Three: When Did It Start?

Charles Kreiner, who has been quoted earlier here, was a founder and director of the Institute for Diversity Education in America (IDEA) and a council member of the National Organization for Men Against Sexism. He started out by working on sexism, and then came to realize that oppression is oppression is oppression, and began doing valuable anti-racism work. When he died, in 2007, he was still relatively young, and he left behind very little in the way of writing and only a couple of recordings of workshops he led that I can find. I had the great good fortune to attend one of those workshops in 1994 and acquire the recording of it, which is now available at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2024/11/23/18870976.php. The issues addressed with the people attending that workshop are still distressingly timely.

After introductions, we began by looking at our first experience of racism, which, according to Charlie (as he liked to be called), is shaped by our experiences of being introduced to both the role of oppressor and the role of victim as children, when we usually experienced oppression in the role of victim, while learning from close observation how to be an oppressor—and which role is preferable. In recalling these events, we were to keep in mind a few questions about them.

For people of color, the questions were: “What’s your earliest memory of being subjected to racism? What happened? How did you feel? And particularly, how did you respond?”

For White people, the questions were: “What’s your earliest memory of learning about racism, of having it installed on you—of witnessing it, of seeing somebody else’s, of having it taught to you directly or indirectly, of having it installed, enforced, what’s your earliest memory? And again, what happened? How did you feel? And what did you do?”

Charlie added (and you may find this useful), “If you can’t remember anything past last week, make an early memory up, make a fantasy up—you’ll find it’ll get pretty close to what happened, because your mind is in the direction of healing.”