FacingRacismLR

Uprooting Racism
Jason Donati’s story by Josh Holowell.
Jason is 36 years old.
“What did you just say?”
Anger overtook me as I stood with the young men I was working with by the
dirt pile.
It was one of my many opportunities to interact with the youth of our
community, educating them on our environment. One of them had just used a
nasty racial slur to describe the black students working in another part of the
field. I challenged him. He stood firm by his comment and began to explain how
he saw the world. How everyone in his neighborhood knew what “black people”
were really like.
The others joined in. I let them continue to spit out words of hate, words which
fell heavy upon my heart, each like a dagger against my family. And here I had a
choice to make. I was brought here to teach about the environment, but today’s
lesson was going to be about racism. Who else was going to have this conversation
with these kids if not me?
I began to tell the boys about my biracial family. That racial slur was not at some
unknown “them,” but against the love of my life and our wonderful children. I
told the boys of the pain this causes. I told them that this is not just the way the
world is, but that racism is evil. I also told them that this hate aimed at others
would eat away at them too, slowly killing their compassion. There was a better
way forward. But to do so, they would have to go outside their comfort zone.
They would need to put themselves into places that challenged their privilege as
white males in America.
As I felt rage against their racism, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own life’s
journey. I couldn’t help but see that these boys were a product of their neighborhood
as much as I was, growing up a privileged white male in Muncie, Indiana. While I
was always taught better, I held biases myself and tolerated the blatant racism that
surrounded me. I may not have always joined in, but I stood alongside, allowing
such hate to infect the ground I walked upon. And just as weeds overtake a
beautiful garden that is neglected, the weeds of racism had crept in and overtaken
my community and even myself.
This all changed for me when I had the chance to leave Muncie and serve inner
city communities throughout the East Coast in AmeriCorps. I lived and worked
in some of the roughest communities in our nation. There I saw the brokenness
and the beauty of people. There I developed relationships with those who were
very different from me.
And there I saw the realities of systemic racism in our nation. Where
communities of color were talked about and not talked with. Where decisions
were made for these communities and not with them. Where young men had to
hustle their way into money because the jobs I could provide for them wouldn’t
pay enough. Where I saw young men turn to violence against one another because
no one cared enough to care about them.
And where everything I had learned and absorbed was challenged.
It changed me. The people I worked alongside, and for, changed me.
36