How do you have a conversation about race when the topic is so fraught? On this episode, we’ll explore this tough question and more with Ben Crump, renowned civil rights attorney and author of the new book, Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People.

Links & Resources

• Get a copy of Attorney Ben Crump’s new book, Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People


• Check out the fascinating results of the Pew Research Center study


• Read Chevonne Harris’s Esquire article How to Talk About Race without Making a Complete Ass of Yourself

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Ubben Talkin. I’m your host, Michelle Ubben and today we’re talkin about how to have a productive conversation about race. It’s not an easy subject for a lot of us but if we’re going to move forward together as a country, it’s important that we start talking about racial justice issues with people who are like us — and people who aren’t.

Later in the show, we’ll be speaking with attorney Ben Crump, a leading civil rights advocate and the author of the new book Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People.

When I think about how my views on race were shaped, I go back to my Aunt Carmen, my mother’s oldest sister. She was an inner-city teacher and principal in Paterson, NJ. My Aunt Carmen bought me black dolls for my toy collection. She invited me to her house to play with some of the black girls in her neighborhood, and she called out anyone who said anything racially disparaging.

Fifty year later I have the opportunity to work with an avenger for racial justice, Attorney Ben Crump, as he seeks to raise America’s consciousness. I consider it a great privilege to work with his team and to grow my personal understanding of what it means to be black in America today.

In a study conducted this year, 150 years after the 13th amendment abolished slavery, findings from the Pew Research Center suggest that most Americans recognize that slavery still casts a long shadow. For those who might say, “slavery ended a long time ago, get over it. I never owned slaves, don’t blame me,” read Ben’s book, which does a great job of connecting the dots in an unbroken line between black people’s entrance to the US on slave ships and their position in American society today.

In the Pew study, 78% of black people say that our country hasn’t gone far enough in extending equal rights to blacks but only 37% of white people agree. And half of all black people think it’s unlikely that black people will ever have equal rights, while only 7 percent of white people hold that pessimistic view.

So how do you bridge that divide? Ben Crump says he hopes that his book will get people talking to each other. But talking about race isn’t easy. The potential is great to say something wrong. The fear of saying something dumb and insulting to someone makes it easier to not talk about racial topics at all. But that doesn’t move anything forward.

Chevonne Harris, in an article last year in Esquire magazine, offers some useful tips to engage others in a conversation about race.

First, instead of being defensive about white privilege, denying that it’s real, or even feeling guilty, acknowledge the obvious – that being white has its advantages in our society – and listen to others describe the experience of being black in America. Harris points out that white people probably aren’t going to be denied a job interview just because of the sound of their name. Citing the Pew research, about half of black adults say being black has hurt their ability to get ahead at least a little, while whites are more likely than other groups to say that their racial background, that is, being white, has helped them, at least a little.

Don’t assume that someone has had a particular experience because of their race. Don’t make assumptions about their musical interests, favorite food, or anything else because of their race.

Ask and listen.

Admit what you don’t know and ask questions.

If a conversation turns awkward, stick with it. If you say something stupid, apologize and continue the conversation.

If we don’t talk about racial issues, we will never build racial understanding. The tough conversations are sometimes the most important. Join me as I talk race with Ben Crump.

Michelle Ubben: Ben, welcome to Ubben Talkin. Thank you so much for being here today.

Ben Crump: I’m very honored to be here with you, Michelle.

Michelle Ubben: Well, I’m honored to work with you, somebody who’s become such a champion for racial justice and civil rights at a time when I think we’re really at a tipping point where consciousness is being raised about these issues.

Ben Crump: Certainly, and you and the company you work for really help frame issues in these matters like nobody has ever done, and I just want to say publicly what I say to you privately, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for caring.

Michelle Ubben: Well, thank you. It truly is a privilege. So let’s talk about your book, Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People. It has several emotionally charged words in the title. Genocide is a word that most people associate with Rwanda and Nazi Germany, maybe not so much the United States. Was it intended to be provocative to use words like that in the title?

Ben Crump: It was. I’m unapologetic about using this word, Michelle, as it relates to the genocidal situation that’s been created in America by the government and the laws that are supposed to protect us. They’re using those laws to actually promulgate the killing of us.

Ben Crump: 70 years ago the great Paul Robeson, who at the time in 1951 was the most famous African-American in the world along with W. B. Du Bois, who was one of the founders of the NAACP, and other black leaders went to the United Nations Convention. At that time, it was the aftermath of World War II, and you had all these countries filing petitions of genocide based on the atrocities and the killings that had been brought upon them due to war.

Ben Crump: The black leaders filed a petition called We Charge Genocide. They said we’re filing this petition for the daily killings, rapings, and lynchings of black people in America. And then they said, “Using your definition, United Nations, act or acts with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a group based on national, racial, ethnic, or religious identities”, how does this not apply to negro people in America? In that petition, they concluded that either the United States government was complicit with or responsible for creating a genocidal situation in America.

Michelle Ubben: And that didn’t stop in the 1950s when they made the case. It’s only continued and extended since then.

Michelle Ubben: Another provocative word that you have in the title of the book is colored people, which is kind of an antiquated term as it relates to black people, but you’re using that term differently. Tell me how you mean that.

Ben Crump: Certainly, and most people when they see colored people, they automatically assume we’re talking about the color of a person’s skin, but people can be colored by their experiences, their life experiences. They can be colored by their religious beliefs. They can be colored by their financial status. They can be colored by their sexual preferences and who they choose to love. There are many ways to disenfranchise people and marginalize people. So when we say colored people, we’re talking about groups that have been disenfranchised or have been marginalized based on their race, their religion, their sexual preference, their income level, their socioeconomic level. There are many ways to color people and discriminate against people.

Michelle Ubben: Well that’s a very interesting point and it certainly shows that the way that people are seen in our society and how they’re viewed as a group, especially people who have been marginalized, really affects their treatment and their ability or inability to access equal justice.

Ben Crump: Absolutely.

Michelle Ubben: So you just completed a national book tour with media interviews in cities across the country. What’s the audience’s reaction been to this book?

Ben Crump: It has evolved as I go to the book tours because many people have already read the book now, so they’re coming out and they’re asking questions about how to better identify the issues to make it more practical that America understands there is a problem, number one, and then number two, talking about the solutions. I’m so enthusiastic that the audience members come and they want to talk about solutions with me. They have accepted after they read the book and they see the statistics and the hard data and the actual lives that have been affected by this legalized genocide, and then they say, “Let’s talk about solutions, Attorney Crump. Let’s talk about how we are better as a society, how we are better as an America.”

Michelle Ubben: So Ben, how do you suggest that people who read this book have some constructive conversations with their friends and neighbors and people they don’t know to move things forward?

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