Opinion: Sheryl Swoopes is right: Black people can’t be racist

[Pelican Press 0]

Opinion: Sheryl Swoopes is right: ****** people can’t be *******

University of Iowa point guard Caitlin Clark celebrates after a victory over Ohio State on March 3. (Cliff Jette / Associated Press)

WNBA legend Sheryl Swoopes has come under an avalanche of criticism for saying that ****** people can’t be *******. Last month Swoopes questioned the ability of University of Iowa women’s basketball player Caitlin Clark, who is white, to break the Division I scoring record. Her remarks,

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and apologized for, caused a fuss on social media, where some users accused her of racism. Swoopes responded to the accusations in part by

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, causing even more backlash. But Swoopes is right. ****** people can’t be *******, at least not according to the most useful definition of racism, given by a group of mainly white legislators in 1968.

This group was formed in 1968 after urban ****** communities throughout the 1960s erupted in ******* unrest, primarily over a pattern of police ****** and ******** of young ****** men. An uprising in Harlem occurred in the summer of 1964 over the police ********* ****** of 15-year-old James Powell. Watts went aflame in the summer of 1965 after 21-year-old Marquette Frye was beaten by police. Two years later came the “Long, Hot Summer of 1967,” which saw ******* uprisings in more than 150 cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit.

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In the early morning of July 23, 1967, Detroit police raided an unlicensed, after-hours club in a mostly ****** part of the city. The people inside were celebrating the return of local ****** veterans from the Vietnam War. All of the patrons were arrested, and simmering ******* tensions in Detroit exploded into a full-scale, ******* battle between police and Detroit’s ****** community. The rioting lasted five days and resulted in

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, most of whom were shot and ******* by police officers, but also by members of the National Guard, store owners, security guards and a U.S. Army paratrooper.

President Lyndon B. Johnson had had enough. While the Detroit uprising was still underway, he impaneled the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner Commission, to investigate this civil unrest. Johnson charged the commission to determine “

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”

The 11-member commission, with Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner serving as its chairman, had two ****** members, Edward Brooke, then a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, and Roy Wilkins, the head of the NAACP. The group returned findings that did not please Johnson, or many others. Instead of finding that outside agitators or troublemakers instigated these uprisings, the commission squarely pinned the blame on white racism. “White racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War,”

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. But the Kerner Commission did not stop there. It went on to offer a clear and extremely useful definition of racism. Racism was not simple hatred or prejudice based on skin ******. Racism occurred when power was added to prejudice — the power to affect someone’s life physically, economically, educationally, politically or otherwise.

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****** or white, anyone can be prejudiced. I might not like you because of your skin ******, and that makes me prejudiced. But it doesn’t automatically make me ******* unless I also have the power to impact your life because of my prejudice. There are few, if any, areas of ********* life where ******* hold such power. Thus, Sheryl Swoopes was correct. ******* can’t be ******* — but that doesn’t mean they can’t be prejudiced. They can.

This definition of racism opens the door to an intelligent and important conversation about the power gap between ******* and *******. One that makes a distinction between racism and prejudice. Police brutality, overwhelmingly white-on-****** *********, is an example of racism enacted physically. Redlining, where ******* cannot buy homes or receive loans in certain areas, is a form of economic racism. Preventing the teaching of ****** history is a form of educational racism. Making it ******* for ****** people to vote is a form of political racism. A ****** woman disparaging the abilities and career choices of a white female basketball player may be prejudiced, but it does not rise to the level of racism as defined by the Kerner Commission.

If we don’t talk about race in this country, all we will do is ****** over it, often with deadly consequences. Today, there are too many examples of racism where *********, collective punishment and genocide pass as alternatives to dialogues.

And, if we are going to talk about race, a common starting point is necessary, and a decent definition of racism is as good as any. By saying ******* can’t be *******, Sheryl Swoopes opened up a lane to the basket for a difficult, yet essential, conversation, and a path to restorative rather than retributive justice.

Clyde W. Ford’s latest book is “Of Blood and Sweat: ****** Lives and the Making of White Power and Wealth.” He is a contributing writer to Opinion.

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Sheryl Swoopes,Kerner Commission,Caitlin Clark,Detroit police,definition of racism,****** people can’t be *******,University of Iowa,President Lyndon B. Johnson,Detroit,police ******
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