Unity: Why We Don't Have It

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled, in a landmark decision, that segregation in schools and in society was unconstitutional. It would take another twenty years to integrate schools. In the meantime an entire Civil Rights movement occurred and even a Civil Rights Act, all with the intent that previously second class citizens could have equal rights and equal protection under the law. Did it do some good? Of course it did. But if you think true equality has been achieved, you haven’t been watching the news for the last year and a half. There are actually people who would tell you that racism died with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Those people would be white. Then there are some who will admit there is a problem and throw up their hands with the attitude that nothing can be done about this. It’s just what we do. Racism will always exist. It’s human nature. I say that’s bullshit. I’ve seen proof of it. Here’s the primary reason racism continues.

But first, we need to clarify something. Everyone has bias. It’s hard not to. I have a positive bias for the New Orleans Saints. I love my team. I have a favorite. I might also have a bit of disdain—a negative bias—for the Atlanta Falcons. That comes with the territory. I also have a bias for my own family. I’d generally make my own family a priority in most cases. Who wouldn’t? Everyone has bias. It’s not even out of the question to prefer to hang around people with similar ethnic, cultural, or religious particulars. Prejudice, however, is a strong negative bias against a group of people with some kind of commonality. It lumps everyone in that group together, regardless of a person’s individuality. Combined with unfair stereotypes and assumptions about everyone in that group, prejudice becomes a strong negative attitude that breeds hatred and can lead to discrimination, which is prejudice-based action against members of that group. It assumes the worst in people, rather than the best.

Racism, however, takes on a different social dynamic. Racism occurs under the social framework of the powerful and the powerless. This dynamic exists throughout society. Bosses and workers. Teachers and students. Parents and children. There are people or groups in power. They want to stay in power. So they do what they can to maintain the status quo and remain dominant. The wealthy want to preserve their wealth and influence. Politicians concern themselves with reelection. Teachers enact rules and consequences to maintain order in their classrooms. With racism, there is a dominant cultural, racial, social, or religious group who seeks to maintain that status quo. Muslims, in some countries, are intolerant of Jews or Christians. In South Africa, the minority white population has historically sought to restrict the rights of blacks. In the US, you could be a minority in a certain neighborhood and be singled out for racism; white in a black neighborhood, black in a Hispanic neighborhood, and so on. And of course, there are plenty of white Americans in our country who seek to restrict the rights of black, Hispanic, Muslim, and even Native American groups.

Whether we’re talking about prejudice, discrimination, or racism, there is one thing in common with all of it. It’s indoctrinated. It’s taught. What you learn about people of other groups depends on one’s environment. That doesn’t mean that a person brought up with prejudice can’t change their minds. That decision to evolve one’s viewpoint also is a product of environment. As an educator, I’ve taught in a variety of these environments. Personally, I was schooled in a small, all-white private school in a little south Louisiana town. I went to college with thirty thousand people of all kinds of racial and ethnic backgrounds. I have taught in 100% black schools in impoverished neighborhoods. I have taught in predominantly white suburban schools. But currently, I teach in a school situated in the most richly diverse neighborhoods you can imagine. Every day, I teach white, black, Latino, Muslim, Catholic, Mormon, Native American, Pakistani, Vietnamese, Buddhist, Bengali, Arab, German, British, Hmong, Laotian, Samoan, Tongan, gay, straight, transgender, and Jewish kids. And I’m just scraping the surface. Do you know what I don’t see a lot of in my school? Racism. Prejudice. Bullying. Discrimination. These kids all grow up together. They see each other as people, and only people. No one is vying for dominance as a group. There is no us or them. No status quo. Everyone gets to be unique, and everyone gets along despite the differences in view, culture, language, and creed.

This has taught me that de facto segregation in our country is one of the primary culprits in perpetuating hate and prejudice. When legal segregation ended, and schools were beginning to integrate, the white population responded by founding all-white private schools. People uprooted their families and moved further out into what became the suburbs. They could afford it. Black and Latino families couldn’t. These white families took with them their superior consumer buying power and their businesses. Job opportunities and tax dollars left these minority families and ensured that these low income slums became more desperate. Desperation breeds crime. Suddenly dads start going to jail, leaving single-parent households with less income. People sell drugs to get extra cash because the Quickie Mart doesn’t pay worth a shit, and so addiction rises. Prostitution becomes rampant, and then so do STDs. Without an adequate tax base, there is no money to properly staff and furnish schools. Thus begins the cycle.

