YOU’RE A RACIST
Nate Fish
The following is an excerpt from “You’re A Racist: Thoughts on Race in America” (Brick of Gold Publishing) by Nate Fish, released Feb. 1, 2021.
When I was 12, my family moved from New England to Cleveland, Ohio. Until then, I had very little contact with black kids. It was 1992, before the internet, before everything, for me, at least. I walked into my first day of sixth grade unprepared for my new world. The kids talked fast and dressed in bright colors and new shoes. Why was the girls’ hair so fancy? They were like little adults, and I was still a child, wearing a grey sweatsuit with messy hair. That day, the lights of my world turned on. That was thirty years ago. I’ve been fascinated with race in America ever since.
Back in New England, we were the only Jews, and we didn’t have money. We were outsiders looking in on mainstream American culture. We didn’t really want in, nor would we be allowed even if we did. My mom, the moral head of our household, had been involved in the Women’s Liberation and Civil Rights Movements. The cornerstone of ethics in our family was the fight for equality for women and blacks and other minorities, though, ironically, we had very little exposure to diversity, besides ourselves. But I had a valuable theoretical foundation for respecting other cultures before ever encountering them, which turned out to be important in my new world.
The town was called Shaker Heights. It was supposed to be a model for diversity, and it was, in a way. There were white kids, black kids, Asian kids, and Jews. In New England, I was the best basketball player in the town. I thought I was going to the NBA. In Cleveland, I tried out for our sixth grade team and realized I was not. Amazingly, I made the team. There were two white kids, me and Mike Gross, another Jew. I got new shoes, black Air Force Barkley 180s (fresh), and started adapting to my new world. After practices, our parents carpooled us home to the different neighborhoods of Shaker. Some streets were long tree-lined boulevards of tudor mansions. Others were dark mazes of brick apartment buildings. It was hard to believe it was all the same town.
The cafeteria at our high school was shaped like an L. The black kids sat on one side. The white kids on the other. There were two wings on the school. The black kids entered and exited through one, and the white kids through the other. Self selecting segregation. We had a little group called the Student Group on Race Relations. We had meetings and went into the elementary schools to talk about race. In the 90’s, during the Rodney King Riots and the OJ Simpson Trial, sometimes the talks escalated to tears. We sat in the same classes, listened to the same music, played on the same teams, dated one another, and, in many ways, shared life — my backyard was a hangout for black and white kids with the universal interests of skipping class and smoking weed, for example, but it became increasingly clear we were living in different worlds. Me and Mike Gross both went on to play college sports, while one of our teammates from the sixth grade team, Jelani Dukes, was shot and killed when he was twenty-four, and another, Mike Jones, maybe the most talented kid on the team, was sentenced to life in prison. These were the divergent possible outcomes of life in Shaker Heights.
After high-school, we went into the world to meet other young people who had not grown up in multicultural communities, realizing how much Shaker actually was the model of diversity we always heard about. After college, I moved to New York to become an artist and started coaching baseball. I read and wrote about ideas of race and identity in America and made visual art about it as well. Eventually, I lived in Germany, Israel, and Uganda.
In Germany, I faced my own cultural traumas, visiting Dachau and other camps. In Israel, I started a program for Jewish-Israeli and Arab-Israeli kids to play baseball together. In Uganda, I helped run a school for nearly 200 kids a generation after civil war swept through the country. Themes of race and identity and conflict followed me, or I followed them. I did not have the sense that I was seeking these opportunities — I was just a coach — but I continued thinking about and writing about and painting about identity and poverty and justice. Now, I own Brick of Gold Publishing. We publish writing from prison and my work and anything we think gives voice to the voiceless and opposes conventional wisdom.
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the country erupted. It’s happened before. After Eric Garner. After Michael Brown. How many times? But this time, it’s been different. It’s bigger, riots in all fifty states and around the world. And it’s lasted for weeks. We’re staying on topic, even as the movement twists and splinters as new information comes out. Everyone has an angle. Some people have a sense of ownership of the movement, but criticize late arrivers. Some take to social media, but are ridiculed for not doing more. Corporations work for days crafting the perfect statement, placing themselves on the right side of history. Things are getting done — real things. Laws. People examining their own privilege. And ideas about a whole new approach to public health and public safety are surfacing for the first time. But, internally, things are devolving. People are protesting the protests. The sounds of the protest, or rather the many different protests, are drowning out the sadness of Floyd’s death that should remain at the center. As a reaction to all the noise, and to sort out my ideas on the topic, I wrote this.
