With a renewed awakening of the problems of racism in our society, anti-racist rhetoric has been flooding the internet. Much of this rhetoric tends to be negative towards specific individuals or general classes of people.
Researchers at the University of Chicago found that while negative feedback instills a renewed dedication to continue improving, positive feedback is what motivates people to commit to lasting improvement in the first place. If we want to decrease racism in our communities, we must take a more positive approach of discussing our past and present race issues.
An increased effort is being made to expose the racist acts and words of early state leaders, including leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It’s important that we all recognize the racism instilled in our history if we want to uproot it. But how effective are our current efforts to divulge these wrongs?
Perhaps outside of these racist episodes, these leaders did many good and noteworthy things. If this is how some Utahns see these individuals, they may esteem them highly enough that they simply disregard these wrongs as they come across them. At worst, they may even try to justify them.
Individuals will be more open to recognize and learn from historical wrongs when we first acknowledge the positive contributions of these historical figures. It takes humility to admit the positive contributions of those that we know to have caused pain by their wrongdoings. It also takes humility to admit the wrongdoings of those we respect. As we humbly validate the historical views of others, we will see an increased willingness from them to see things from our point of view.
As we strive to learn from the racism that infected our past, we must not forget to also appreciate the many anti-racist comments and actions of other highly regarded historical figures. People are encouraged by familiar role models who they can emulate in their own efforts to improve.
These principles also apply as we help our friends recognize modern-day racism. We can and should call out racism as we see it. But human nature suggests that people will often assume it applies to someone else or they may become defensive when such accusations are made against them. Obviously, we all have room to improve; so how can we help each other recognize this need within us?
I personally tend to consider my own need to change when I am inspired by my faith and by the positive examples of others. Assuming others are influenced by these things, we can utilize them to inspire change. For example, rather than trying to convince individuals that their church is racist in some way, we should share the anti-racist principles at the core of almost any religious doctrine (see John 4, Acts 10:34-35, Galatians 3:28, 2 Nephi 2:33, Jacob 3:9, and D&C 101:79 for starters).
And, rather than exclusively focusing on the ugly racism occurring in our communities today, we should do more to celebrate and make known the inspiring examples of people of all types working together to create a safer community for blacks and people of all races. Such a focus will move us from a solely we-are-racist mindset towards a more encouraging we-can-be-less-racist mindset.
Some people might rightfully point out that we have already been focusing on the good and ignoring the bad, and it hasn’t been working. It is indeed good that we are finally acknowledging and learning from past and present wrongs. We can’t solve a problem if we are ignorant of it.
But we should also be careful not to overshoot these efforts to the point that we suffocate out the good. Greater change will occur as we come to acknowledge both the wrongs we need to correct and the good we ought to pursue.
Mitchell Adams
Mitchell Adams, Provo, is a master’s student in electrical and computer engineering at Brigham Young University.