribute to a “persistent daily low hum of racist abuse.” ¹

Put another way, they are the tiny threads that together form the fabric of systemic oppression. For the oppressor, they are simply “the way things are”—to challenge them is to challenge the very foundation of order. Thus shaken, white privilege resorts to white fragility, “a form of bullying,” as Robin DiAngelo, a facilitator in the areas of critical discourse analysis and whiteness studies, notes: “I am going to make it so miserable for you to confront me—no matter how diplomatically you try to do so—that you will simply back off, give up and never raise the issue again.” ²

It becomes a discomfort race, wearing down opposition to the point of systemic silence. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in education. As bell hooks, American author, professor, feminist and social activist, observes, “The unwillingness to approach teaching from a standpoint that includes awareness of race, sex and class is often rooted in the fear that classrooms will be uncontrollable, that emotions and passions will not be contained.” ³ In other words, that learning about the world in which we actually live might be uncomfortable.

The result is a student body—and subsequently a population—utterly unable to discuss or even recognize systemic racism and inequality, let alone confront them.

We need to examine the meaning of dignity and worth.

We teach an antiracism course in the School of Social Work. In it, we constantly find ourselves balancing feelings of defensiveness amongst white students while validating the experiences of Black, Indigenous and other students of color. It’s challenging and uncomfortable. It’s also transformational.

At the end of the day, our work is about respecting the dignity and worth of every human being. It is about creating a just society in which Black, Indigenous and other people of color are as free in deed as they are in word and where all people experience equity of opportunity. It is about illuminating the way whiteness—an ideology born solely to protect the reprehensible notion of racial hierarchy—has been weaponized throughout history, not only against people of color but against any and every “other” of choice.

Most importantly it’s about action—and admitting that inaction is an active choice. It’s about recognizing that injustice, like all disease, thrives most in denial, complacency and deflection.

And racism is a pandemic.

Crystal M. Hayes is a prison doula with more than 12 years’ teaching experience in human rights, policy and social justice. Jill Manit currently serves as the director of the MSW program in the School of Social Work.

1 Kendi, I.X. (2019). How to be an antiracist. One World.
2 DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism. Beacon Press.
3 Hooks, b. (1994, reprint 2020). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.