Under Our Skin – Reflection 9

Photo Credit: Úrsula Madariaga

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal… you know, when they said ‘all men,’ they weren’t talking about all men.”

Jerrell Davis, a participant in the Seattle Times’ ‘Under Our Skin’ project, acknowledges a very uncomfortable truth. Institutionalized racism is real, heavily prevalent and extremely damaging – yet conversations about race remain scarce and little has been done to solve the problem.

‘Under Our Skin’ examines some of the intricacies of the problem with bringing up the conversation of race in the United States. It features the perspectives of a diverse cast of participants on a handful of terms, including ‘all lives matter,’ ‘white privilege’ and ‘microaggression.’

The term I was drawn to interact with first on the project website was ‘person of color.’ As a student journalist, I have always wondered about this term. I see it frequently used in news pieces from many sources and have used it myself in the past – but recently I have heard backlash against it, so I wanted to see what was said.

The words of the project’s participants both surprised and changed my mind about this term. In the past, I – among, I suspect, a lot of other white journalists and people alike – saw the term as inclusive and a ‘safe’ word to use. As a white journalist, I am hesitant to use terms like ‘African-American’ or even just ‘black’ to describe someone because I don’t know their experience – I’m white.

It feels wrong to try to ‘categorize’ someone, especially when you are writing from a place of privilege like I am. That was why I felt okay using ‘person of color’ in the past – I thought it was inclusive and I had seen it used in an ’empowering’ way by users on Twitter and Tumblr.

‘Under Our Skin’ changed my mind. As the participants explained that the term essentially boxes in all races except white together, I realized how damaging that term actually could be. Why is white considered a default? Boxing every single race on the planet besides white into ‘people of color’ assigns the term sort of a ‘lesser than’ meaning, and I really don’t like that. People in the video mentioned that it simplifies complicated issues into just mass ‘racism,’ and I realized this is true. I decided I don’t want to use this term anymore.

The other terms invoked similar feelings of surprise and a desire to have more conversation about these issues. The discussions of ‘all lives matter’ were particularly interesting to me.

I was already skeptical of those who use ‘all lives matter’ as a response to ‘black lives matter;’ it is a dismissive way of denying cries for help and refusing to talk about racism. The discussion of the phrase in ‘Under Our Skin’ demonstrated the truth of this – and gave me more insight into why it is such a damaging response.

“I can’t believe that anyone who responds to ‘black lives matter’ with ‘all lives matter’ believes that all lives matter. If you truly believed that all lives matter, you’d be protesting with us,” said Jerrell Davis.

That sentence made me realize how important this project is, as well as other movements that acknowledge the difficulty we have talking about race in the United States. There is a fundamental misunderstanding and desire to avoid addressing racial inequality here.

The first step to overcoming this hurdle is learning – and more importantly, listening to voices different than our own.