Analysis of the phenomenon
William Calvo-Quiros is Associate Professor of American Culture and Ethnic Studies at the University of Michigan. We asked him to help us analyse the phenomenon of racism after the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a young woman died at a rally organized by White Supremacist, neo-Nazi groups
(from New York) “Racism is not confined to the United States; in fact it involves the whole world and its governing values”, said professor William Calvo-Quiros, Associate Professor of American Culture and Ethnic Studies at the University of Michigan. The rally organized by white supremacists and neo-Nazis groups in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one woman dead, sparked off reactions and protests in cities across the United States, reopening the never-healed wounds of discrimination.
Professor Calvo, after Charlottesville the word “racism” has returned to be an interpretative of poverty and inequalities. What is the state of racism in today’s USA? The concept of race is not confined to physical appearance. It involves education, language, access to healthcare. As human beings we belong to the same human race and having different colours is but the physical response of our skin to certain environmental conditions. Veritable racism breaks out when we ascribe value to our diversities and we believe that a given skin colour makes us more intelligent, attractive or stupid. Racism is a concept that was created to justify social behaviours such as slavery – whereby people were considered objects to be disposed of and sold. Also today, if we look at the conditions of men and women, we will see that diversity is being perpetuated: they are equal in terms of dignity and rights, yet women receive lower wages. Moreover, throughout the history of the United States, Italians weren’t always considered white but colored persons. They were discriminated not so much because of their skin colour but for the social conditions in which they lived.
The concept of racism is very broad, and it is not confined to the United States.
How do you explain the growth of movements such as the white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan the neo-Nazi groups? Their origins date back to the 1950s-60s, a period of great transformations, where both the upper and lower classes started to ask themselves what it meant to be American citizens. Many of them, having experienced the Second World War, found a transformed world upon their return. For example, in their absence women had started working in factories and they demanded equal rights. White men, who expected to be met with respect, privileges and special consideration, no longer identified in that model. It should be said that when the nation was first founded, US citizens were required to be white, Reform and property holders. The pilgrim fathers that had been persecuted on religious grounds ventured to conquest these new lands believing themselves to be superior to the native populations on the assumption of an unparalleled mission and experience of democracy. Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan combined the malaise of these men who felt that their virility and identity had been violated, with the ideals of the founding fathers, calling for the restoration of a condition of grandeur, especially in southern states, when the abolition of slavery had destroyed the economic system based on cotton plantations and impoverished the upper classes. The abolition of racial segregation did the rest.
Thus the protests in Charlottesville can be said to be the expression of a more extended form of social unrest?
Only in Detroit 70% of the factories were shut down as a result of the ongoing economic contraction, leaving many male workers unemployed and calling into question their identity. Women are better educated than men, and they don’t consider them appropriate companions. Furthermore, immigration is perceived as having expropriated them from the job market, thus they dig up a bygone past when America was a better place, when it was a great country that guaranteed the privileges of white men. The rituals of these movements, their code names, their costumes or symbols, restore a feeling of belonging and importance.
Racism is but a facet. The problem is much deeper: the world is asking these people to carry out a difficult change and they aren’t ready for it, so they blame the external world, the immigrants, Nafta. There is a great amount of suffering behind these demonstrations which cannot simply be labelled as racist.
The Obama administration had seemed to signal the overcoming of the racial problem, but it’s still an open wound. If we take a look at the street maps of Pittsburgh, Tampa, St. Louis, Detroit, and even of Washington, we will see that motorways and streets mark evident boundaries between the areas inhabited by whites, blacks, Asians, Latinos, and this is
a social time bomb
because these people live and grow up in environments that are isolated from one another. They know each other only through television programs that use sensationalism as a communicative criteria. Also Chicago, Obama’s native city, thrives on these models, and the majority of unemployed people are black. Segregation is ongoing not only at territorial level but also in terms of healthcare and education. A medical research has shown that the range of diabetes prevalence among Hispanics/Latinos, Afro-Americans and Asians is higher than white Americans. This is not due to cultural reasons; it depends on the poverty levels that prevents people from buying healthy food. If, generation after generation, you eat fast food one-dollar hamburgers, you are prone to develop serious health problems. If you’re a student in a rich university you will meet rich people and, in all likelihood, you will marry a wealthy person, so the wealth will remain within the same social class, while if you work or you often eat out in a fast food then that will be the place where you are likely to meet your spouse and your standard of living will prevent you from having a good level of education or from living in an upper class neighbourhood. This is the other facet of the United States.
What kind of answer can the Church give? The Church is aware of the equal dignity of the human person, and she has courageously addressed the problem of racism. Unfortunately she did not act with equal determination on other fronts such as healthcare, inequality, education. Christian communities are experiencing rifts that are due, for example, to language and place of origin. Latinos in the United States are increasing the number of Catholics as well as the vocations, but their tradition is not always fully acknowledged. Sometimes priests study Spanish to help them in the catechesis. But this risks marginalising them and keeping them separate from those with an Anglo-American background.
The Church could do much more and the creation of the Commission against racism is an important sign. But it’s equally important to address the question of migration, a painful issue for the Latinos community and of primary importance. Unfortunately it risks becoming a secondary issue which does not involve the Church as a whole.
We have analysed the problem, so what’s the solution to discrimination? How can a process of transformation come about when fear, emotions, and – in some cases – irrationality, prevail? By applying a Trinitarian form of social model. Mine is not intended to be a provocation. In the Trinity every person has his/her own identity, which can be removed to leave room for the other person.
The new society that should be born of the ongoing crisis is a society where every community recognizes the beauty and the value of other cultures. This does not mean, for example, that the Latinos should become white or the whites become afro-Americans. Rather, it means offering the best of one’s culture and values, while being open to lose those deemed non-essential.
We know that it will be a painful transformation, but profit, which is an important value in US culture, can no longer be the model that defines human relations. More should be done, and it is also necessary to apologize for unfair benefits and for the suffering experienced and caused unto others. Also Europe should question its integration models: the terrorists of the new Al Qaeda are French citizens, or British citizens of Middle-Eastern origin. Their actions show that citizenship alone does not define a person’s essence, thus there is need for the reception of diversities and of their values, avoiding irrational arbitrary interpretations.