I am not a scholar or an expert. I am just someone who has been thinking about these things for a long time. These somewhat random notes are simply reflections of my lifelong inner struggle to understand myself and my country in the weeks following George Floyd’s killing, something we’ve all been doing. Personal statements or memories appear in bold text. Philosophical statements and questions are in regular font. Some contradict one another, I know. All, to me, are sensible.
I believe we all have equal access and equal responsibility to the conversation. I hope this sparks some good ones for you.
THOUGHTS
-Maybe racism in America is important because of its symbolic power, like if we can figure this out we can figure everything out. The same way Israel represents all religious conflict, racism in America is the cornerstone issue for all racism. If America finally treats black people well, it by default means treating Mexican-Americans, Asian-Americans, women, and everyone else well too.
-Once, in Israel, I was waiting in line for coffee, and this Israeli guy said to me, “Are you a nigger?” because of how I dress, I presume. I had never been asked before. How does one answer such a question? — Especially if one is not black and in a foreign country and talking to someone who clearly doesn’t even understand what they’re asking. I said, “Yes. I am a well read and well traveled man, so yes. I suppose I am.” It seemed as reasonable an answer as “no”. The internationalization of the word “nigga” is an interesting thing. People all over the world use it now, even in places where there are no black folks, especially there.
-Pain is the common ground. Healing doesn’t happen when one group identifies as privileged and one as oppressed. It happens when everyone admits that they’re hurt, and shared pain is recognized in one another.
-The same things happen in the black and white communities. People have sex. People do drugs. But they are understood completely differently. For white people, these things are recognized milestones of a healthy personal life, just having fun. For black people, they are considered dangerous and criminal. Think about that.
-Once, in Jerusalem, I was sitting around a table with an Israeli guy who ran trips for religious leaders in Israel and a group of ministers from Chicago. It was around when gun violence in Chicago was at its peak, 2014 or ’15. One of the ministers asked, “Does Israel have race problems?” The Israeli guy answered, “Nooooo. Not really.” and told a story about how well the Ethiopian kids run and jump. We started laughing, me and the ministers, because as Americans we knew damn well there is a race relation problem in Israel. It’s becoming a modern symbol of apartheid and there were 80,000 African immigrants living by my house at the bus station in Jaffa. I think the minister just asked to see what the guy would say. To us, it was preposterous to say there wasn’t a race problem in Israel. To the Israeli guy, there really wasn’t.
-Feelings about a person because of how they look are malleable. They can be learned and unlearned.
-We don’t make decisions based on information. We make them based on feelings. The battleground of racism is not data. It is the heart.
-I am a baseball player and coach, so I was surrounded by white conservative Christians my whole life. I was usually the first Jew they had met. But they were my teammates and friends and we had common ground because of baseball. I changed a lot of them. At first, I didn’t realize I was doing it. I was just being myself. But eventually I knew how and when it was going to happen. I loved them first, truly, regardless of what they thought or said. Once we established that love, it just happened. My ideas rubbed off on them. And in some cases, their ideas changed me too. The love has to come first, then the change.
-We all think of ourselves as good people. But is that true? Can you be a good person and not fight injustice? Is it better to be a good person or an enemy of the state?
-There are layers to this shit. There’s the crazy racist who openly hates others because of their race or religion. He is easy to deal with and there aren’t that many of them. Then there’s the casual racist who holds some private prejudices they may share with their circles or family and carry out in daily life. They are harder to identify. Then there is the passive racist who simply lives in and benefits from a racist system. They do not see or admit their own racial biases or the systemic inequality all around them. They are hardest to spot and to change, and there are millions of them.
-It sounds crazy, but in Uganda, I kind of felt like the blackest person because my idea of blackness is totally connected to African-American culture.
-Would it be possible in America today to galvanize a popular movement on the equal treatment of Hispanic or Asian Americans?
-It is ultimately about whether you truly feel about the Jew, the Arab woman, the gay man, the sick, the black man, in the deepest sense, the truth. That we are the same.
-Racism is hatred, self hatred. It can be cured with love.
-Racism and other extreme beliefs of hatred are byproducts of personal unhappiness. They fill a void left by feelings of inferiority and shame and isolation. Before it is a systemic problem, it is and always has been a personal problem. Racism, in this way, is not about race. It is about a lacking sense of self-satisfaction and wholeness.
-Racist doctrines and their leaders prey on insecure individuals. Emotional security, not an abstract concept of equality, is the answer.
-Conservatism breeds misery.
-Racism is not about race.
