Attention Is Not Action

In the movie “Home Fries,” Catherine O’Hara plays a supposedly grieving widow who has lost her husband twice, through adultery and through death. In the movie, she is constantly crying, which magically stops when attention is not focused on her. Because of those tears, her sons are inspired to attempt to murder the second party to the affair, who is still alive. Towards the end, Luke Wilson’s character finally sees the light and calls out her inauthenticity, leading his brother to surrender and renege on any promises of vengeance. Authenticity is a huge problem in this country regarding racism. There have been a lot of words, a lot of tears that have been shed, a lot of marches, and a lot of songs and art. Despite the fervor and the passion that we observed this summer, very little has been done.

Antiracism has been overshadowed by the need for attention, which I have previously discussed. People are constantly working to “do right” while getting credit, and as long as people need attention for doing the right thing, they rationalize injustice. Expecting accolades and validation for treating others like human beings means that without the “right” audience, atrocities occur. Those who perpetuate injustice should feel shame for a regular practice of abuse. Regardless, there seems to be no sense of remorse for having done the wrong thing, and no universal sense of compassion, as society has demonstrated throughout this year.

Ostensibly practicing antiracism lacks integrity. For example, the main tech giants spent millions of dollars to supposedly study injustice within their own firms. Unsurprisingly, their firms discovered, “Yeah, there is racism,” and then proceeded not to hold themselves accountable. What good was the display of money to investigate injustice? That is no different from billionaires spending millions of dollars to study homelessness, when in fact they could have cured homelessness by not needing to hoard billions.

Failure to recognize how behavior perpetuates injustice is why injustice persists. Since racist practices have been infused into all inner workings of United States society, demanding credit for antiracism exacerbates the problem. There is a barrage of toxic positivity commanding all Black and brown people to get over their “sad feelings” of not being able to close doors, feed themselves, and survive. However, there is not any acknowledgement that most of those jobs, homes, and circumstances have been put in place by people who benefit from those systems being in place.

Reality says that one cannot solve a problem if one does not see a problem. Many (<<<<<<NOT ALL, so repeat as many times as possible) White people do not see racism as a problem because it allows relentless autonomy, very low impulse control, public correction of Black and brown people without any censure, and authority to punish people who attempt to hold them accountable for such behavior. If never-ending autonomy is “rational,” there is no problem and there is nothing to fix, which means that racism never gets addressed.

One of the harshest barriers to interracial relations in the United States is trust. There is a difference between being honest and projecting one’s expectations onto other people. No Black or brown person is inherently required to attend to the expectations of strangers. Yet and still, many (<<<<<<NOT ALL, so repeat as many times as possible) White people feel empowered to tell Black and brown people to fix behaviors, emotions and responses to suit the paradigm of the dominant narrative. (Is it annoying that I did that twice? Imagine how stressful it is that people need me to do it at all, and I can never be sure who does or does not.) For this reason, most Black and brown people lack trust, as is beautifully detailed in these recent essays.

For this reason, agendas like reparations will be difficult; reparations could be viewed as gifts, and gifts are seen as control to Black and brown people. No trust can develop when the paradigm is that White people are in control, and Black and brown people should be grateful. Under too many circumstances, receiving a gift means an obligation, including voting, school attendance, or demanding that we start businesses — especially with the acceptability of bankrupting or burning down non-White businesses. White people, by and large, do not live around Black and brown people, and have successfully created zoning, construction and development that allows them to be segregated. Ironically, segregation is how pollution is justified, because most waste is put in Black and brown neighborhoods. After all, who cares that Elon Musk helped facilitate a coup when “everyone” wants a Tesla? No one trusts people who think like that.

There is no recognition that systems are actually harmful. Most construction and new development is presented as beautiful PDFs with wonderful stock photos of non-White people. Site plans fail to include how the working class currently living in that neighborhood will get pushed out by rising rent due to the “entitlement” to more and more money. The dominant narrative does not show that Black and Brown students are portrayed as “discipline problems” and “idiots,” which is why their schools can be shut down at any moment. The failure to acknowledge problems promotes the status quo, which is one of the reasons why too many people are still so desperate to rush back to normal. During this year, there was no acknowledgement that “normal” was actually toxic for the entire population. In fact, reality exposed that feeding into pathological insatiability fails to cure pathological insatiability.

One cannot both believe that racism is improving and that one should be honored for being antiracist. If there is no racism, there are no awards for being “an outlier” for participating in antiracism. If race relations have improved, there is no need to validate a need for attention on such issues. If everything is “better” when mostly White people are in charge, then there is no need for the Nobel Peace Prize. Because of how economies have worked worldwide — which includes colonialism and its remnants — too many people feel that White people should be in charge, despite the global population not being predominantly White.

Adhering to racist systems while declaring that one is antiracist is hypocritical. Once the problems are obvious, people should be rectifying the issues, not rationalizing why racist systems still need to be in place. Only abusive people refuse to acknowledge that people are in pain. Saying that incremental change is more important than making sweeping change enables abuse. Instead of seeing “baby steps” as some kind of paragon of productivity, people need to acknowledge that others will starve, die and be homeless until “leaders” feel like changing policies like the occupancy ordinance, standardized tests, and textbooks that glorify colonialism. No policies actually need to take that long, but moneyed parties have vested interests (pun intended) in making sure that these systems continue. As long as we continue focusing on what the moneyed elite have in mind, we could care less about the good of society.

