| By MEREDITH MAY - July 23,
1997 TIMES STAFF WRITER
Just as the label "communist" ruined reputations
in the '50s, the word "racist" is doing the same in the '90s.
Accused racists have become society's biggest pariahs,
especially at a time when the President is calling for renewed racial reconciliation and
corporations are spending millions to defend themselves against accusations of prejudice.
But John McKenzie welcomes the label.
In fact, the 43-year-old Pleasant Hill man advertises his
intolerance on a "Recovering Racist" badge he pins to his shirt
before leaving the house.
He says it's a way to remind himself, and anyone who cares
to ask, that he learned prejudice growing up as a white guy in a racist society.
And he's not the only one. Since January, he's sold 110
badges over the Internet for $2 apiece. He sold another 100 at the Whole Life Expo in San
Francisco and the Diversity Fair in Livermore.
"Racial healing will never happen until we stop
blaming other people for racism," McKenzie said. "A racist is a grandmother who
clutches her purse tighter when she sees a black man. It's not necessarily
a bad thing, it's an unavoidable thing. As long as we keep blaming the KKK for racism,
we'll never move beyond prejudice."
After traveling the globe planning
conferences as an independent consultant, McKenzie was struck by how common intolerance
was in all cultures. Following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, he decided the only way to
improve race relations was to do it himself.
He started the Recovering Racist Network in
1996, and came up with the badge. The
2-inch square features a face that is half purple and green. He wears it almost every day,
except on the days he's feeling insecure, he said. |
Sixteen people gathered at
the Mt. Diablo Peace Center in Walnut Creek early last week to talk about racism.
He told the predominantly white group he's ready to admit
his racism. He's trying to un-learn the message his aunt taught him, when as a child he
picked up a smoldering cigarette and she chastised him because "some -- may have been
smoking it."
Maybe such early lessons contributed when he grabbed a
mallet as a young volunteer firefighter in Pittsburgh, Pa., and said, "This is for
bashing blacks in Lincoln Park."
McKenzie's voice trembled as he told the Peace Center
gathering his black friend was in the group of firefighters who heard him say it.
'The need to fit in was stronger than the need to suppress
what I had been taught to think," McKenzie said.
The Recovering Racist badge is McKenzie's way of atoning,
and for sparking others to examine their lives. Sometimes the sparks turn
to blazes. Some people who pass his table at holistic fairs tell him he has white guilt.
Others tell him affirmative action is stealing their jobs. Others say he's taken
"politically correct" to a new extreme.
But he's gotten more accolades than insults, he said.
"I'm surprised that most people who see the badge
understand it's about speaking about our feelings and not a silly PC thing," he said.
"PC is hiding your feelings and never talking about racism. So many schools approach
diversfly by hosting an ethnic arts or food festival. That's PC." |
A black San Francisco cop
bought a Recovering Racism badge to show his co-workers, telling McKenzie the department
gave him grief when he wanted to walk in the St. Patrick's Day parade to honor his Irish
heritage.
Interracial couples buy them, and they sold fast in
Brazil, where customers told McKenzie there is inter-ethnic racism based on shades of
brown skin.
The badge got mixed reviews at the Mt. Diablo Peace
Center.
"The word racist is a problem for me," said
Linda Peterson of Concord, who is white. "It's confrontational and awkward for me to
display my shortcomings out loud. It would cause other people to acknowledge their own
racism and then go on the defensive. I just don't know if I'd feel comfortable doing
battle over the badge every day."
Carol Wagner of Albany took a badge home, and has been
thinking about wearing it. She said sometimes she feels like she "bends over
backward" to try not to be racist when she's in a multicultural setting.
'And sometimes I think I'm trying so hard that in the
process I'm being racist," she said.
Diana Bracy of Albany bought a badge and put it on. She's
OK with the word racist, it's the word "recovering" that she doesn't like that
much.
Only one person has commented on her badge so far, and
asked her to explain what recovering meant.
"Recovering sounds like I have to drag myself out of
a mire or illness, as opposed to putting more energy and joy into creating something
new," said Bracy, who volunteers for the Alternatives to Violence Project in
Berkeley.
"I'm wearing it because I'm curious about the kind of
conversations it will start. Racism is such a hard topic to bring up, and this gives
people permission to talk to me about it." |