SUMMARY: “Dr. George Yancey argues that the two paths of colorblindness and antiracism have not worked and will not work to solve the country’s problems and heal its pain resulting from a racialized society. Dr. Yancey contends that the path of colorblindness ignores racialized problems, and the path of antiracism causes a racially hostile society to be even more hostile and polarized instead of bringing ethnically diverse people together. Dr. Yancey argues for a third path that he calls ‘mutual accountability/responsibility’ or ‘collaborative conversations.’ This approach invites ethnically diverse image-bearers to be proactive and take personal responsibility to enter into collaborative conversations with the intent of working together with all ethnically diverse image bearers of goodwill to solve racialized problems.” (Jarvis J. Williams)

INTRODUCTION: three paths: colorblindness: doesn’t go anywhere, ignores damage of racialized society <-> antiracism: creates more racial hostility and polarization; new path: mutual accountability model: lot of work but more effective, inspired by Christian beliefs but applies outside church too

1. NEED FOR NEW PATH: Ahmaud Arbery’s murder brought him back to topic; mutual accountability: best way to better handle racial issues; first reaction to news about nearby police shooting: “I hope he was not black”; unhealthy cycle: police shooting African American -> antiracist protests demanding justice -> colorblindness counterprotests -> normalcy; no one changes perspective; mutual accountability / collaborative conversations; “purposeful, outcome-driven conversation aimed at building in each other’s ideas” ~ discussion between husband and wife, does not require both parties playing equal roles; no predefined solutions; goal is not to win an argument but to air our concerns; threatening communication doesn’t help; “racialized” instead of “racist”; everyone is responsible, not just whites; “racial alienation”: ability to connect badly damaged; modern civil rights movement: separatist (Malcolm X) vs integrated perspective (Martin Luther King Jr - criticized white racist individuals but not whites as a race); Civil Rights Act (1964), Voting Rights Act (1965) -> impact of movement weakened; overtly racist laws have largely been eradicated -> new problems with subtle racial prejudice & lingering effect of historical racism; not always clear what protesters (eg BLM) want -> sometimes read like ever-growing wish list rather than demands for specific rights; greatest achievement: not laws but shifting center from white supremacy to racial tolerance; breakup with first love because of racist mother; “My experience with my girlfriend showed me that racism was so pervasive and powerful that there were barriers I could not overcome no matter how competent, likable, or moral I was.” -> later: overt racism became stigmatized (if you don’t let your white kid date a black friend will label you racist even if it has nothing to do with the other kid’s race); racism hasn’t been eliminated but at least has been stigmatized (-> this means we no longer argue about the worth of a person of color); today we are not arguing whether people of color are fully human but how to compensate for centuries of racial abuse: how do we recover from our history of racial abuse in ways most of us consider fair?; what is fair depends heavily on which side you are on; in many cases activism doesn’t accomplish the desired goals because of pushback from the other side (-> reverse racism); better answer: communicating with each other

2. MUTUAL ACCOUNTABILITY MODEL: 2016 felt like stab in the back; confirmation bias: we presume we speak for everyone else; racial war ~ church split; model stipulates that we work to have healthy interracial communications so that we can solve racial problems; mutual doesn’t mean identical; means of persuasion: power, moral suasion, reason (reason is overrated, not very reliable in the presence of emotional commitments to previous ideas); power: is sometimes necessary but has a cost (danger to overpower others; those who gain through power often are unwilling to relinquish it once they have it); we are left with moral suasion -> we persuade the other that it is right to change his/her mind; requires building rapport -> it’s about building relationship; we use the same in personal relationship (overpowering can be damaging); greatest challenge: learning to listen; active listening: listening for understanding not for argument (eg rephrasing their thoughts honestly); goal: other person confirms we get what they think (it’s up to them, not us); exercise: have lunch with someone you disagree on a racial issue and try to formulate their ideas (practice active listening); speaker can improve too (don’t use the time of your listeners abusing/insulting); illustrations are better to convey ideas; be patient - active listening is hard work; mutual accountability model in problem solving: 1) define the racial problem 2) identify what we have in common 3) recognize our cultural or racial differences 4) create solutions that answer the concerns of the racial outgroup 5) find a compromise solution that works best for all; objections against the model: from the colorblind group: they really do not see a problem (challenge in response: “do you truly know what it feels like to be in a marginalized group?”); be careful of those who cherry-pick studies, don’t rely on a single study; from antiracist group: it is unfair to expect equitable conversation with whites (they have been victimized too long, emotional burden is too high); sending people to go and read certain books are not very effective; you can’t evade mutual conversation (otherwise you get pushback, what you get might be temporary); complaint: being too nice to whites (as if niceness was a vice) -> is our goal to create fair society or to punish whites?; being nice = not to dehumanize others; benefit of colorblindness (eg when grading students) and antiracism (eg detecting institutional racism)

3. INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION: being racist is not illegal; colorblindness: more popular but has less cultural power; residential segregation: effect of historical racism; redlining: “Redlining is the practice whereby financial lenders designate minority and racially mixed neighborhoods as poor investment areas. As a result residents in those areas receive fewer and smaller loans than those living in white neighborhoods. The redlining made possible by neighborhood segregation is one of the ways financial institutions mistreat people of color. A study by the Federal Reserve Board in 1991 showed that white borrowers with the lowest incomes were approved mortgages more easily than financially well-off peop Knight, 1991).”; lack of resources (eg no transportation/grocery shops); concentration of dysfunctional elements (unemployment, crime; whites have similar problems but it’s easier for them to move out when they can; other examples: wealth-gap, medical shortcomings, school systems; institutional racism: African Americans are more likely, even after controls for individual characteristics, to commit murder (O’Flaherty & Sethi, Homicide in black and white, 2010), but they are also more likely to be arrested, and the killing of whites, especially by blacks makes it more likely to receive death penalty (Baumgartner, F, The Impact of race, gender and geography on Florida executions, 2016) -> even just laws can be implemented unjustly; other examples: sentencing disparity between users of powder vs crack cocaine (powder more expensive), businesses hiring by word of mouth, transportation systems, educational funding, political systems -> institutional racism is real, even if no personal bias or guilt is involved; racial discrimination in hiring has not decreased (Quillian et al, Meta-analysis of field experiments show no change in racial discrimination in hiring over time, 2017); “driving while black”: blacks more likely to be pulled over (Harris, Why driving while black matters, 1999) and to be wrongly convicted (Gross et al, Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States, 2017); black women less likely to be referred for cardiac catheterization, healthcare personnel less likely to trust racial minority patients (Paradies & Priest, A systemic review of the extent and measurement of healthcare provider racism, 2014); barriers: not the same as in the past but still have an effect (example: running a marathon with or without a trainer); danger of colorblindness: can drive people of color to radicalization (election of Trump was slap in the face -> antiracism became much more popular afterwards)

