Three paradoxes of anti-racism work
Just as anti-racism seemed to be gaining momentum, the nation seems to be falling back into long-standing patterns of racial injustice and inequality. Contradictions built into our nation’s history, relationships, and institutions threaten once again to squelch efforts to confront racism. These obstacles and minefields loom particularly large these days, when the federal government has attacked programs that have been a mainstay of these efforts. It might seem inevitable that would-be change agents will remain stuck in a Groundhog Day-like trap of repeated failures.
The question of how to escape this trap has been at the heart of my life’s work with aspiring change agents who are trying to address racism. I have witnessed the replay of contradictions that have paralyzed change in predominantly white organizations as they struggle with how to become more equitable, inclusive, and effective. Should they directly confront issues of race in their environment or instead seek to address these issues indirectly? Should they work inside institutions to address racism or create pressure for change from outside? Should white people support change in their institutions from their positions of power or should they step back and empower those who are directly affected by racism?
These questions illustrate an inescapable feature of anti-racism work: it is paradoxical. It requires the capacity to straddle contradictory yet interdependent realities that seem irreconcilable but must and can both be navigated. Race is both a category that fails to capture anyone’s full identity and a foundational feature of current social realities; a practice that both reproduces inequality and forges community among marginalized people. Embracing only one side of these tensions without finding a way also to pursue the other will likely leave underlying structures unchanged and alienate key actors whose participation is necessary to alter the status quo.
I have learned that we can’t avoid these contradictions, but we can pay attention to when they’re operating and learn to navigate them so they become an engine for change that leads to full participation. Full participation is what racism violates and what anti-racism advances: environments that enable everyone, whatever their race and background, to feel like they belong, can participate, thrive, and, and make contributions to the community.
Rather than hiding or running from the contradictions built into confronting racism, we have to learn how to treat them as triggers for learning and growth. In my work, I have focused on three persistent and related paradoxes that are built into anti-racism work: the paradox of racialized power, the paradox of racial salience, and the paradox of racialized institutions.
The paradox of racialized power
Anti-racism requires white people to lean into their power to make needed change while stepping back from exercising power in order to make space for people of color to lead. On the one hand, we need to step up and take responsibility for addressing the racism operating in our institutions, understanding its causes, confronting the gaps in our own perceptions, and reducing racial inequity. On the other, white people trying to address racism face constant reminders of what we don’t know and of the need not to exercise power so that people of color can directly influence decisions and practices affecting them. People of color involved in efforts to change predominantly white institutions also have to grapple with the double-edged sword of both working with and challenging the power of those who dictate decision making in those institutions.
The paradox of racial salience
When people in predominantly white institutions tackle racism, what is the most effective way to frame their efforts? Should they explicitly target racism as the problem and proclaim anti-racism as their intention? Or should they avoid framing the work in terms of race, proceeding instead with more universal aims that tackle racism by adopting the principle that a high tide lifts all boats? Should they name racism as the problem or not name racism, focusing instead on issues affecting everyone, such as fairness, accountability, improved communication, enhanced mobility, and overall well-being?
This is the paradox of racial salience: effective anti-racism efforts must name and address racism while also proceeding in universal terms rooted in shared interests rather than race. Race consciousness and race neutrality operate in tandem. Both are necessary, but choosing one invariably triggers conflict with the other.
The paradox of racialized institutions
How do anti-racism efforts seeking change within predominantly white institutions relate to those institutions? Should they enlist those institutions as collaborators, working from the inside out and using the institution’s tools and resources to advance the goal of full participation? Or should anti-racism efforts instead focus on mobilizing pressure to change from the outside, whether through bottom-up collective action within the organization or by pressuring change from the outside?
This is the paradox of racialized institutions: Predominantly white institutions must undertake anti-racism work while simultaneously being the target of it. Anti-racism requires enlisting predominantly white institutions as drivers of change while pushing them to question themselves and transform their own practices. The changes required by predominantly white institutions to dismantle racism must also dismantle the very structure of those organizations.
