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Pastor Tyron Williams, Mount Olive Baptist Church in Wicomico Church. Photo by Corey Miller.
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Coined in 1956 by American psychologist Leon Festinger in the book “When Prophecy Fails,” cognitive dissonance is a term that has been in our lexicon for decades but hadn’t come to the forefront as much as it has in the past five years.
The word dissonance derives itself from the Latin verb sonare. It’s related to the Latin word sonus, meaning sound. This means things cognitively dissonant sound conflicting or inharmonious to what we accept as truth. If we choose to operate in a state of cognitive dissonance, a desire to protect our ego or way of life displaces our ability to empathize. Here’s how cognitive dissonance works:
Using smokeless tobacco is dissonant, knowing that dipping tobacco can lead to oral and throat cancer or tooth decay. To combat dissonance, the user needs to quit—or justify their habit (“My father dipped, and nothing ever happened to him.”).
This is how insidious cognitive dissonance can be and why Tyron Williams, pastor of Mount Olive Baptist Church in Wicomico Church, Virginia, leads an ongoing series of discussions to educate residents in the Northern Neck on the unspoken—and sometimes unrealized—racial attitudes in the area. His forum, Interracial Conversations, helps people in the Northern Neck openly address racial differences to create mutual kinship and understanding.
Williams has become the leading voice since 2015, taking a cue from two Episcopalian clergy members six years ago.
“It started when the head bishop of The Episcopal Church challenged his congregation. Bishop [Michael] Curry was dealing with racial issues and the lack of community across racial lines. He challenged The Episcopal Church to engage in activities within their communities and to address the racial issues,” explains Williams.
An inspired Williams then learned of the work Lucia Lloyd, a rector at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Heathsville, Virginia, was doing to improve racial harmony within her congregation.
“I heard about the discussions that they were having, and she and I established a friendship because I don’t think there were any Blacks in her congregation,” Williams says.
The pair discussed racial issues affecting the Northern Neck and collaborated on solutions.
“We started talking with individuals, and we started reaching out to others in the community, and the conversations at St. Stephens went on for three or four months. We decided to expand it and make it easier for people to attend. At that point there were probably about four or five African Americans engaged in those conversations,” recalls Williams.
This led to Interracial Conversations moving to Mount Olive where “it just exploded,” he says.
A kindred spirit swept through the diverse audience at Mount Olive. For Williams, it was one thing to fill the room, and another to discuss the effects of racism on marginalized populations during times of heightened tension and cognitive dissonance across the country.
“There was a need to develop trust because race is not an easy subject to talk about,” says Williams. “Because of that, we spent a lot of time educating our Caucasian brothers and sisters about the realities of their lifestyles and what Blacks in the community were facing, especially with regards to poverty, education and feeling that they were not really in control of their own lives.”
Challenging White Privilege
White privilege is a term that some whites have come to grips with while others bristle at the sound of it. The notion that being born white provides an advantage in society is understood by some whites and rejected by others. Some whites point to the United States Constitution and argue that Blacks have the same rights and opportunities as they. While the Constitution states “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Blacks in rural areas often find themselves outside looking in when it comes to cashing in on this constitutional promise.
Williams believes white privilege is less about unalienable rights and more about subversive attitudes, stereotypes and perceptions of Blacks held by white people. One discussion he held about white privilege featuring guest speaker Michael Ransome “shook the foundation of Northumberland County.”
“People could not handle it,” Williams says, “but there was a need for a coming to Jesus session about white privilege, anti-racism and what it meant to live in a community where your entire livelihood is based upon other people’s perceptions of you. It took us a long time and it has not been easy, but we’ve all learned a lot from each other. There’s a need for us to be more engaged in the community.”
When You Know Better, Do Better
Beloved American poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou once said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
The idea that one could have subconscious racist ideology is a hard reality to face. It doesn’t mean you’re a racist, but that your reality has been shaped by an upbringing that may have been unconsciously racist.
“It’s a hard pill to swallow when you sit in a room of strangers and based upon truth, you learn that your parents and grandparents were racist, and you grew up in that environment. You were racist yourself but never realized it because you didn’t know what a racist was because that was a way of life,” says Williams. “It was not their fault.”
Williams says over the course of years, he’s had multitudes of people understand how they’ve been a product of their environment and renounce those attitudes. Admittedly, there is more work to do, but the progress is promising.
“Our eyes are only opened when we come out of the darkness.”
As whites continue to come to the forums and help change the culture of the region, Williams reminds them to take what they’ve discovered and become disruptors for change within peer groups.
“We can have all the greatest intentions, and people will say, ‘I’m not racist, I don’t talk about Blacks,’ or ‘I don’t use the N-word,’ but your attitude or lack of engagement when you see someone being treated wrong based upon skin color says a lot about you. Are you willing to engage and hold others accountable, or are you reluctant to speak out because you want to continue to be accepted?”
You Will Never Change What You Tolerate
As the old saying goes, every story has two sides. Here’s the reverse side of the coin.
Since Blacks on the Northern Neck have not successfully challenged the status quo—like better access to health care, improvements in education and fair employment opportunities—life goes on with one group sensing no urgency and the other feeling frustrated. It’s akin to a marriage counseling session where one partner believes the marriage is fine while the other is exasperated by unspoken expectations, to the shock of the other partner.
“To the greatest extent, Blacks in the Northern Neck know their place, and they are reluctant to step outside of that for fear of losing their livelihood or potentially even being harmed. But that’s their reality. And it’s not that they want to live in poverty; they cannot get the jobs that pay 40, 50, $60,000. They cannot afford to go to college or send their children to college. They are subject to the life that their parents and grandparents lived,” says Williams.
Williams asserts that Blacks in the Northern Neck must make their needs known, and present to their children role models they can aspire to emulate.
“It’s not impossible, but we have to help our children see beyond their current circumstances and help develop a hunger or thirst to go beyond what their parents were able to achieve,” he says.
As Williams continues to broach conversations about race and equity, he’s often confronted with the grim reminder that people will resist change until change forces their hand.
“We don’t want to change. We want to maintain our autonomy; we want to maintain that small-town environment. But when you maintain a small-town environment, you also maintain a small-town mentality, and it goes back to how things used to be, and not how things can be.”
Williams hopes the community will get behind creating a positive change for a brighter future for the youth of the Northern Neck who will reap the rich benefits of the choices people today make.
“I extend an invitation for others to join us in our efforts to not only expand the conversation on race, but to get involved in this movement to improve the lives of all our citizens and call upon our elected officials and powerbrokers to open the floodgates of change, which includes better job opportunities, affordable housing, quality healthcare and education for all people, regardless of who they are or where they live,” he says.
So, if we can take any encouragement, let it be from the words of music-legend Sam Cooke:
“It’s been a long, A long time coming, But I know a change gonna come, Oh, yes it will”
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