This Is What Racism Looks Like

Black Studies was introduced as a discipline on this campus a number of years ago. As a Black Studies minor, I feel adequately armed with the concepts to battle racism and oppression; I just never thought I'd have to use those concepts to battle overt racism on our campus. But that's exactly what I am about to do. Perhaps some of you are aware of the new group "Youth for Western Civilization." The group's description on Facebook is short, no more than 150 words, but it is loaded with the words of racism. The mission is clear: teach and promote only Western Civilization, to suppress and oppose multiculturalism, and to "take back" the country from these damn immigrants and liberals who want to bring truth and diversity to Providence College and the country.

The description opens with a quote from Tom Tancredo, a Republican Congressman from Colorado. "This is our culture-fight for it. This is our flag-pick it up. This is our country-take it back." Well, let me give you a history review, ladies and gentlemen. There were 25 million indigenous peoples throughout what is now considered North and South America before any white man "brought civilization" to the "New World." Throughout a period of 500 years, the United States government actively and overtly discriminated against the First Americans, pushing them on to reservations-land of little or no value. Today, 25 percent of Native Americans live below the poverty level, the suicide rate for Native Americans is over twice the national average, and the death rate from alcoholism in Native Americans is three times the national average. The first Americans are entitled to billions of dollars from the United States government for resources found on reservation land. I'm going to have to say that these indigenous people would argue that it is not our country to take back-it is theirs.

Tancredo can also be found on YouTube speaking about immigrants. In the past, he says, immigrants were willing and eager to give up their native cultures and assimilate into American culture-today's immigrants don't "Americanize." Actually, according to Michael Jones-Correa, first generation transnationalism (sending money back home, speaking the native language) is present in immigrants but significantly decreases in second-generation immigrants, and by the third generation, this transnationalism is virtually non-existant. Guess what? They're "Americanized."

The description goes on to say that Providence College Youth for Western Civilization "aims to educate students about the cultural heritage of the West," (this is already present at PC, with our Development of Western Civilization course) and "engage in political issues of vital importance to Western Civilization." Why not politics of other cultures? In this increasingly global world, you cannot continue to ignore other cultures (or the fact that we are interdependent on the very countries and cultures you claim to hate.)

Masked behind intellectual concepts and promises of "nationality" and "unity," this movement seeks to draw people in by its seeming rightness by uniting only "us" and making "them" seem wrong. It promotes the study of "high culture." When people use language describing Western culture as "high" they are effectively calling other cultures "low"-less, subhuman, and not worth the time it takes to learn about these cultures. This is using rhetoric to perpetuate racism in our country. This is what racism looks like.

What's more is that this group fails to take into account actual historical facts. Let us not forget that Asian, African, South American, and Native cultures thrived and flourished well before Columbus stepped foot on a chain of islands in the Caribbean. Let us not forget that Baghdad is considered the gem of the Middle East because of the intellectual progression that has occurred there since before the Middle Ages. Let us not forget that for hundreds of years the highest center of learning was in the Moorish Empire-Muslims-where math, science, literature, and philosophy flourished while much of Europe was stuck in the "Dark Ages."

This is using white privilege. What is white privilege? It is when those who hold the pen to write history can effectively write the brown or black people as savage, subhuman, and criminal to reinforce their power. And while they hold the pen, they can become invisible-no longer actors in the play of race construction. So people of other cultures or skin colors are not "underprivileged" due to any active discrimination acted upon them; no-underprivileged implies passivity. So people of other cultures are "lazy," "poor," or worse, "terrorists." White people can write history this way because they have the power, and writing it as such reinforces that power. This is what racism looks like.

The group opposes "radical multiculturalism." I ask these people: Are you so afraid of other cultures and viewpoints that you cannot bear to have them running rampant alongside your viewpoints? Are you so insecure that you need to silence any other culture or celebration of diversity?

The group also opposed "mass immigration." Again I feel I need to remind everyone of their history: Besides the story of the First Americans, the entire country's story is one of mass immigration. It would be better, of course, to state that they are opposed to mass immigration of black or brown people-whose languages, cultures, and appearances are different than all of the white kids who belong to PC Youth for Western Civilization.

So this is what organized racism looks like. It masks itself as a push for unity while simultaneously pushing to silence and/or exiling those who are not "American" enough. It skews facts and history to justify the hatred and exclusion of an entire group of humans. I am not the best spokesperson to write on this topic, but I know that I have to use some of the concepts I have learned in my liberal arts classes to battle this racism. What have we learned at PC when members of our community are making judgments of people not based on their inherent dignity, or their intellectual ability, or their character? They ignore logic and historical facts and rely on nothing but culture alone. Have we even progressed as a school or a country? So many people are quick to believe that dialogues on race are obsolete because we have a Black man in the White House. Well, look again, because this is exactly why we need to continue to deconstruct racism. This is Providence College, and this is what racism looks like.