Ash Wednesday offers chance to understand how we got to the UTK blackface photo
Ash Wednesday is that complex, beautiful Christian holiday that starts the season of Lent with a pastor smudging a cross on your forehead and telling you you’re going to die someday. “Remember that you came from dust, and to dust you shall return.” A friend of mine likes it because it’s honest; I like it because it’s a huge relief. It’s a time to say we all have expiration dates, no one can do it all, and it’s not all up to you, anyway. It’s an over-achiever’s holiday.
This year, just as the sermon began, a cellphone went off. A very loud cellphone. I turned around to see one of our oldest members struggling with his iPhone and muttering as it rang and rang. He’s a lion of the congregation, but in this moment, he was a confused old man, embarrassed that he couldn’t make it stop and angry that the world has gotten so darn complicated. He needed help. I slipped into his pew, gestured for him to give me the phone, and switched off the ringer. I noticed it was his granddaughter calling.
It’s been a difficult week at the University of Tennessee, as a blackface incident brought back memories of other indignities: Swastikas, insults and the everyday experience of being looked at differently, like you’re walking around with a mark on your forehead. When a group of African-American students protested UT’s response at the basketball game, some angry man on Twitter said they should be lined up, shot, and cussed them out for ruining his experience.
So much has changed in our world, much of it for the better, but we can find ourselves flattened with dismay or embarrassment or anger when overt racism strikes. My students are exhausted, especially the ones who are trying to lead well, and plenty of the adults are, too. I don’t want any of them to give up, but some will. Others are bewildered, confused about why this is happening.
UT:One student from 'blackface' Snapchat image no longer enrolled; brother speaks out
One of the things we haven’t talked about much is the text over the picture, which suggests that being black is a way to get into college and go for free, a commonly held belief that is not true and is deeply damaging. In fact, African-American Tennesseans are under-represented in the student population. Recruiting African-American faculty is even harder.
We’re the top PELL-grant institution in the SEC, and we should all be very proud of that fact. That’s about access to an education for low-income students, and it’s crucial for first-generation students. If there is some correlation between income and race that means PELL recipients are more likely to be people of color, it might be a good time to think about the structures behind those statistics, like whether someone’s great-grandfather was a sharecropper instead of a scrappy immigrant or independent farmer, and whether they were redlined out of the ability to buy a home even after they managed a down payment, or whether they couldn’t get into UT because we didn’t admit African-Americans until 1961, when Theotis Robinson Jr. fought for his place on Rocky Top.
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Those effects run deep, to the seventh generation, and we’re only at the second. Robinson is still being called on to respond to racist events. He’s especially alarmed about the resurgence of white nationalism and the way contemporary white nationalists claim victimhood in a sum-zero game, where someone else’s success means something is being taken from them: their jobs, their letter of admission, their country. It structures their world and traps them in the role of the victim, breeding more anger and hate.
Thinking about racism structurally can help well-intentioned white people free themselves of the fear of being seen as racist or prejudiced, a fear which, like that victim position, breeds more us/them, guilt-and-anger racist responses, like “I can’t be racist because I have a black friend” or “It’s racist to call me a racist.” That’s debilitating, embarrassing and polarizing for everyone.
We need the strange Ash Wednesday relief of admitting yes, I have let those ideas structure my world; I’ve assumed, reacted and maybe even participated in that structure, which, strangely, makes me see myself as a victim. Then, we need the grace to remember that we’re all dust, common clay and common story. That doesn’t absolve us of personal responsibility; in fact, embracing that common human bond should commit us all to one another’s freedom.
We can start by educating ourselves about the structure, for the sake of our country and our community; it’s intertwined in them, but it can also be changed, like lunch counters and drinking fountains. Understanding how we got here will help us understand how to move forward, instead of just punching the mute button and desperately hoping it will stop.
Misty G. Anderson is a professor of English and current president of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville Faculty Senate.
