What's Race Got To Do With It?

by Brent Palmer

Brent Palmer, a senior Intercultural Communication major, shares three tips for navigating and facilitating conversations of race. This is the first of his three-part series on race and communication. 

I am an intercultural communication studies major. My experience as a black man has taught me that I often have to explain how my experience is different than others. My experiences as intercultural communication major have taught me how to communicate these and other differences more effectively. Since we live in a diverse society filled with members of various cultures and races, it makes sense that you’re also going to have a need to get along with others different than you. The following blog post highlights three tips for navigating and facilitating conversations of race. 

One of my favorite books is So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo. I read this book in order to learn more on how to facilitate conversations about race. The personal touches Ijeoma adds by using stories from her own life makes this a captivating read that I would recommend to everyone. 
     
The book covers a myriad of situations and faux pas that are committed every day when we communicate with people of other races, and it helps to facilitate better conversations on the topic. One of my favorite chapters of the book is the very first chapter. It offers sound advice that can assist you when the tricky topic of race comes up in conversation. One of the major challenges of talking about race is whether you know you are talking about race. This is the goal of the first chapter.

In chapter 1, Ijeoma is talking to a friend about broader political issues having to do with the election of Trump. Ijeoma wants to shift the conversation to race. Her friend is resisting.  Her friend thinks conversations are not about race, Ijeoma disagrees. For these situations, Ijeoma suggests three guidelines to remember.
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A conversation is about race if: 

1. A person of color thinks it is about race. We are a collection of our lived experiences, and people of color are no different. Since we are all products of a racialized society, race affects everything we bring to our interactions! If the conversation is steered in the direction of race, then the conversation is about race.
2. It disproportionately or differently affects people of color. The hardships that affect people of color are often the same as white people’s experience, just more exacerbated. Since there is such a difference, two different treatments are required.
3. It fits into a broader pattern of events that disproportionately or differently affect people of color. Ijeola asks that others listen to the pain of people of color. We wouldn’t discount someone’s account of abuse. And since living in a white-dominated society like a hurt that keeps coming up, or an abusive relationship, since problems are brought up often but are not addressed or ignored by the larger society. Try to listen to these protestations of pain, as it as it will just beget more hurt in a conversation and may lead to the person of color leaving the situation.

I will be providing three posts on this book over the next few weeks. Now that I have explained why conversations often include the topic of race and how to recognize them, in my next two posts I will cover the following chapters: “What are Micro-aggressions” and “I Just Got Called a Racist, what do I do Next?”.

About Author

Brent Palmer is a Senior in the Communication Studies Department, specializing in Intercultural Communications. He hopes to either go into journalism, community organization, or work in positions having to do with international issues after graduation. Brent also enjoys taking pictures and being involved on campus, as an active participant in C3, The Herpetology Club, River Region Evening Edition, Photogenesis, and Alt News.