Over the past few weeks, I’ve felt that something crucial has been missing from our conversations about race. It’s hard to believe that not even two months have elapsed since the grand jury decisions regarding the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner were released. Within such a short time, waves of dissent have ravaged the American conscience with storms of a highly charged racial discourse. Often lost amid this whirlwind of passions, however, is the opportunity for us to discuss the more fundamental issue that is being engaged, but not directly addressed, in our language.
The fact is that our conversations about race are, at their core, not about race. Whether we realize it or not, we are adopting race as a metaphor in these conversations to represent something deeper that most of us don’t yet know how to express.
Of course, the pain and resentment brought upon many of us by racial oppression are clearly not figurative expressions—they are real, agonizingly and unbearably real. Cases such as those of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and countless others strike daggers directly into the heart of different communities because similar wounds have already been festering for centuries. Seeping silently like poison through generations of suffering and separation, scars such as these inscribe themselves harshly into the spirit and haunt the human psyche with an eternal burden.
With each life that is taken, old scars of the soul bleed into new scars of the skin. People may argue over whether these shootings were justified, but none should deny how the pain wrought by such death can bring scathing memories of suffering back to life. Indeed, for me nothing is more tragic than witnessing how perhaps the most superficial of our features could inflict upon us the most profound of our hurts.
What I believe to be counterproductive in our discussion on race is our selective emphasis on race itself. After all, as any anthropologist would explain, race itself doesn’t exist outside of our culturally constructed schemas. It is illusory, imaginary, a fiction whose identity has been molded arbitrarily by the whims of people. Yet somehow this fabrication has acquired enough power to effect the dehumanization, exploitation, and death of billions throughout history.
It’s time for us to strip this myth of its control over our narratives. There are entire dimensions surrounding racial issues that remain isolated from our dialogue because of our singular fixation with skin color. In obsessing over the signifier we have lost sight of the signified—the meaning behind the symbol we see. So first we must recognize race as but a visible metaphor for a deeper, invisible reality.
Skin color is the means, not the subject, by which we are navigating the more fundamental, raw concerns of our existence, especially those of hurt and resentment. But what forces us again and again to revert to physical terms like race is our lack of words to convey the unique pain of our experiences. When we’re not equipped with a way to express the complexity of our turmoil to others, we resort to tangible symbols such as skin tone to represent visibly what we’re feeling internally.
Our vocabulary for race serves as a coded language to convey our concealed emotions. If a person speaks out indignantly against what she sees as racism, these words point to more than just her skin color—they are an implicit attempt to communicate an honest message of hurt and despair. Beneath the surface, protestors who boldly demand justice for black bodies are also sending out silent cries for empathy into the world, hoping that someone, somewhere, may resonate with their pain. Rather than dismissing such appeals as trivial hypersensitivities, what if we were to listen intentionally for these hidden entreaties and respond to them with compassion?
To be acknowledged, understood and valued—even when we don’t have words to express what we’re feeling—these are desires shared by all of us, as my little five-year-old cousin often reminds me. At times when he’s feeling nervous or bewildered by something strange, he doesn’t always tell me so directly. Instead, he tries hiding himself in my arms while whispering, “I’m tired.” He may not say it out loud, but I know what he wants is for me to carry him and let him know I’m there. In these moments, his words are more than just words. Beyond their denoted meaning, they are seekers of love and consolation in an unforgiving world of disarray. And I can think of no other response than to offer all of myself to him, not because he’s my cousin but simply because he is a human being.
In many ways, race has estranged us from our neighbors by having us believe our experiences are too different to be shared. Yet each of us knows, to some extent, what it’s like to feel hurt—how can there be hatred among those who all know pain? I believe that mutual resentment is engendered only when we fail to recognize and resonate with the human emotions hidden behind the brows of our sisters and brothers. We owe each other more than just a conversation confined to our skin—so while it may hurt even more to express what can never be expressed, I feel that such vulnerability holds the key to reconciling our broken world.
This weekend, as we remind ourselves of the ideals of Dr. King, along with innumerable others who have similarly aspired for a more accountable world, I hope we may begin searching intentionally for the invisible underneath the visible, for the human emotion of which race is merely a manifestation. And perhaps the day will soon come when our skin serves no longer as a mask, but as an honest expression of the faces we hold dear.
Chris Lee is a Trinity junior. This is his first column of the semester.
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