Printer-friendly versionWhen I was in fifth grade and new to suburbia, my teacher introduced the concepts of racism, civil rights and fairness. And she began the task of helping 10-years olds—all of us white—learn how to talk about race in constructive ways.
I’d moved from a gritty urban neighborhood where whites, blacks and Puerto Ricans lived together rather warily. My parents maintained a chilly silence on the issue of race, although they forbade racial epithets; on the street I heard plenty. In this place, the black kids came mostly from the projects, the Puerto Ricans lived in apartments and the better-off among the white families might have an entire house. I knew that race divided.
When my fifth-grade teacher challenged us to think about how this country could ever overcome its racial divide, I remember raising my hand and offering the “melting pot” solution: if only we’d all intermarry, the divide would just go away.
Last week’s New York Times article about the rise of a multiracial generation had echoes of that simple solution. Profiles of young people who wanted the freedom to “identify as they choose” and who embraced being part of this “new tribe” gave lots of reason for optimism. While carving out a new identity is nice, it doesn’t do much to help us confront the racism that swirls around old identities.
The fact is that one group of people has never had the power to “choose” their identity. The Times article sent Ta-Nehisi Coates into our past when, in the 19th century, Irish, Italian and other immigrants were seen as separate races, yet over time their descendents “became” white. The single permanent division in American history, he reminds us, has been between blacks and non-blacks.
Some readers challenged Coates for his apparent racial exceptionalism, and in a second blog post, he considered those criticisms and regretted that his “insistence on the singularity of the black experience … so often comes off as an insistence that no one else is hurting.”
The ability to transcend racial identity has long been the key to acquiring privilege, and the one racial identity hardest to transcend is being black. The characteristic poverty, poor education, incarceration rates and ill-health that disproportionately affect black communities must be discussed and confronted with our students.
Costello is the director of Teaching Tolerance.
Comments
The story of Clarence
The story of Clarence King\James Todd is a powerful story of privilege vs intentional social depreciation. "Passing Strange" offers a very good narrative to raise consciousness about that reality.
The ability to transcend the
The ability to transcend the idea that you're the square peg in this square hole and everyone else is round pegs in round holes is actually the thing that needs to be transcended, not race per say; the more you regard yourself as separate and isolated, the more separate and isolated you will be. Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr eloquently expressed the idea of blinding oneself to skin color as the dream that one day, his children would be judged not by the color of their skin but the content of their character; racism continues to be a grievous issue because the previous racism has convinced the previous victims to see themselves only through the lens of skin color even as the old racists are coming to see them only through the lens of character. Thus, it is a supreme irony that those who were once the most oppressive are in the best position to diagnose the maladies imposed upon the formerly oppressed by the formerly oppressed themselves. Think hard about this: if there was no such thing as skin color and you identified a multigenerational epidemic of poverty, poor education, ill-health, and high incarceration rates among a certain segment of the population, what would it be attributed to? It is curious that even as people decry racism, they cling to the idea that a malady attributed to a deficiency of character among white people must be the result of racism among blacks; in the minds of these analysts, blacks are so different from whites that the same factors cannot possibly result in the same maladies no matter how similar those being compared are. Skin color, to those doing this analysis, means everything and the word we USED to use for skin color meaning everything is "racism." If whiteness doesn't make you rich, well-educated, and healthy, why does blackness make you poor, illiterate, and sick? Furthermore... why should it even occur to me to ASK such a terrible thing, incorporating the assumption that skin color must be all-important? Quite simply, it is important because it's treated AS IF it is important; it would not be important if it was treated as meaningless.
The first barrier to transcending your race is transcending the idea that your race makes you less capable, less intelligent, and less free to succeed; as Dr. King knew and said, it is the soul of a man and not the look of him that determines whether he will succeed.
I find Mr. Moore's analysis
I find Mr. Moore's analysis to be overly wordy, illogical, and patronizing. The first sentence makes no sense: "The ability to transcend the idea...is actually the thing that needs to be transcended, not race per 'say'" How can an ability to transcend be the thing that needs to be transcended? And the correct expressions is "per se;" it is a Latin term that means "of itself." I could go on to point out all the pseudo-intellectual faulty logic in Mr. Moore's statement, but that would take pages of explanantion. I will instead turn to his premise; that black people are not oppressed any longer by anyone other than themselves. He also implies that white people, "former" racists, in fact, are the ones who can diagnose this newly identified malady carried by the black race. Mr. Moore will have us blame the victim, a tactic that has been used for hundreds of years to attempt to dissuade us from examining the true roots of racism and its continued manifestations at all levels of society. Using his own interpretation of what Dr. King was saying adds insult to injury. Promoting "colorblindness" was not one of Dr. King's objectives. His objectives were many, and included lifting us all to the point where we could be free of oppression and have the liberty to love and care for each other as God's children. Mr. Moore, the sign of a good writer is the ability to communicate clearly with your reader. I suggest you state your ideas simply and clearly, and then accept the consequences of your assertions. People will disagree with you; and I hope that disagreement comes clear and strong.
