Inside from the Inside

Without even a comment, Ray Winbush sent me the link to Jay Smooth’s most recent illdoctrine vlog post, “How To Tell People They Sound Racist.”

Oh, my: It’s a thing of beauty.

No, scratch that: It’s almost a piece of counter-racist science.

I’m floored and humbled by this clip, because it does so much that I’ve been trying to do for so long, but does it so much better. Besides being excellently produced, written, edited, performed, and shot, what’s so wonderful about it is that Jay describes a common, discomfiting moment—the one after somebody makes a racist statement—but does not linger there.

Instead, he makes specific suggestions on how to handle the situation, mechanically—the way to address it, given the likely response of denial—so that, when done, you aren’t left standing there wondering, “What happened?” You know: The usual way the bar closes.

The smartest part of Jay’s whole construct, though, is his breaking down your possible response paths into one of two kinds: “What They Did” vs. “What They Are.” The first “focuses strictly on the person’s words and actions,” notes Jay. The second “uses what they did and what they said to draw conclusions about what kind of person they are.”

Avoid the latter one like the plague, he says, calling it “a rhetorical Bermuda Triangle,” because it forces the accuser to prove something as invisible as intent.

Or, pulling from my own personal code of speech, Never call a person a racist, unless that person says they are one first.

This is where a lot of people get tripped up. They get locked into a debate about the kind of person the suspected racist might be, doing so with the only person who actually has any credibility in that area: The person they’ve accused of racism. How do you know, for example, that they didn’t just make a mistake?

Even more, though,

When you say, ‘I think he’s a racist,’ that’s not a bad move because you might be wrong. That’s a bad move because you might be right. … Even though, intuitively, it feels like the hardest way to hit him is just run up on him and say, ‘I think your ass is racist,’ when you handle it that way, you’re actually letting him off easy, because you’re setting up a conversation that’s way too simple for him to derail and duck out of.

Likening the racist statement-maker to a petty thief, Jay urges,

When somebody picks my pocket, I’m not gonna be chasin’ him down so I can figure out whether he feels like he’s a thief, deep down in his heart. I’m gonna be chasin’ him down so I can get my wallet back. I don’t care what he is, but I need to hold him accountable for what he did, and that’s how we need to approach these conversations about race: Treat them like they took your wallet, and focus on the part that matters: Holding each person accountable for the impact of their words and actions.

Racism is a really hard thing for many people to talk about. It seems to have so many simultaneously moving parts.

What Jay has done is take one aspect of the race system and flash-frozen it, pointing out its diverse components, diagramming it like a sentence, instructing the unsure on how to interact with it, linking its necessary outcomes to justice, and doing so with great charm and more than a little humor, half of which I wish I was, somehow, blessed.