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How to Deconstruct Racism, One Headline at a Time

Baratunde Thurston investigates the phenomenon of white Americans calling on the law enforcements on Black Americans who have executed the crimes of  walking, eating, or living while Black. Thurston in his thought-provoking and comical talk discusses the power of language in changing trauma stories into narratives of healing. Thurston is motivated to change the white supremacy narrative that favors a framework of structural advantage over blacks into stories of healing. Thurston explains that such white supremacy narrative was used to validate slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration. Thurston explains the dominant narrative concerning black struggles to co-exist in a white society where Black people are perceived as troublemakers. In most cases, the white people call 911 on black people for just living as black.

Thurston explores the current racism events and provides insight using a game structure to change these racist occurrences and challenges individuals to level-up.  Thurston explains that the white persons calling the cops on Blacks can change their actions by using positive language. For example, Thurston argues that rather than a white woman calling the police on a Black woman giving food to the homeless in California Safeway, the white woman should thank her. Thurston argues that thanking is way easierthan calling law enforcement to the scene. Also, the white woman who called the cops on the eight-year-old black girl could have just bought the stock from the little black girl and support her small business. Thurston argues that when we change our actions then the story changes, which transforms the system that permits those stories to occur. Thurston ends his talk by calling upon everyone to use their power to choose a positive action and level-up because we can change those structural racism stories through positive actions.