Do you educate your children on racism? If you haven't had any kids yet, were you ever taught about racism? I am not talking about plantation-style slavery or even about Martin Luther King Jr. spending nights in a Birmingham jail for no real reason besides the fact that he was a black man. I am talking about racism in terms of black men right now. And women, and Latino people, and Asian people, and white people and every other ethnicity. I'm sure I'm missing literally hundreds.
The truth is, I don't think I was ever really taught about racism. It wasn't really a subject brought up during family dinners. I assume that it isn't brought up at the dinner tables of a lot of families because I have excellent parents.If excellent parents have failed in this respect, it's probably safe to assume that average ones have too. The truth is that I don't know all the politically correct terms, all the big fancy euphemisms. In issues of race, I'm blunt. I'm going to say a few things here that just might get you fired up.
The other night here at George Fox, an event was held to discuss matters of race. It was called "Colored White." After attending, I have a few things to say. I want to start with a question that was posed by a member of the audience to the panel of speakers there. Why does the term "people of color" include every ethnicity except white? I don't think it's a very good question. The reason those words mean what they mean is because we (society) say so. That's how language works. Why do we call blue things blue? Well, I'm sure there is a fascinating etymology behind it, but in the end, it's really just because that's the word we came up with and as a whole agreed to use.
What I believe that audience member really meant was, "Is our language racist, can it be racist and is there a moral value to the way we use and create words?" Now the answer isn't so easy. It's actually a very inflammatory query. One answer given by a panel member was something to the effect of, "Society doesn't want us, so to cope with being outcast, people who aren't white find solidarity in saying 'we are not white.' It's the idea that if we are excluded from a group, we'll just form our own." What should I say to that? What should you say to that? Is that an over-sensitive out-of-line generalization? "Society doesn't want/accept non-white people?"
Yes. It is a ridiculous claim to make. How could society not accept what is part of it? Who out there hates black people? Who out there thinks that Mexicans should not earn as much as natural-born citizens? Nobody. That's insane. I'd put money on it that not a single person who reads this article hates black people for being black. That means that racism is dead. Sure, in 2008 black men had a median hourly wage that was only 71% of what white men earned, but racism is dead. Right? In the same year, black drivers were three times as likely to have their car searched than white drivers and two times more likely than Hispanics. But really, that was eight years ago. Racism has got to be dead by now.
If racism is dead now, then why did a grown man tear up and begin to cry on March 8 in front of a crowd of his peers when talking about race relations at the George Fox campus? A legal adult, crying in public over a cardboard cut-out. Kind of. The distressing event occurred eight years ago. A student had hung a life-sized cardboard image of President Barack Obama from a tree near the center of campus. A sign also hung from the cutout that read "Act Six Reject." Act Six is a scholarship program designed to foster diversity on the college campus.
This situation is not a statistic. It took place on a Christian campus a mere eight years ago. If this kind of thing can occur in the middle of a community that should be modeling love, imagine what happened and still happens elsewhere?
Racism is still alive in America. As a well-off, white man living in Newberg, Ore., the only time I ever notice it is when I'm sitting down in the cafeteria to eat with one of my good friends who happens to be Mexican, and somebody makes a racist joke. It's happened before, and, when it does, what breaks my heart the most is the moment when my friend, clearly hurt, tries to brush over it and pretend it didn't happen instead of standing up for himself.
That means talking about race, apologizing for our words and telling others to apologize for their words is so taboo, so uncomfortable in this society, that some find it easier and are convinced it is better to sit there and take it rather than stand up to insensitivity. This is a problem that cannot be swept under the rug. It's ugly and it isn't going to disappear if we pretend to not see it. Folks, we have to talk about it.
As an undergraduate in engineering, my head is wired for problem solving. "Talking about it" isn't a satisfactory solution for me. I need a plan of action, a set of objectives or a series of steps towards the answer. But we don't have one. Racism has no cure aside from love, and that's too vague an answer to make me happy. So we need to start looking for another answer or at least trying love, and both of those things mean talking about it. It's uncomfortable at times, but so was getting "the talk" from your parents (or sex ed teacher), and in the end you're thankful you had it.
