Unraveling Racism - How Real Conversation Creates Change

David Campt cried.

In the final moments of his all day White allies workshop at The Unity Center in San Diego, David’s throat caught. Unable to speak, he turned to look up at the slide on the screen – an old black and white image of James Reeb. It was all just too much – the grief, the loss, the hope, the courage, and the promise. Reeb was a White Unitarian minister so committed to the Civil Rights movement that he drove down to Selma, Alabama in 1965 to help register African Americans to vote. He was beaten to death by segregationists. White ally work is hard. Sometimes it’s very hard. But if Reverend Reeb can give his life, we can learn to navigate an awkward conversation.

As students of New Thought we are keenly aware that we do not see the world as it is, we see the world as we are, and that any real or meaningful spiritual transformation begins with a courageous act of introspection and house cleaning. Most of us have spent decades plumbing the depths of our own minds, rooting out error, and recalibrating the very mental processes by which we construct our realities. And yet the work is unfinished.

Focusing on the Racism Skeptic

There’s a shift happening in the American zeitgeist, and it has been a long time coming. Throughout our cultural discourse brave people are daring to peel back the layers of shame and denial that hide from us the last frontier of our awakening. It’s time. It’s time to finally put the issue of racism and implicit bias front and center in our New Thought work.

The good news is that there is a growing body of resources to help us accomplish this sacred work. At the forefront of this movement is Dr. David Campt.

I met David for lunch at a waterfront restaurant in San Diego. On the road half of every month, David travels the country offering lectures and workshops centered around his White Allies Toolkit, a training program designed to help progressive White people learn how to have transformative conversations with their White racism skeptic friends, colleagues, and relatives.

So what’s a racism skeptic?

55% of White Americans can be described as racism skeptics. They believe that racism is no longer a significant problem. They believe that White people are just as likely to suffer from discrimination as people of color. They’re tired of talking about race. They say things like, “I don’t see color.” They think the only racists left are those guys carrying Tiki torches at Klan rallies. But White racism skeptics are everywhere – they’re teachers, principals, police officers, mayors, ministers, and parents – and the narrative they share holds center stage in our political and media environment.

So how do we begin? That’s the question that haunted Rev. Wendy Craig-Purcell of The Unity Center in San Diego. After deep, open, and heartfelt conversations with the African American and White members of her congregation, Wendy began to carve a path out of the wilderness. Built around Dr. Campt’s White Ally Toolkit, Wendy created a curriculum that began the great unlearning. In our White allies groups we read Debby Irving’s Waking Up White, we watched Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13^th, we shared numerous other articles, videos, and resources. And we sat in a circle and began to open up about what it means to be White.

It was a dizzying ride, filling in all the gaps of our incomplete education – the truth about slavery, black codes, Jim Crow, work gangs, lynchings, sundown towns, voter suppression, inequities in the GI Bill, redlining, the criminalization of color, disparities in crack and powdered cocaine sentencing, mass incarceration, and the insidious presence of implicit bias in all of us – and all of it missing from the official history we teach our children and tell ourselves. It isn’t easy learning that so many of our American institutions were intentionally engineered by White supremacists generations ago to shore up their own power and deny it to others. And that as White people, we have unwittingly benefitted from this unearned privilege our whole lives. But this is where the work begins – with honest truth-telling. But now what? How can we entice racism skeptics into this broadening understanding?

The R.A.C.E. Method

Dr. David Campt

Dr. David Campt’s White Ally Toolkit training program evolved out of his many years of expert work as a dialogue coach and corporate trainer. In the late nineties, Ph.D. fresh in hand, David worked for the Clinton White House. From there he began to design and implement dialogue training that led to numerous consulting jobs across the public and private sector. But after the 2016 Presidential election he was led to devote his now seasoned professional expertise to the project of healing the racial and ideological divides that threaten the unity of our nation.

David calls his work the R.A.C.E. method.

As we initiate conversations with our racism skeptic friends, relatives, and co-workers, the first step is to reflect. What do I need to do to remain in an open and empathetic listening mode? How can I avoid falling into the old habits of argument, judgement, and condemnation?

The second step is to ask. What are some key questions I can ask to draw them out? How can I gently guide them to talk not about their beliefs and opinions, but about the personal experiences that led to those opinions? If they tell you that “Racism isn’t a serious problem anymore. We even had a black President” ask them, “Oh that’s interesting – tell me about an experience in your own life that makes you to think that?” They might tell you a story about how integrated and diverse their workplace is.

The third step is to connect. Here we tell a story that aligns with and supports the story they just shared. Tell them that you notice it too, that there’s a lot more diversity in the workplace than there used to be. There has been a lot of progress. That’s a point upon which you can both agree.

Finally it’s time for the fourth step, to expand. Now that you’ve connected and found common ground, gently nudge them just a little bit further. Help them see, preferably with a personal story instead of a sermon, that racial discrimination against people of color is still very real. You might offer an anecdote where your own implicit bias reared its ugly head. With any luck your confession will nudge them toward the recognition and acknowledgement of their own implicit bias. I know it seems small, but it’s actually huge. When a racism skeptic comes to see implicit bias within themselves, their whole edifice begins to crumble.

As Lao Tzu wrote in the Tao Te Ching, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

We’ve argued, we’ve preached, we’ve scolded, we’ve marched – and yet the problem of racism persists. In fact it seems to be getting worse. Maybe it’s time for a new approach. Maybe it’s time for empathy-based dialogue with our ideological opponents. No one’s saying this is going to be easy. But the stakes are high. If we are serious about awakening ourselves, and contributing to an awakening world, it is essential that we break our silence about the wounds that still scar the American heart.

Becoming a White Ally

As we finished our lunch I asked David, “So what happened at the end of the workshop the other day? When you showed us that picture of James Reeb and the other White martyrs of the Civil Rights movement, and you choked up. After all these years, and after all this work, what about that moment stopped you in your tracks?”

He looked up from his plate and spoke very slowly. “I think I’m moved most by the tragedy of all the lost opportunities for love and connection.”

So many of us have seen our families, friends, neighborhoods, and faith communities ripped apart along partisan and ideological lines. So many of us have given up.

“It’s really hard to empathize and connect with someone who says a bunch of racist stuff, or who believes that racism isn’t even a problem,” I said. “Every fiber of my being just wants to walk away.”

 “You think having a conversation is hard?” David asked. “I’ll tell you what’s hard. Sitting down at a White’s only lunch counter and being arrested, that’s hard. Getting your bones broken by state troopers, that’s hard. Getting killed by Klansmen, that’s hard. If James Reeb can die, you can have a conversation with your cousin Brad.”

Being a White ally means becoming willing to wield our privilege as a force for good. It means coming out of our denial and apathy and taking action. White people have the power, and the moral obligation, to undo the structural racism built into our consciousness and our institutions. My black friend Robyn put it best. Pointing to herself she said, “We can’t do this. You have to do it.” She was right. White people have to do it. It’s the only way to finally unravel the stranglehold racism still has on the unrealized promise of America.

[This feature was originally published in the February 2020 issue of Science of Mind Magazine and is reproduced here with permission.]