You are mistaken, ma'am, to
You are mistaken, ma'am, to characterize the malady I identify as a new thing. Prior to the civil rights movement that wended its way through the 1960s, many black writers were predicting the rise of a class of "negros" who would earn their daily bread by miring blacks in an obsession with their own victimization and experience with white oppression. In other words, the identification of this malady is not the least bit new; before there was a concerted civil rights movement, blacks themselves were aware that the path of single-minded obsession with past oppression and a self-imposed limitation of "no matter how great I am, the white man will keep me down... so why try?" was possible. Anymore, the only non-whites who perceive and speak about the malady are lumped in with whites and regarded as apologists for the "evil" white man and the continued oppression of blacks.
To say, moreover, that I am encouraging anyone to black the victim is a perverse misinterpretation, so perverse as to resemble a conscious effort not to understand what is being said. No reasonable person blames blacks as a whole for the self-limitation anymore than you would blame all woman for Aileen Warnos. Those who can be blamed for the situation are a mix of people, some black and some non-black, who see fame and fortune in a minority population that sees itself as needing leaders to save them from the all-powerful white bigot. Somehow, the fact that there are renowned black ministers, revered black generals, a generally well-liked black president, and very well-respected black intellectuals. business leaders, and government officials does not even dent this impression that only through the guidance and advocacy of self-appointed saviors can blacks be as good as everyone else. Excuse me for regarding this as a malady, ma'am, but in the harm it does blacks, it is very much like a disease--and white people bear no responsibility for it whatsoever. Except for avowed racists and cynical profiteers, there're no white people out there insisting that blacks are somehow lesser and need to be saved.
Excuse me, ma'am, but my own interpretation? The words "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" speak for themselves. He explicitly says that he dreams of a nation where his children are not judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character; this is a word-for-word definition of colorblindness. I'm not sure where you ran across the idea that the concept of colorblindness differs somehow from the standard that King articulated but you have been gravely misinformed. ANY system that looks at the content of someone's character instead of their skin color is colorblind; in contrast, a system that judges by skin color above character is a racist system, much like the one that Dr. King and his courageous contemporaries defeated.
I communicated just fine with my reader; the person that I failed to communicate with was you. Based on the content of your response, Ms. Drew, I believe that we failed to communicate because the message offended or upset you and you felt the text unworthy of concerted study and a genuine attempt to comprehend. That is your choice; I certainly would not put any real effort into understanding an argument that offended me. However, you ought to recognize that it was not the format but the content that you found wanting; the snide comment about how a good writer expresses himself was unnecessary and puerile.
I happily accept the consequences of my assertions and regret that my assertions will likely fail to have consequences; it seems highly unlikely to me that someone who has been brought up convinced that they are helpless to succeed will come across my writing and be inspired to shake off their self-made shackles, and become one of the great people whose names we know and admire. I submit to you that no person, no matter their skin color, towered head and shoulders over others in their era by going about convinced that they were fated to fail. I recall that it was once said of Frederick Douglass, shortly after he passed away, that "he stood there like an African prince, majestic in his wrath." There are very few people of any race that could be said to project a presence of majesty when they spoke and one of the ones this was said of was literally oppressed yet gave himself the gift of believing in his own success long before he was actually successful. When I assert the things I do, it is my hope that someone reading will give themselves that gift as well and eventually be eulogized as majestic in their wrath.
It may be true, as you so
It may be true, as you so eloquently argue, that people who are oppressed because of the "color of their skin" - or their cultural identification, learn to see themselves as less able because of historic deprecation. It is not true, however, that ceasing to identify with one's cultural heritage is the answer! It is quite the opposite, in fact. As a teacher I know that the more strongly a student identifies with his or her cultural roots, the more likely that student is to be successful as a learner. I will agree that we all need to learn to see culture, and the differences in style that result, as positive. But be careful when you wish for us to become blind to our cultural connections; they are part of what makes us human!
Race is not culture, though.
Race is not culture, though. A black person from Haiti has a different culture than a black person from Ghana or from Louisiana or from Pennsylvania or from England or wherever else they or their family came from. I would submit, further, that to regard all black people or Asian people or Hispanic people or even white people as culturally identical would be a form of racism. Putting aside your skin color no more puts aside your cultural heritage than changing your physical location. I will likely always have a close connection to my cultural heritage growing up in a small town in north Oregon even if I was to move to Albania. Moreover, my cultural heritage is not tied to what color I am, so regarding myself as this color or that will not change the culture I come from and treasure.
One should hold fast to one's cultural roots, treasure them, and celebrate them. They are, as you say, part of what makes each of us who we are. But you need not cling to your skin color and the perception of being permanently separated by it to treasure and hold fast to your cultural roots.