Sabrina Johnson and Farrell Winfrey Discuss White Supremacy and Racism

Thank you. My name is Sabrina Johnson, and I'm here at the Race Relations Institute at Fisk University here in Nashville, Tennessee. Today is Friday, July 14th, the year 2000. I'm classified as a non-white person, and I'm here at the Race Relations Institute because I'm interested in understanding about the system of racism and white supremacy with the intent, ultimately, of ending the system of racism and white supremacy. If you would please state your name and tell us why you're here. My name is Farrell Winfrey. I live in Rhone County in East Tennessee. I'm here because I recognize the white supremacy system of racism. I'm white. Now, when I say that, my people a long time ago came up with these little check marks that we have to check which we are white. In reality, it's white or non-white. We break that down into a lot of different groups. What we have done for hundreds of years, it can never be undone with words. It can never be undone with words. Racism is prejudice plus power. I had a conversation yesterday with a black man, and he said that he knew some of his people who were racist, and I talked with him about that, because without the power to take that prejudice and actively place it into position to cause people to do or not do, then it is simply just prejudice. Without the power to take that prejudice and actively place it into position to cause people to do or not do, then it't have any power. But we do have power. We have power just getting up in the morning and looking in the mirror and not having to think about race. That places us into a position to where our minds are clear and that it's a problem that we don't have to deal with. We don't think about it because we don't have to think about it. It's not something that completely controls our lives. So there, from the very beginning, when we wake up in the morning, then we have an advantage, and that advantage comes from the color of the skin. When we go into a store and we're not assumed that we're going to be a shoplifter simply because of the color of our skin, that is an advantage. When I walk down the street and I'm more safe, now that's not saying nothing would happen ever to me, but I would be more safe walking down the street alone than you would be. That is racism because of that unequal playing field that's there that gives me advantage simply because of the color of my skin. When we take advantage of those things, then we are being white supremacists. because most people, when they think about someone that's white supremacist, they're thinking about the guy in the fatigues, and he's in the woods, and he's shooting, and, you know, target. But I am being white supremacist when I accept an establishment that gives me more than it gives you. Every day of your life as a white person, all day, every day, everything that you do, everywhere you go, you are taking advantage of being white. Most of my people, they don't think about that. They've never had to think about that, which is the greatest advantage of being white. They don't have to think about it. It's not a determining factor in their life. That is a conscious factor. I don't actively celebrate the 4th of July because you don't have freedom. You're not free. You have oppression every day of your life. If you have children, when those children are born, you have to immediately begin to teach them what they cannot do in order to survive. The young black man, he's a much different product of our oppression than what the young black man was a hundred years ago. I don't want my children in a civil war in this country between black and white. So in that way, I'm selfish. I was born into a family where my father selfish. I was born into a family where my father was an overt racist, my mother was a covert racist, but both of them had very strong, I always felt like my mother was more dangerous. 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My mother was more dangerous. contact. go to work, go shopping, go do everything in our life that has to be done without coming in contact with you. And don't tell me my best friend is, you know, because I hear that all the time. I've got a, my best friend is black. You know, I don hear that all the time. I've got a, my best friend is black. You know, I don't want to hear that.