Racism without Malice

On February 1, 2018, a White student at Forest Hills Public Schools painted his face with brown paint and shared pictures of himself across social media. This boy, who snapped these photos on the first day of Black History Month, seemingly snapped these photos without comment or editorializing. I say seemingly as this is an assumption based off of superintendent Dan Behm's response that the boy meant malice when he painted his face brown much like the minstrelsy of the early 1900s. It is important to take a deeper look into Behm's intricate marriage between malice and racism, but first let's look at the community of Forest Hills Public Schools before we dive any deeper into that discussion.

Forest Hills Public Schools is a school district whose borders encompass the Grand Rapids suburb of Ada, Michigan. Ada became a choice town for White families to live for a number of reasons. A majority of those reasons, however, boiled down to a DuBoisian idea that White folks might now call "too much diversity." During the 1920s, when redlining was still a predominant practice and most of Grand Rapids' urban core was rated C or D for up-and-coming places to live, a number of mobile White families decided to migrate toward the outskirts of the city. Being that East Grand Rapids was going through a transformation of its own during the 1920s, many families found themselves settling down in Ada Township.

But even during times when redlining became illegal, Todd Robinson wrote in his book A City Within a City that a number of Black families were unable to buy property in Ada Township, and those who were able to buy property were ostracized by the community. This was well after 1956 when Forest Hills Public Schools was founded and well before 2015 when Black students only accounted for 1% of Forest Hills Public Schools' student population. Overall, Ada Township and Forest Hills Public Schools have yet to show any progression away from their foundation of White Flight and their social ostracization of people of color. The response from Behm regarding one of his students who decided to paint his face brown in one of his school's continues to prove that this is the case.

I want you to think of a time when you did something that you thought was funny. I want you to think of someone who didn't think it was funny. Maybe you did something that cause a person to get hurt. Maybe you did something that caused a group of people to get hurt. I think of shooting roman candles at people, throwing rocks at cars. I think of the incident that happened so recently in Michigan: 5 boys threw a rock off of an overpass and killed a man because of it. Those boys weren't thinking they were going to kill somebody. Those boys weren't hoping to kill somebody. The police report explained that the teens were "playing a prank." There is enough proof there to say that the boys meant no malice. They never meant to hurt anyone. But they did.

This is what happens in a world considered to be immune of racism: a color-blind teen paints his face brown on the first day of Black History month, and the superintendent of the racially insular school district says he meant no malice. There are two issues at hand with this: 1) the White majority believes that racism can only exist if and only if it is married to malice and 2) a school district that is expected to train people for the globalized world has failed to provide adequate education around a wholly domestic issue with a wholly sophisticated and tenuous past. In other words, Behm's defense of the student is the offspring of community that is so homogenous that they have never had to fathom the the experiences of people who do not look like them, nor have they felt the need to teach those experiences. And, more importantly, this ideology is reflective of the current state of our globalized world: a world that is so racially divided, that cultural experience is considered to be a moot point when a White person is still able to find the Western ideal of success despite choosing to live among other White people. What we must realize from Forest Hills response to this incident is that racism without malice is a non-issue. It's almost as if there were an invisible flow-chart that decides punishment for the White majority:

1. Did the perpetrator commit a crime that is easily proven by a court of law? (yes - go to number 5; no - go to number 2)

2. Did the perpetrator cause evident bodily harm to somebody? (yes - go to number 5; no - go to number 3)

3. Did the perpetrator cause harm to a person considered to have power and/or authority? (yes - go to number 5; no - go to number 4)

4. Did the perpetrator commit an act that could potentially to lead to the development of bad press ? (yes - go to number 5; no -go to number 6).

5. The act is considered to be an issue you and will be dealt with accordingly.

6. The act is considered a non-issue and no further action will be pursued.

While it is true that the White majority does not honor the astute feelings of a student such as Justin Manns who asked, "Have you ever not wanted to be you so you could get through the day or wished you were somebody else?" I believe that this society is reaching a turning point with the appearance of item number 4: Did the perpetrator commit an act that could potentially to lead to the development of bad press? Despite the fact that the White majority has abolished racism for the sole purpose of getting angry when they are called racists, the media is starting to pay attention when 200 people show up to a school board meeting to condemn the acts of a student who perpetuated racism despite his lack of malice. When people in the community create bad press that is based in organic feelings of hurt and despair, the community is forced to listen. This has happened with a number of local efforts related to fair housing, and the development of various housing projects on the southeast side of Grand Rapids.

The question, however, is what needs to happen for a community to find concern for a group of people that they intentionally ran from? To me, the simple answer is to keep chasing.