-Does the black community really want to be held to the standards they’re proposing when it comes to their own understanding and treatment of, say, the gay or Asian-American community? You lose the moral high ground of the oppressed when you get the power you always wanted.
-Our beliefs are delusions.
-Race in America is a problem partly because we choose to acknowledge and confront it. Racism is not unique to America. It is the standard everywhere. But racism in America is uniquely detailed. We should be both proud and ashamed of that.
-The story of African-Americans is not a story of failure. It is a story of success. Let’s not forget that. Imagine if someone was taken from their family, enslaved, and beaten, and grew up to be a relatively happy person. We would marvel at their strength.
-When I moved home from Israel, one day, I was down by the courthouse on Adams Street in Downtown Brooklyn and there were black lawyers, white lawyers, black cops, white cops, coming and going from the courthouse. I was proud of America. There weren’t any black lawyers in Israel. Odds are stacked here, but, bottom line, in America, anyone can achieve anything.
-Think of the collective as an individual organism. Groups need the same things as individuals to be healthy.
-Racism, in a way, is natural. Overcoming racism, like Buddhism and other disciplines, is about overcoming that nature. And it is a similarly worthy and rewarding pursuit.
-It is not original or controversial, but it is true, to say that America has never truly come to terms with the fact that we are a country founded on the genocide of one group and the enslavement of another and that our current reality is just a continuation of that history. It is impossible for us to truly acknowledge on an emotional level because it would contradict our grand delusion that we are good.
-My identity is interesting for a couple reasons. In some ways, I enjoy privilege. I am brown, but basically pass the eye test. Besides that, I do not identify in any way as privileged or as what is widely considered a “white person.” I am a member of a hated minority, and I’ve never had any money, a combination that can make anyone feel unprivileged. So it’s weird to be cast as “white” or “privileged” when my identity has always been based on the understanding that I am a target of racism, that many people will not like me just because I am Jewish.
-It’s funny to oppose your country and at the same time love where you are from.
-Whether we want it to or not, cultures will continue to be blended and borrowed and combined. It is beyond our control. And that’s a good thing.
-My boy Max said, “What if we dealt with racism as a mental health issue and put people into treatment for it?” It’s kind of a good idea. Racist rehab.
-America didn’t invent racism, but we kinda did though.
-I feel more comfortable talking with black people about racism than with white people. My racial sensibilities are typically more often aligned with theirs. Like, we laugh at the same shit.
-Racism and nationalism are intertwined. It’s hard to be patriotic and not have negative feelings about minorities. Your country’s founding culture is threatened by their existence. It’s one of the inherent flaws in the idea of nations. They promote racism. To not be racist is also to not be protective of the culture of your day, which is hard. You must want to let go of it or destroy it altogether which most people are not willing to do. To truly not be racist you have to not care about your culture and your country and even your own comfort, in a way.
-There is no such thing as a good country.
-Multi-cultural diversity is not natural. It presents a million beautiful challenges.
-It is amazing to see what dialogue can do. Conversations can completely transform people.
-There is no such thing as equality.
-There is not one America. There are many, existing side by side, all the time.
-In some ways, your feelings about race define who you are because, more than any other single topic, they beg your entire worldview. If you are unaware or do not care about racial justice issues, for example, you likely also do not care about other major injustices or the layers of your own mental imprisonment.
-It is about sadness, acknowledging the sadness of others, and sharing it with them, because you love them, because you love yourself, because we are the same. Sadness is the super-power.
-When I was little, we took a trip to New York. I remember watching a pick-up basketball game. One of the guys dunked the ball. I was amazed. I thought only NBA players could dunk. My dad is from the Bronx. He will talk to anyone. After the game, he took me up to the guy who dunked and said I was impressed. The guys looked down at me and said, “With ease, Little Man. With ease.” It is my only recollection of exposure to a black person before we moved to Cleveland.
-Is our obsession with race just another self centered delusion? As we obsess on our American story, there are wars and conflicts happening all over the world we, to varying degrees, are not even aware of. Is that OK? Do we understand social justice in America in the context of international politics? Do we consider the suffering of people in other countries as legitimate as our own?
-Want to feel good about America? Live in a more fucked up country. There are plenty of them.
-I’ve never felt more American then when I am living somewhere else. I am, in the end, totally American.
-When we share pain it turns into love. It’s fucking magic.
-The act of examining and admitting your privilege is just another act of privilege.
