I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

by Austin Channing Brown

White supremacy is a tradition that must be named and a religion that must be renounced. When this work has not been done, those who live in whiteness become oppressive, whether intentional or not.

Our teacher completely froze as the tension climbed. But more concerning was that four years at a racially diverse school hadn’t been enough to challenge my classmate’s belief that whiteness, on its own merit, made her more deserving. Our school’s “racial harmony” might not have created that assumption, but it didn’t help her unlearn it either. A lack of confrontation had done her no favors. As high school came to an end, I took this lesson with me and became determined always to question what looks like unity at first glance.

Dr. Simms wanted us to be suspicious of the language of America. He taught us to analyze the news. Did anyone notice how only the faces of Black criminals were shown in this segment? In the next segment, the anchor said there was a crowd—could you tell if the camera angle made it seem larger or smaller? That whole story was on immigrants, but why did it focus only on immigrants of color? He wanted us to pay attention.

Companies love talking about their “diversity and inclusion efforts,” but I remember one unusually frank conversation with our organization’s board of directors, in which I learned how those efforts often work. Less than a year into the job, I was seeking approval for a new racial diversity training program. I knew the meeting wasn’t going well when the treasurer said, “Just to play devil’s advocate…” and then posed a series of questions, speaking gently so as to preserve an air of innocence. “Why don’t we want assimilation? Isn’t that the point of an organization’s culture? Don’t we want to bring in people of diverse backgrounds and then become one unified organization?”

We have painted the hundred-year history of Jim Crow as little more than mean signage and the inconvenience that white people and Black people could not drink from the same fountain. But those signs weren’t just “mean.” They were perpetual reminders of the swift humiliation and brutal violence that could be suffered at any moment in the presence of whiteness. Jim Crow meant paying taxes for services one could not fully enjoy; working for meager wages; and owning nothing that couldn’t be snatched away. For many black families, it meant never building wealth and never having legal recourse for injustice. The mob violence, the burned-down homes, the bombed churches and businesses, the Black bodies that were lynched every couple of days—Jim Crow was walking through life measuring every step.

Just like Lorde promised, my anger led to creativity, to connections with others who were angry, too. My anger didn’t destroy me. It did not leave me alone and desolate. On the contrary, my anger undergirded my calling, my vocation.