Racism Reborn?

What the heck is going on in this country?  I thought that racial tensions were supposed to be improving, not getting worse!  It certainly appears to me that we still have not solved this social nightmare.

Yes, much has changed for the better.  It is awfully hard to deny this now that we have an African American President of the United States, and some of the richest of the rich in this country are successful black athletes and entertainers. But we still have much work to do. This is evident by the recent banter in the Patch regarding the article about discrimination claims in the Anne Arundel schools. If there is not blatant racism going on there, I don’t know what it is. 

For the record, I am not one who believes that racism can only be one-sided.  Whatever happened to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream that individuals be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin? We all need to take stock in the admonishment from the late Dr. King. All of us need to re-examine our biases (we all have them) and determine whether we are judging individuals or just applying assumptions based upon race alone.

It is not just the Anne Arundel schools that seem to be teeming with race tensions, but it seems to be increasing in our society since the big hubbub regarding the Treyvon Martin killing. Not since the 1960s have I seen such heated disagreements based almost solely on the races of the people involved (okay, maybe the O.J. Simpson trial). At least with our elections we (mostly) tend to stick to the political positions of the candidates rather than their races.  Even then, though, it is rather clear from the demographics from the last Presidential election that race had more than we’d like to admit about why particular votes were cast.

As a Soldier, I can tell you from personal experience that there are fantastic leaders from nearly every race and creed. Similarly, there are goodly numbers of ineffective (even horrible) leaders from across the spectrum.  The same goes to followers. Based upon my limited experience, there is definitely no template that one can apply to anyone based solely upon the race of the individual.

So, is this racial tension a bad thing, leading us to race riots like we saw in the 60s, or is it the final tempest leading us toward better race relations in the future? I believe that it could go either way. Unfortunately, there are many players on the national stage whose interests are served if tensions turn even more destructive.  Among those include the so-called “race hustlers” on the one side and Skinheads and “rednecks” on the other, but they unfortunately also include organizations such as the NAACP, La Raza, and even the national media. All benefit in one way or another from increased tensions.

I, for one, am hoping for a new generation of stakeholders to come to the fore. I have seen and I have been involved in successful bridging across races.  This seems to work best when the aforementioned individuals and organizations are not involved. Neighbor to neighbor, business owner to business owner, and citizen to citizen seems to works best. All the others tend to bring self interest and/or past biases into the picture.

This is such a complicated topic and I feel woefully inadequate even attempting to address it. There is one thing, though, that is pretty darn clear to me.  It is this: in MOST cases, on an individual basis, people are willing to make judgments based solely upon a person’s character. By that I mean that they are much more willing to make a positive judgment about a specific INDIVIDUAL than they are about another racial GROUP. It is kind of like lawyers. Many people complain that they hate lawyers, but most of them like or respect either their own lawyer or someone they know who is a lawyer. That is also why someone can claim not to be racist because they “have a friend who is ____.”

To me, this is a good thing. That gives me confidence that most of us are willing and able to put racial bias aside on an individual level.  If that is the case for one, I believe that it can ultimately lead to elimination of bias against all. We need to avoid the group-speak, the race baiting, the media narrative, and quickly correct the inaccurate assumptions that others may make regarding race. If we cannot do that, I am afraid that we are destined to repeat the mistakes of past generations.