-People ask me if it was scary when they find out I lived in Germany and Israel and Uganda. Germany was ground zero for the worst atrocity of the 20th century. Israel was and is, at times, basically a war zone. And Uganda was and is ravaged by poverty and war. It’s a funny question because America is more dangerous than all three.
-Progress is regress. We are not moving closer to the solution. We are moving further from it, moving further from the center, away from the beginning, towards the end, always.
-It’s been said before, many different ways, but it’s true, the people who caused the problems can’t also fix them. There is no such thing as reform. Destroy the system.
-Are biracial people disproportionately involved in social justice movements? If so, why?
-I think a lot of people interested in social justice had a formative experience involving race in their early teens.
-Have you truly acknowledged in yourself what it means to extend equal value and equal rights to everyone? — Everyone.
-Are you really prepared for society to be reorganized? Are you willing to sacrifice your position in society for others? If you are, that is amazing.
-For this to work, justice has to be more important to you than your own comfort. And that’s not a thing for most people no matter how much they talk about it.
-When other people are as important to you as you are, everything changes, everything works. It’s a simple concept that we do not understand at all.
-I kind of think I am black, which is not OK. To be clear, I am not.
-You cannot possibly have an accurate understanding of American History and support it and consider yourself a good person.
-America can never deliver on its original promise of total equality and total freedom, nor should we expect it to. Those things do not exist in the context of countries. Countries are divided into hierarchies to be used for their capital interests. Freedom and equality are not things a country can give you. They are things we give ourselves and each other.
-Jews are in a funny spot. The right doesn’t want us because, well, they just don’t — they’re a conservative christian club. And the left doesn’t want us because we are viewed as privileged, and, in the context of Israel, as an oppressor. So no one wants us, like always. Another uprising of hatred and violence towards Jews is not only possible, it is likely. And if it is avoided, it will not be because anyone cared about us, but because we are indispensable and finally strong enough to defend ourselves.
-In college, my poetry teacher said, “What makes us interesting is not how different we are, but how similar we are.” I thought it was bullshit. I was into the little things that make us different. But he was right. We have much more in common than not.
-There is no such thing as countries or human rights. We made it all up. None of it is dictated by nature in any way. We drew these imaginary borders and lines of acceptability. The struggle is moving them, constantly, to represent our collective version of what is okay and what is not. It is largely a battle of ideas.
-Every society has a power structure. Some benefit from it and want to protect it. Others suffer because of it and want to change it. Is this a massive failure, or unavoidable?
-We don’t all have the same experiences. But we have the same emotions. This is where there is common ground. Everyone has pain. Everyone has love. No matter how tragic or trivial.
-A lot of my sensitivity towards social justice issues comes from receiving probably too much holocaust education too early. I was thinking and crying about discrimination and the monstrous potential of mankind when I was eight years old. I got to flex those muscles early and decided that I would fight.
-It’s hard to imagine Jews as oppressed because we’ve grown up in a window of history where we’ve been allowed to live and prosper in America. But even the phrase, “allowed to live” suggests something about history and power dynamics.
-Racism is about stupidity. People are drawn to racist doctrines because they cannot handle the complexity of the world and it empowers them and provides them an easy-to-understand worldview.
-Inequalities in the major institutions of America are so glaring they cannot logically be denied.
-There is no reason we can’t live together and know each other as brothers and sisters. That goes for blacks and whites, Jews and Arabs. It starts with personal healing and leads to a more harmonious society. It can be a reality if we just commit to it. It is almost that simple.
-I would rather be a white person in an all black crowd than a black person in an all white crowd.
-Once, when I was 16, I got arrested for buying beer in Cleveland. The police officer put his gun to my head. He was trying to scare me. And it worked.
-Listen to Bob Marley. Listen to Curtis.
-I hate the police. But I do not hate police. I hate the government of America. They have horribly misled us all. But I do not hate America. I disagree with almost everything. But I do not hate anyone.
-If you are racist, you are a victim of bad feeling and bad information. It’s ok to admit that. Like child abusers and violent criminals, racists are victims first. No one with enough love for themselves is racist.
-The militarization of the police is based on this crazy idea that we are headed for massive conflict when we’re not, and if we are, it’s because they’ve imagined it into existence.
-It’s funny when when people talk about a civil war in America. Between who? The left and the right while the military watches? Between a grassroots militia and the US Army? There is no military option, which is probably a good thing. We just have to change peoples’ minds.
-You are a victim of people who have been feeding you bullshit for a long time. And they are victims of those who came before them. Deal with that fact, then fight back. It’s not okay. End the cycle. Make a new way.
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