Rewarding people for talking is socially immature, and teaches people that they only need to find the right words to validate atrocious behavior. For example, saying that charter schools are better because “public school students are stupid thugs” is racist. Everyone knows that mindset is racist. There are a number of different authors who have already clarified that people are speaking in code. However, for some reason, people still want to discuss how private and charter schools run by profiteers are “more effective” at shaping “leaders.” The time has come to stop allowing people credit for speaking and saying nice words. Lies are lies, make no sense, and detract from seeking the truth. Truth is awe-inspiring, not because reality is always beautiful, but because acting and responding to reality could be beautiful.

Because too many people are comfortable with yelling at the oppressed to find solutions instead of “whining,” here are several. First of all, when Black and brown people go to meetings, we need to stop filling the silence when no concrete action has occurred or been planned. Black and brown people need to stop clapping for crumbs when people are telling us that they just want to talk about racism. Too many want to be praised for saying words, and they lack the will to promote actions that inspire change. Several people enjoy “studying racism” while going home to their suburbs; they do it all the time. People can claim to care about oppressed people, but as long as the same types of people are always in power, then that “concern” means nothing. We need to stop responding when we receive vacuous smiles; instead, we need to start giving blank stares and letting rooms go silent. After all, everyone is tired of the meetings involving three phrases spoken in a loop: 1) “Things are bad”; 2) “Something needs to be done”; and 3) “Things are particularly bad for Black and brown people.” Nobody needs to have these realities validated any further.

Secondly, people need to stop rewarding antiracism. There should be no Nobel Peace Prize, no antiracism prizes, and no “equity” awards. Doing the right thing for praise means it was only done for the praise. We can all see the results of all the cities that got all of the attention for supposedly caring about segregation, income inequality, and police brutality: they could care less. No one has to go into in-depth studies because those cities were given an opportunity and an election cycle this year to enact ballot plans that specifically addressed racial injustice, police brutality, and income inequality — they chose not to do so. More insidiously, they chose do nothing while saying words, kneeling on Instagram, and make big shows of themselves. A male peacock looks amazing when it spreads its tail feathers, but such actions alone will not secure a mate. If people avoid progress unless they get praise, their fervor is nothing more than a combination of dramatic acts. If a commitment to justice lasts as long as a cellphone battery stays charged to share images, what substance does it have?

Thirdly, White people need to stop asking people who were told never to ask for anything what can be done to fix the problems. Black and brown people have been conditioned to keep our heads down, and our mouths shut. Do we do that all the time? Absolutely not, but that is what we have been conditioned to do, especially Black and brown people who were nurtured in racially integrated spaces. We are consistently threatened with retaliation for asking for any improvements. If any Black or brown person has mentioned problematic behavior and received retaliation, it is time for those accepted by the dominant narrative to develop self-awareness, and consider what can be done to fix the problem. Stop asking the people upon whom trauma is inflicted for validation and answers.

Fourthly, society needs to stop worshiping conversations among the elite. Continuing to praise the elite for the “courageous conversation” taking place or for “saying truth to power” is moronic. Quite frankly, most power should be removed, diminished, or altered in such a way that it does not get to instill its authority in oppressive ways. It is no longer interesting to give microphones to people who have already been approved by the dominant narrative. They always talk and they never do anything. “Leaders” will talk themselves blue in the face, stay over weekends, make tweets, talk to reporters, etc., and do absolutely nothing to address any issues. Conversations among the elite are worthless because the elite want to stay elite. Change will knock them off their pedestal. The conference/panel/discussion circus needs to end; either do something, or shut up.

Finally, there needs to be accountability. The myth that everybody just gets to do whatever — while the world is forced to emotionally adjust — is irrational, and feeds insanity and toxic personalities. There are no consequences in the wings for all of the damage that was done by the abuse of destructive people who are in Washington, DC. None of them. All the platitudes poems in the world are not going to make up for the damage that these horrendous people have wrought on the rest of the world. The notion that “important people” will change society for the better is ludicrous. Why do people become financially abused? Because those who financially abused people have no consequences, and fees are calculated into business models. Shunning is not a consequence, because it obscures the pain felt by the public. Continuing to believe that we simply need to “look at situations differently” is what causes all of this pain.

There are too many people telling Black and brown people that the problem is us. Trying to make rational people feel insane is what abusive people do, because they have to look good at all costs — including our lives. Attention is not action. This is the year 2020, and getting waves of attention has failed to change racism through its entire existence. It is time to ignore the people ranting, crying, and causing all of the ruckus. Doing absolutely nothing to eradicate this scourge on society needs to start getting ignored. News outlets need to do better. Universities need to do better. It is time for proof that people want an antiracist society. It is lunacy to demand attention for finally paying attention to the reality that Black and brown people have been discussing for centuries. If someone wants to continue doing wrong, that is just a bad person.

If people want to view their Black and brown “friends” as crazy, look down on us, and minimize everything that we say to feel good, that is irreparable. We cannot fix the people who need power, money, and attention. We cannot keep working to appeal to the better nature of people who have none. They will do nothing to change the circumstances of those they consider “lesser.” Society is moving forward, and if people cannot stop demanding attention for antiracism, they need to be banished to the annals of obscurity. Antiracism that requires attention is a flurry of misguided attempts to sate the insatiable. If one’s goals are prestige, money, and fame, that person has no purpose in an antiracist world, which is what all “leadership” fears. True liberation is “boring,” because it does not validate what everyone should have been doing anyway.