Ninety-nine years ago today, one of the worst massacres in the history of the U.S. took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Mobs of white people completely destroyed Greenwood, one of the most affluent black communities in the U.S., over a likely false accusation against a young black man. After things got out of hand, the local police got involved—on the side of the mobs. No white rioters were arrested, though black people were. No one was compensated for their loss of property, and hundreds died. The location of mass graves has never been found. This was reminiscent of Nazi-led riots against Jews, but right here in America. It was widely reported at the time too.
Here’s a good article on the Tulsa race riot. Here’s a video clip on PBS.
So why, I wonder, did I never hear a word about this in school, at any level? I suspect the teachers hadn’t heard of it either. Certainly, it wasn’t in textbooks. Come to think of it, I didn’t learn that Thomas Jefferson was an eloquent white supemacist who enslaved his own children, or that FDR partnered with Southern Democrats to deny Black Americans major benefits of the New Deal and perpetuated a cycle of segregation, and I heard barely a mention of the successful civil rights battles of the ‘60s (which were quite recent when I was in high school).
They did, however, find time to teach us things like:
The U.S. won every war we fought in
Native Americans, with a few exceptions, had primitive cultures when Europeans arrived
Racism was a problem mainly in the South
The internment of Japanese Americans in WWII was unfortunate but necessary.
All of these things are false, some comically so. I went to reputable public schools; the omission and twisting of facts to build a narrative illustrates what systemic racism is all about.
Greenwood the morning after. Photo from Smithsonian Institution collection.
Systemic racism goes way beyond the biases of individual people, something we all hold at some level. Countries vary widely in the way they react to racial differences. The contrasting experience of American jazz musicians who spent time in France in the 1950s and ‘60s comes to mind. Yet people are fundamentally similar, biologically. What’s different are the cultures and institutions (which are shaped by cultures). The same things keep happening over and over in the U.S. because our culture influences behaviors of people and practices of institutions (including police, courts, schools, etc.).
Management consultants often talk about organizational culture as a special case of a broader concept. But in fact all culture is organizational. It’s a set of codes of belief and behavior that defines a self-identified group, and shared culture is key to organizing the group. Culture goes way beyond individuals. A defining attribute is that culture is passed down through generations, and can be shared by people who work in organizations at different times, or live centuries apart. It can change over time, but culture can be amazingly resilient. In businesses, government and nonprofits, this causes heartache for leaders trying to forge change. In societies and nations, this causes repetition of patterns, good and bad. Instiutional racism is pervasive, and has been prominent in supposedly progressive places, for example Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco. Even Canada is not exempt.
If there’s reason for hope (and there always is, IMHO), it’s that the idea that systemic racism is the root cause (as opposed to inherently bad people) seems to be taking hold. Further, we’re discovering methods that really work.
PIMG's Los Angeles-based client, Advancement Project California, has quietly been forging tangible progress in the fight for racial equity. AP is a multi-racial, multi-generational social justice organization with expertise in research, advocacy, and policy organization. The staff uses research and analysis to identify racial inequities, and then put those insights to work, partnering with community-based advocates to shape progressive policies. In other words, they use hard data and deeply rooted relationships to influence systemic change. It reminds us that there is more than one way to protest. This behind-the-scenes work is another critical component of the racial justice movement. Advancement Project California embodies the spirit of a nation that wants and needs to be better. The organization’s theory of change has proven to be valid, with tangible progress across the state’s public systems, including education, criminal justice, elections and the 2020 census.
Lots of others in the nonprofit community, notably funders, have focused on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in recent years. These efforts are also aimed at systemic change. How effective are they?
We don’t know yet. Strategy, by definition, is a realistic pathway to a destination. What’s the plan, for example, to address the underlying reality represented by the 2016 election map? How does DEI funding help build strong and sustainable organizations? Does it succeed in promoting both institutional change and financial resilience, or are these two outcomes in competition? These are important questions as our economic crisis settles in amid a crisis of confidence in the criminal justice system.
Nonprofits concerned with social justice can act, without reallocating a lot of time and money. Right now, we can advocate strongly for specific policy changes affecting institutional power, such as those discussed here. And simply helping to boost voter registration this fall, especially in six states, may be as effective as anything else, and that’s something almost every nonprofit in the U.S. could contribute to.
The cliché for this point in every article on racial justice is, “we have a lot of work to do.” But where that work isn’t working, we need to step back and rethink the strategy. The events of the past month suggest that we’re not as far removed from 1921 as we thought we were. Acknowledging this will be helpful the day after the election.