By Randy Marks
Cole has graciously allowed a non-runner to contribute. I ran a bit (even finished some 10k races, though never with admirable times) when I was way younger, and then I moved to a hilly town and stopped. Now I have two arthritic knees and can’t. So consider this article a race to awareness.
My first multi-cultural training was in the 1980s as an Amnesty International volunteer. We did a privilege walk (where one takes a step forward for having a privilege like being white or having educated parents and one back for the opposite). I ended up standing on a wall because I ran out of space. In the same training, I learned about target and non-target (privileged) groups.
The training triggered a couple of volunteer activists who denied their privilege because they said they weren’t “racists” (which they weren’t). What I would have wanted is for the instructors to explain that these volunteers were experiencing the moment as targets — because the instructors had the power — and that’s what Black people and other minorities experience. It took awhile for me to understand that I had unearned privilege (which we called being a non-target), even though I hadn’t intentionally committed racist acts.
Fast forward to this millennium. I’ve been a volunteer with the Mankind Project since 2005. The Mankind Project attempts to create a better world by encouraging men to discern and make choices about their unconscious beliefs. One of our seven core values is “intercultural competence.” We have offered multicultural trainings for as long as I’ve been a member. We are committed to racial justice and recently issued a statement in support of Black Lives Matters.
When I re-engaged with multicultural issues more recently, race terrified me. It felt so charged. And hopeless. And I feared hurting people. So I made (at least) two errors.
First, I came to the conclusion that the best way to approach racial issues was to work up to it. That is, start with a privilege dynamic that was less charged —e.g., income— and use it to teach the concepts of unearned privilege, micro-aggressions, etc. Then move on to race. Recently, however, I read an article about one of the giants of the Mankind Project, a Black man who led during our early days. He wrote that rather than confronting the issue of race directly, the Project “decided to ‘fix’ all the ‘-isms and issues’ all at once” and that got in the way of us figuring out how to get more Black men to participate in MKP.
Second, I came to the conclusion that only racial minorities could teach me about race. A few years ago, some local men started multi-cultural dialogues. I participated in a day-long workshop and several evening calls. When they started whites-only dialogues, I resisted, because I didn’t understand why other white men would be able to teach me anything about the experience of black men. So I never went. I was wrong. In recent dialogues, I’ve learned that I can’t put the burden of teaching me about racism on black men and other persons of color.
So I’ve been participating in a monthly group, “White Men Unraveling Racism.” I’ve learned a lot and decided I needed to figure out for myself what I need to learn about my privilege. I compiled the following list, with some help by men who have grappled with these issues far longer than me.
Privilege & Intercultural Competence Learning Goals
My privilege means that, being aware of my unconscious biases, I have a responsibility to
(1) take risks and make mistakes and learn from them.
(2) educate myself about the benefits and impact of my privilege.
(3) educate others of privilege about the benefits and impact of my privilege.
(4) hear the impact of my privilege when those that my privilege harmed choose to share about it (and refrain from asking them to do that).
(5) hold myself accountable for the impact of privilege.
(6) offer support and accountability to those who fail to recognize the impact of their privilege.
(7) learn about the way I harm others through micro-aggressions and projecting my ways on them.
(8) use my privilege and the accompanying power to speak up or otherwise intervene when I witness others harming people whom my privilege harmed.
(9) use my privilege and the accompanying power to advocate for societal change that (a) mitigates the impact of my privilege and (b) compensates those whom my privilege has harmed (e.g., by patronizing impacted businesses).
(10) be aware of my unconscious biases about potential leaders so I can use my privilege and the accompanying power to identify, support, and mentor leaders from groups that my privilege has harmed.
(11) be proud of the gifts of my culture.
(12) celebrate the gifts of others’ cultures.
(13) recognize that, when I take advantage of my privilege (to the exclusion of others), I am actively participating in systemic racism.
(14) acknowledge the cost of privilege on my being/soul.
(15) be prepared to follow the lead of those who lack privilege.
Randy Marks met Cole through Couchsurfing.com, when he hosted him at his Takoma Park, Maryland home (just outside of Washington DC). Randy was an antitrust attorney for the US Federal Trade Commission for over three decades and is now retired. He spends his time reading, traveling (at least before the virus), and volunteering for the Mankind Project and St Mark’s Episcopal Church.
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