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Transcripts of First Organizional Meeting of the Unfair Campaign against Racism

Chairman of the Board: The goal of our organization is to get people to speak more honestly about race in America; to encourage an honest dialogue and understanding between the races.

Major Funder:  Great! I move that we encourage people to talk honestly about race by placing dozens of billboards in the Duluth area telling white people that they are ignorant of the effects of racism, incapable of seeing racism where it exists and, therefore, that their opinions about racism are presumptively uninformed, unreliable and not to be taken seriously.”

Chairman of the Board: Excellent, Mr. Funder. I can’t think of a better way to open up the lines of communication and bring white folks to the table. I enthusiastically second the motion.

Suppose I decided, in the interest of provoking an honest and sincere debate about racism in America, to place this billboard in various locations in Orlando, Florida:

What do you think? Is it offensive to blacks? Is it racist in itself? I think  the answer is obvious. It is both offensive to black people and racist.

Now here is a billboard that has actually appeared in Duluth, Minnesota:

The Unfair Campaign wants you to think that it is opposed to racism, but in reality, as this sign, and others like it, prove, what it really wants is to make white people in power relinquish some of that power to black people. Much like those White Privilege and African American studies courses currently running rampant in American universities, this is an attempt at indoctrination. Nothing more and nothing less.

What this sign says is that white people, because they cannot see racism, have nothing to add to the conversation about racism and, therefore, should do whatever black groups say must be done to combat racism. The campaign reminds me of those pro-abortion campaigns that claimed that men have no right to opine on the issue of abortion because they don’t know what it’s like to be pregnant or give birth to a child. At bottom it is simply an effort to shut people up, rather than to create an honest dialogue.

Garbage like this divides rather than unites Americans. Then again that might be what it is designed to do. It masquerades¹ as something noble, the opposition to racism, while fomenting the very thing it purports to oppose, racism. Machiavelli would be proud

If I were a black man, I would be outraged by this. All it will do is create a backlash among struggling white people whose experiences have not been one of advantage and privilege and who resent being told that they are somehow the cause of other people’s disadvantage.

Using Unfair Campaign’s definition of social blindness, here are a few other things black people cannot see:

1. Black people cannot see what it’s like to be white;
2. Black people cannot see white privilege (they haven’t experienced it so how the hell can they see it?);
3. Black people cannot see what it’s like to be white and poor and accused of being privileged;
4. Black people cannot see what it’s like to be part of a racial majority;
5. Black people cannot see anti-Hispanic racism;
6. Black people cannot see anti-Asian racism; and
7. Black people cannot see what it’s like to be unfairly accused of racism.

Utter and complete nonsense.

Footnotes:

¹  Here is the Unfair Campaign’s mission statement. It is posted on its website next to a picture of a very white young lady with, among other things, a tatoo splashed on her forehead that says “Is white skin really fair?”

Racism is an issue that we don’t like talking about. The Un-Fair Campaign was developed to look at racism and to encourage a community dialogue about the causes and solutions.

Racism is a complex social issue and depending upon what you see as the causes of racism you have ideas about the solutions.

We invite you to spend time on this website and to ask yourself how you may be part of the problem as well as part of the solution.

See it.  Know it. Stop it.

If this wasn’t so insidious, it would be comical. The Unfair Campaign claims that it is inviting white people to talk honestly about racism and express their ideas about solutions to racism. And what is the method it has chosen to encourage white people to participate in the dialogue? Placing huge billboards around the city telling them that because they have white skin they are, by definition, ignorant of racism.

Obviously the Unfair Campaign organizers don’t want ignorant, uninformed and socially blind white people to come to the table so they can hear their ignorant views about race? That simply makes no sense. What they want is white people to come to the table so they can indoctrinate them with their enlightened and educated views about race, racism and white privilege.

What the Unfair Campaign folks are trying to provoke is not an honest and open discussion about race and racism, but rather, a concession from white people that they, themselves, are racist; that they, themselves, merely be virtue of being white, are privileged to the unremediable disadvantage of those who are black or brown; and that they, if they dare disagree with what black and brown people say about racism, do so only because they are either racist or simply incapable of seeing racism.

²  If you find these billboards and what they attempt to do vile and repugnant, you might want to think twice before you do business with or make donations to any of the following organizations who have signed on as partners:

• Central Labor Body:  www.laborworld.org/clb_home.htm
• CHUM (Churches United In Ministry): www.chumduluth.org
• City of Duluth (Mayor’s Office, Human Rights Commision, American Indian Commision) http://www.duluthmn.gov/
• Clayton, Jackson, McGhie Memorial Inc.:  www.claytonjacksonmcghie.org
• Community Action Duluth:  www.communityactionduluth.org
• Domestic Abuse Intervention Project:  www.theduluthmodel.org
• Lake Superior College:  www.lsc.edu
• Life House:  www.lifehouseduluth.org
• NAACP:  www.naacp.org
• St. Louis County Public Health and Human Services:  www.stlouiscountymn.gov
• University of Minnesota Duluth:  www.d.umn.edu
• University of Wisconsin Superior:  www.uwsuper.edu
• YWCA:  www.ywcaduluth.org

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