TODAY’S EPISODE: Sometimes the “little things” distract us from big work
“It’s the little things…”
This is a pithy little saying about, well, little things, and it does have meaning. The little things do matter. Certainly micro-aggressions are little things but they build up and matter as constant pokes and jabs steadily wear the victim down. A single small event can push us over the edge—whether into despair or to take actions for positive change.
Little things do matter. But sometimes, they don’t. And many times, small and isolated victories give us false optimism. Worse yet, they can make us think more has been achieved than actually has, and dissuade us from carrying on toward bigger and more meaningful change. And when that happens, the little thing that was so nice becomes near-useless. A footnote. A prompt that we ignored and wasted.
The news that the Senate approved a bipartisan bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday was big news, especially given the GOP’s reluctance to talk about or bring attention to things like the history of slavery in the United States. But in the grand scheme, it’s still a little thing despite being big news.
That doesn’t mean I don’t support the day becoming a federal holiday and for states to make it a holiday as well, as BGIM’s own state of Maine just did. I do approve, just as I approved of making Martin Luther King Jr. Day a federal holiday and for states to do the same.
But it’s still a little thing and it means little if we white people don’t take the opportunity to do more than pat each other on the back and say, “Look, another step toward a post-racial America!” Because the election of Barack Obama was a big step in our racial evolution but it didn’t change much—in fact, it spurred a lot of backlash that gave us the Tea Party, an even more conservative and repressive GOP, and ultimately Donald Trump as president (and we’re still not out of the woods on any of that). And a lot of that was because we “progressive” or “open minded” white people (as a whole) saw Obama’s election as the end instead of a rallying point where we needed to gather and demand systemic changes that address racism and all kinds of other “isms” that plague us and make life difficult for the folks who aren’t white, cishet, Christian (and male, too, for the most part still).
MLK Day changed nothing. It gave conservatives and other people with racist baggage something new to complain about, but it changed nothing—well, nothing except giving more recognition to people who have long been pushed down and ignored. A Juneteenth holiday added to that won’t make things any better.
Yes, the recognition is important. The chance to have a day of awareness and inspiration is important.
But what are we white people going to do on the other days of the year to change anything?
Changes to racist policies in policing, banking, real estate, education, and so many other areas continue to be a huge problem. Progress to change them has been glacial because we keep looking at isolated victories and neglect to demand systemic change. The whole underlying system needs to be purged and updated.
Even the U.S. Constitution, considered holy writ by the GOP, was always intended to be updated, no matter how much they say otherwise. That’s what amendments are for; that’s the way the document was designed—to grow and adapt to changes in the world. The systems we see as unchangeable and immutable in this country can be changed, too. Need to be changed. Must be changed. And a holiday isn’t enough.
I saw a similar thing with the news of the Southern Baptist Convention this week. The SBC installed a new leader at its annual meeting who has called for racial reconciliation, and the group narrowly avoided a push to openly repudiate critical race theory as something divisive and inherently bad. But while many media reports of the SBC gathering touted the positives, what I see is superficiality. There were plenty of words about respecting people regardless of race and plenty of sharing of biblical passages, but not much else.
Yes, given that the SBC represents one of the largest collections of Christians in the United States—the Baptists—I expect biblical passages. But since when has reminding conservative Christians who are racist, homophobic, etc. about passages in the Gospel or elsewhere in the Bible really ever moved them to act more Christ-like?
What the SBC needed to do was to support critical race theory—not simply refuse to reject it outright. They needed to speak about systemic racism in the churches and in the secular institutions of this country and to pledge to root it out at least in their own ranks. “Feel good” biblical quotes and vague aspirational comments about “coming together” aren’t change.
Small actions can lead to big change, but only if we pledge to build upon the “little things.”
When we simply look at the small victories and scant progress and nod our heads that “things are getting better”…well, those things don’t actually get better. They only get better when we work on changing them. Right away.
It’s long work. It’s hard work. But without the work, nothing gets better on any kind of timeline that is truly helpful to those negatively impacted by racism or any other form of bigotry.
When will we as white folks not only demand systemic change but actively be a part of it?
Because that time needs to be now. Actually, it needed to be many other times before now where we reveled in the “little things” and hoped it would all get better without us having to roll up our sleeves.
Let’s not make it have to be a “next time,” OK? Let’s do it now like we should have before.
Let’s have MLK Day and Juneteenth become days of remembrance that are not just blips and moments in time but a chance to look back and say we actually changed the world. Not simply added another holiday to the calendar.
[To find other installments of “Calling All White People,” click here]
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