4. ANTIRACISM: major economic impact ($8 bn USD/year on diversity training programs, mandated in almost all Fortune 500 companies & 2/3 of universities); antiracists might get good chunk (DiAngelo can charge up to $20k/talk); does antiracism improve race relations?; antiracism is more than opposing racism; disagreement: blacks cannot be racists (DiAngelo) <-> can be if they do not adopt antiracism (Kendi); definition: antiracism is “the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably.” (NAC); key concepts: 1) belief in pervasiveness of racism in society 2) necessity of intense commitment to defeat racism (Kendi: you cannot be a nonracist) 3) role of whites: support the activism of people of color (expectations are different for whites and nonwhites); demands from whites: reject white identity (DiAngelo), develop humility towards people of color (Hoffower), preach antiracism to other whites (DiAngelo), provide financial support for activism (Eddo-Lodge), redistribute financial assets (Jewell), deference to nonwhites; racism is indeed pervasive and must be combated but we can only move forward together (not just whites supporting nonwhites); diversity training: little long-term effect on prejudice (Lai et al, Reducing implicit racial preferences: II Intervention effectiveness across time, 2016), limited evidence that it furthers social justice outcomes (Alhejji et al, 2016), it can convince majority group members that racial problems have been solved (Dover et al, 2013), can even increase majority group bias against oppressed groups (Duguid et al, 2015); compelling whites to learn from people of color can decrease sympathy for poor whites while failing to raise overall sympathy for poor blacks, can motivate backlash from conservatives/moderates, forced diversity training can generate backlash against people of color; redistribution of wealth from whites to nonwhites can result in resistance, little evidence that antiracism creates positive attitudinal and behavioral change; “Education may tell us what to say to avoid being labeled a racist but it does not necessarily convince us to alter our actions.”; antiracism dismisses the perspectives of whites -> not the best for moral suasion; antiracism doesn’t lead to real change but to compliance out of fear of being labeled a racist; companies that implemented antiracist tools & techniques (eg mandatory diversity trainings) had fewer managers of color -> had opposite effect (Dobbin & Kalev, 2016); antiracism seems to be more attractive to the highly educated than to people of color in general; group interest theory: we are inclined to support ideas and engage in actions that favor people in our ingroups -> same tendency in whites and nonwhites too; power can be misused by whites and people of color too (eg Adam Haner kicked in the head by BLM protester, violence against police after - justified - shooting of Ricardo Munoz); multiracial churches: whites might need to make cultural adjustment than new racial group but people of color need to adjust too; pursuing justice requires pursuing the truth; “we must have justice before we have unity” -> it is the other way around: we need unity before we can get justice; antiracism relies on power instead of moral suasion

5. EMPIRICAL BASIS: contact hypothesis: the more contact we have with people in a given group, the more likely we are to become tolerant of them and the less likely we are to be negatively biased toward them; necessary conditions: equal status, non competitive, close relationship, supported by authority figures; interracial contact: religious institutions, marriages; overarching identity: lessens racial tension (“them” -> “us”); collaborative conversations foster volitional compliance; less exposure to different views lead to overconfidence; mandatory diversity training doesn’t work but voluntary does; ignorance is not helpful

6. THEOLOGICAL BASIS: Resolution 9 at SBC (2019); critics: repackaged Christian faith in a colorblind framework; bad science/bad theology: desire to make reality what we want it rather than what it is; race: concept not found in the Bible but intergroup conflict exists (eg Jews vs Samaritans); Jesus: Samaritans deserved to be treated with respect; Samaritans: group we don’t like for political/religious/racial/social reasons; secularism: human perfectability vs Christianity: human depravity (but both consider humans valuable) -> human efforts (colorblindness/antiracism) are not enough; not utter depravity (as wicked as possible) but permeates the core of our lives; “Social movements are created by humans and subject to the same weaknesses of the humans who created them.”; human depravity convinces us that what is best for us is best for everyone; it makes us focus on the goals and ignore the process to achieve them; implication: forgiveness (not possible if we expect perfectibility - if perfection is possible, why haven’t we reached it?; shaming violators is justified for the purpose of the greater good <-> forgiveness is hindrance in development); mutual accountability model: uniquely Christian approach

7. PERSONAL APPLICATION: story of black minister (Frank Byers: https://www.frankbyers.com); “racist” and N-word triggers similar feelings on opposite sides; some whites act in racist ways without being racist (they don’t know); race is weaponized for political gains on both sides; slow to speak, quick to listen; TED talk by Theo E. J. Wilson: “A Black Man Goes Undercover in the Alt-Right”: “why should I be hated for who I cannot help but be?”; in general, don’t use social media to conduct collaborative conversations; confirmation bias: we tend to seek out information that confirms our beliefs and dismiss evidence that challenges those beliefs; pick your battles; need to overcome fear; analogy: recovering from abusive marital relationship (falling to the other extreme isn’t the right way); don’t give up

8. LARGER MOVEMENT: Game Changer: moderated focus group discussion among community members & law enforcement; author’s Facebook group: Collaborative Conversations and Race; Baylor Program for Collaborative Conversation and Race: facilitate research; personal story: Jeremy Pierce; political activism (eg protests) is less compatible with collaborative conversations; “People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other, they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.” (Martin Luther King Jr., 1962)