Systemic Racism.  These were the words I wrote on the whiteboard behind me in my first Ethnic Studies course.  It wasn’t the name of the course I was teaching.  However, it was the topic of discussion that will, and has always, framed every class I’ve ever taught.   I built all of my courses around the understanding that unbeknownst to many laypeople, racism does not do its most harm through the acts of a few individuals.  Racism is actually built into our cultural systems through laws, jurisdictions, and everyday existence – through our compliance living in a common community.  It is up to individual people to recognize these unjust systems… and to actively dismantle them.  

Within 10 minutes into my lecture, I could hear half the class uncomfortably shuffling in their hard plastic seats.  Although I saw one or two heads bob up and down in agreement, the more vocal students excitedly shot up their hands, confident to share with me an opinion I was not ready to hear: That what I was teaching actually propagated racism.  And so I just had to ask: Do you mean to say, if we admit that systematic racism exists, that fuels racism?  To me, that would be the same thing as saying: To acknowledge blindness meant to promote blindness.  

I do understand though.  I understand how difficult it is to acknowledge our own faults and although progress is attained in small pockets, it is hard to recognize that we have not agreed on a viable answer to solve the big problems.  Sex education in schools is another one… to teach sex education meant to promote… sex?  To shed light on an issue, meant to face up to it.  It’s basically calling attention to the elephant in the room.  And sometimes, most times, people find it easier to just ignore the elephant… especially when you’re not the one it’s sitting on.

Coming from an institution where discussing racism on a systems-level was a normal, daily conversation, as if saying the sky was blue, I was unprepared to receive this kind of reaction. I tried again: If we continue to see racism reserved for a few hateful individuals who just needed to be locked up, it will not cure the problem.  How many people are you going to lock up?  We must first recognize that racism is embedded into our very culture and existence, and endorsed by our institutions and authorities.  When we understand racism on a systematic level – what some researchers sometimes refer to as “a system of advantages based on race,” only then can we start to beat it.  It was only the first day of class.  And what I learned was that there aren’t many people in the world who enjoy a mirror being held up to their faces.  

For the students who did remain in my class, at the very least, some learned some good vocabulary words. And at the most, my class was an eye-opening, transformative experience.   I quickly became the talk of the campus, the professor who would make you angry first, and then make you think second.  While students confessed changes in themselves, it was I that inherited the biggest lesson: Wow… did we all have a long way to go. 

That class was 14 years ago, and at this time, 9/11 had just occurred five years prior, and many hate crimes ensued among the U.S. South Asian population.  However, today, I am referencing George Floyd.  The continuous unimaginably atrocious acts afflicted towards Black Americans serves as a stark reminder of a flawed racial cultural system that is stuck in a warped cycle.  Imagine a bicycle wheel that is wobbly, imperfect, and imbalanced.  What cyclists refer to as “untrue”.  A “true” wheel is perfectly balanced.  When spun, there is no wobble, no shake.  A wheel that is “untrue” compromises the rider’s trust and safety by throwing the rider off the seat and into the dirt.  When we have a justice system that is not “true,” that is, off-balanced, biased to one side, untrustworthy, NO rider is safe on this bike.  

We are in search of a wheel that is “true” – a wheel that is balanced, centered, and protects any, and ALL riders.