Navigating the anti-racism paradoxes
What can we do to use these built-in tensions as springboards for broader transformational change? The opportunities for meaningful transformation lie in embracing rather than running from these inevitable contradictions. I have identified four strategies that build the capacity to navigate the anti-racism strategies so that they become drivers of transformational change:
- Learning to live with complexity and contradiction
- Reframing racism in terms of linked fate
- Building cross-racial collaborations, and
- Taking small steps toward big change
Learning to live with complexity and contradiction
Doing anti-racism work requires building environments which encourage people to be uncertain, to take risks, to make mistakes, to be open to and explore unfamiliar ways of viewing situations. Creating an environment that accepts uncertainty and resists premature resolution requires adopting a stance of humility. To gain the benefits of one side of the polarity and reduce its risks, you must also pursue the benefits—and deal with the risks—of the other. Paradox is not a problem to be solved but a both/ and polarity to embrace.
I have observed and experienced organizations that have learned to live with uncertainty about how issues of race might manifest. This realization enabled them to shift from a stance of adopting silver bullets that inevitably fail to learning from failure, becoming simultaneously more understanding and more accountable in the face of mistakes, and committing to the long haul.
Reframing anti-racism in terms of linked fate
The nation’s prosperity as a whole depends upon the recognition of how our fates are linked across the racial divide. Fates are linked because the situation of Black and Brown people cannot be remedied without changing the overall rules and power dynamics that affect everyone. Fates are linked because people who engage in practices that dehumanize others also undermine their own well-being and humanity. Prosperity and democracy require this “both/and” approach—both confronting racism and pursuing full participation for everyone.
Reframing those interests in terms of linked fate facilitates the pursuit of a shared agenda without losing the explicit focus on racism. Recognizing linked fate serves as a framework for making visible and credible the shared needs of people occupying different racial positions, without glossing over their differences. It also opens up a process where people of different identities can collaborate to address shared needs and challenges as they become apparent, even as they experience conflict and distrust.
Cross racial collaboration
Anti-racism take root in a predominantly white organization when pivotal people have facilitated a long-term process enabling individuals with different racial identities and perspectives to connect, coalesce into a functioning collective committed to closing the gap between the vision and the actuality, and remain engaged over time. They have helped people with different racial identities find overlapping interests and build trust across racial lines. They have crafted an environment that enables people to take risks and reminds them of what might be possible if they are willing to experiment in the present while imagining the future they hope to create.
These people are what I call organizational catalysts, those who knit together diverse individuals, roles, identities, and perspectives in order to advance shared goals related to anti-racism. They orchestrate paradoxical possibility, finding ways to bridge the experiential gaps dividing people in different racial positions, inspiring and galvanizing them to move forward together despite the inevitability of struggle and failure.
Small steps toward big change
One strategy that has worked involves intentionally moving back and forth between the micro and macro levels of change. A group I am working with might begin by looking at a situation involving race first with a wide-angle lens, so to speak, surveying the long-term vision, the field of possibility, the need for change, the systemic barriers, and the opportunities that might exist for bringing people in different racial positions together. With this big picture in mind, we can then pick a particular focus for attention and experimentation—our “what might be.”
We then zoom into creating a fractal, an experiment with change. I imagine this process like using a telephoto lens to zoom in on the details of a specific situation in which transformative change can happen on a small scale. Staying focused on that small yet transformative space, making it a place where we can have concrete impact, build relationships that matter, and connect across differences feeds our souls and keeps us going.
This fractal is a platform upon which to develop the next experiment, drawing on the lessons learned and relationships already forged. Every so often, it’s important to zoom back out, using the wide-angle view to relocate our small-scale effort in the larger context. This enables us to understand how that larger context shapes and impacts the sustainability of our small steps. We can then assess whether to keep going or shift gears, zooming back into the same fractal or a different one in which we develop another experiment that seems worth trying.
If we care about anti-racism, what choice do we have other than to relentlessly pursue this paradoxical work? We can’t predict whether our efforts will be successful, but if we don’t undertake them, failure is guaranteed. We have to stay engaged, learn with and from each other, and build the multi-racial communities that genuine democracy requires. As we keep striving to make “what might be” a reality, we transform our lives and have the greatest hope of guiding our institutions toward full participation.
Susan Sturm is the George M. Jaffin Professor of Law and Social Responsibility and the Founding Director of the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School. She is the coauthor (with Lani Guinier) of Who’s Qualified? A New Democracy Forum on the Future of Affirmative Action.