I am indebted to Floyd Crump and to Joan "Joani" Culver who inspired
this conversation.
Fulfilling a promise I made to
Werner Erhard
at 2:00am one morning in 1979 over a midnight snack of celery spears
and cream cheese in the kitchen of his
San Francisco
home, the
Franklin House,
I went to
South Africa,
and over the course of a year, led the first series of ten guest
seminars around the country in the major cities, causing the first one
thousand enrollments in
South Africa,
which inexorably started
Werner's work there.
With all my enthusiasm and inspiration aside, I had a big consideration
about presenting
Werner's work
in
South Africa
in those days: apartheid. It wouldn't have been appropriate (ie
it would have flat-out not worked) to segregate
Werner's work.
Can you even begin to imagine what that might have looked like? One
presentation for white people? A separate presentation for non-white
people? (if you weren't "white" in
South Africa
in those days, you were designated as "non-white"). Presenting it for
so-called "mixed"
participants
(white and non-white) would have been illegal - indeed, a
jailable crime in those days. There was
workability
in none of the above.
I, born in London England, a British citizen, grew up in
South Africa.
Returning with Werner's work
to start it there,
fulfilled a lifelong intention of mine. I'm not a racist. There's not a
racist bone in my body. Yet
South Africa
when I, a white person, grew up there, was the backdrop for one of the
great perpetrations (if not the greatest perpetration) of
racism of all time. To say I wasn't influenced by it (or to say I
didn't benefit from it) would be the ultimate naïveté.
Oppose it? Yes, of course. Risk speaking out against it? For sure. But
live there and not be touched by it, and not be influenced /
conditioned by it? Simply not possible.
If you tell the truth about it, you've been influenced by (you may have
even profited from) racism in our society. The question is: how do we
each confront racism in a way that transforms it? (please
notice I didn't say "... in a way that changes it ...").
Look: it's time we call the game on changing racism. All our attempts
to change racism, have failed. And if you've been following the
conversation for transformation, you already know why changing racism
has never worked, and never can: it's because "plus ça
change, plus c'est la même chose" - the more things
change, the more they stay the same, yes?
I assert that before we attempt to change racism in our society, we
each distinguish our own inherent, influenced, conditioned, personal
racism. We tell the truth about it. We 'fess up to it. If
we each don't distinguish our own conditioned racism, and thereby
transform it, there's no chance we'll ever change it in society at
large.
Evidence Of The Unspeakable
When I first visited these United States some forty four years ago, I
came to
San Francisco
for a job
interview.
It was lunch hour. The building foyer was deserted. As I scanned the
tenants' register board for the floor to which to take the elevator, I
became aware of a black man sitting on a bench in a corner, watching
me. "Hmmm, the janitor's on his lunch break" I mused. He, the janitor,
watched me for a while, then he called out, asking which company I was
looking for. I told him. "STSC (Scientific
Time Sharing Corporation)" I said. Then he asked
whom I came to see. Taken aback by his brashness, I told him. "Floyd
Crump" (my contact's name) I said begrudgingly. He stood up and
walked
toward me. I thought "Thanks, but I don't need an escort.". Then he
held out his hand to me, and said "Hi! I'm Floyd.".
My heart
skipped a beat. In that instant I saw how prejudiced I really am. I
got my own inherent racism. The man is black. Therefore
he's the janitor. It wasn't even conscious. It was lizard-brain,
built into the
machinery.
I was shocked, caught red-handed. But in the next instant it got even
worse. With growing horror, I saw that in addition to being prejudiced
/ racist, I make up that I'm (ie I tout myself as) not
prejudiced / not racist. It's not only that I'm racist: it's that I'm
inauthentic about it.
Floyd subsequently became my sponsor to the United States, my first
employer here, my lifelong friend. More great things became available
in my life through Floyd's friendship than through almost any other
person I know. Floyd, the black man I cast as the janitor, the black
man I was certain was the janitor because he's
black.
Racism Transformed
Apartheid is now consigned to the slag heap of history. And now (not
surprisingly)
Werner's work
thrives in post-apartheid
South Africa.
And what transformed language in a
transformed conversation
has made possible for apartheid, racism, and prejudice in
South Africa,
is best illustrated in the following exchange which blew me away then
when I was present to it there, as it does now as I re-create it for
you here:
A white man stood up and apologized to all the black people present:
for being a racist, for suppressing them. He took responsibility for
racism in
South Africa,
and apologized for it. He owned it. I did the full
proverbial double take. Could I really believe what I'd just
heard? He basically apologized, as a white person, on behalf of all
white people, to all black people, for the atrocities of apartheid. An
apology like that ie a distinction like that, has the
power to transform
Life itself.
Really it does.
But it wasn't over, not by a long shot. A black man stood
up. I assumed he was going to accept the apology (in the spirit of
things) on behalf of all black people. I wasn't even close. Yes he did
accept the apology, a pivotal event in and of itself. But then he
also apologized, this time on behalf of all black people,
to all the white people present, and thereby to all white people. And
for what? For being their victim ... and in so doing, for
casting all white
South Africans
as racists. Again, I could barely believe what I'd just heard. This
wasn't your ordinary conversation. This was a
transformed conversation
in which people took responsibility both for the totality of their
environment, as well as for their personal experience. Can you get it?
You can? Welcome to
my world
of racism transformed - not
a world
of racism changed.
Consider this: the first thing to do about racism, may indeed be to not
change it. Maybe. We have clear evidence after decades of attempting to
change racism, that attempting to change it hasn't worked, based as it
is on deep, deep conditioning which can't be changed in ordinary ways -
indeed, which may simply be beyond the reach of mere change. Instead,
the first thing to do about racism, may be for each of us to
distinguish the racist conditioning in our own lives, and to tell the
truth about it
unflinchingly
ie to take responsibility for it, to own it ie to transform it in our
personal experience.
It was
Jesus Christ
who said "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.".
I'd like to follow it with "We'll each distinguish the truth of our own
endemic, personal racist conditioning and entitled sense of
privilege.". Knowing the truth will make you free, and will eventually
make us all, all of society, free from racism.