Neighborhoods are now often segregated by race and ethnicity. They develop their own culture. People grow up with different states of mind and different values. In poor, minority neighborhoods, survival takes priority. These are people that have never seen education better a person’s life. They have never seen a school or a teacher who truly cares about their students. You have to do what you have to do to survive. That’s life. In the suburbs, kids are raised with relative privilege. Good schools, a path to college, a new cell phone for their birthday, and access to healthcare. Wealthy kids are raised with yet another set of conditions and values. With these values come attitudes about the world, about life, and about people outside of their own communities. One person might be raised in an all-white area and taught to view black people as lazy, ignorant, thieving, welfare leaches. He or she might be taught to call these people all kinds of horrible things. They tell racist jokes rife with stereotypes. They avoid black people in the supermarket. They avoid any unnecessary contact. Another person might be raised in an all-black neighborhood across town. The grandparents still remember the days of open racism. They remember the fire hoses and segregation. They remember being specifically targeted by outright racist police officers. They remember what people called them to their faces. They teach their kids, and their kids teach their kids. They teach that those white people across town don’t care about you. The cops don’t care about you, and will even target you over anyone else. No one will ever lift a finger for your well-being. YOUR LIFE DOESN’T MATTER. Sometimes they’re right. But that’s not the real problem.

The real problem is that people are indoctrinated without any way to challenge that upbringing. Segregation limits who you grow up around. It limits contact with people that are different from yourself. You grow up with stereotypes for other groups, and all it takes is even the occasional example of truth in them to confirm what you have always been taught. A person needs long-lasting exposure to people of different groups to undo the prejudice and hatred that is often learned from birth. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen it work. I’ve experienced this myself. I am one of those people. My mind has changed gradually over the years. The more people of diverse backgrounds I talk to and come to understand, the more clearly I see. The longer we segregate ourselves and shy away from diversity, the longer our problems persist. Look beyond your biases and your cultural indoctrination. People are people, and yes there are bad ones. But if we are to defeat the division and achieve unity—black, white, cop, civilian—we must cast aside all notions of us and them. Come to know your brothers and sisters. Spend time with people of differing backgrounds and viewpoints. Converse with people who disagree with you. Open your mind to someone else’s perspective. Start today. Please…hurry up.

Progress in the New Year

It’s the last day of the year. It’s a time when everyone in the world reflects on the previous three hundred sixty-five days, what their triumphs were, and what their pitfalls were. But it’s also a day when we peer into the possibilities that the next year may bring. Commonly, this comes with a mentality of change. Many of us that are brave enough to see ourselves as imperfect think about what we could do differently next year so that we may improve and evolve as people. Why can’t we have the same mentality as a society? Why can’t we think this way when it comes to our government and the people that government serves?

I think if you were to ask Americans about our place in the world as a society and as a country, the majority would stick to the old propaganda-borne belief that this is the greatest country/society in the world. And there is some basis for that claim, but it is a holdover belief from a time when it may have been true that we were at the forefront in comparison to the rest of the world. I don’t believe we have simply maintained that position. Rather, like other societies we might be compared to, we have occupied that status in waves, followed by time periods where we grew comfortable, socially and economically.

Here’s an example. The Revolution and ideas that helped us to construct our new government were radical—extremely radical. The ideas behind the social contract and unalienable rights were from the minds of Enlightenment writers who were seen as so radical and dangerous to the status quo that they were often censored and/or imprisoned. Guys like Voltaire lived much of their lives in exile from their own countries. Paired with the audacity to challenge the most powerful imperial force in the world and its monarchy, that made the new United States of America a cutting edge example of what governments should be for a brave new world. It directly inspired the French Revolution, which inspired governmental and social changes all over Europe, and eventually the rest of the world. But we didn’t remain a world leader in that way. We lulled throughout the nineteenth century and clung to our past status of greatness. We were among the last in the western world to end slavery, and even that came with an actually war in which some still wanted to cling to the archaic institution. Even beyond that, our practices of discrimination persisted for another century and more. We sunk into a deep attitude of isolationism and materialism. The only other time that we regained a true status of global “greatness” was in the change enacted in response to the Great Depression and during our fight against imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. But once again, in years to come, we still clung to the ideals and achievements of yesteryear, claiming to be the greatest country in the world, but with no evidence to back such a claim.

What made us great in those times that we could legitimately claim global leadership? Many of you will not like this truth, but the answer is progressivism. Those revolutionary ideas were radical because they were progressive. They challenged the status quo. They challenged those whose power stemmed from doing things the way they always have been done. Franklin and Jefferson challenged the power of King George. Abolitionists challenged the power of wealthy slave owners and their greedy ideals. Civil Rights leaders challenged the power and dominance of white Americans, and that struggle still persists. These events are significant in our history. This, paired with economic and technological innovations over the years has been the source of what makes us great. And this, my friends, is what one would call progressivism. To many conservatives this is a dirty word. But why? That same conservative may hold Jefferson or Lincoln in high esteem and examples of what made the US great, but he or she forgets that these people were progressive, and that’s why they were great. Great and innovative people think outside the social and cultural norm. They invent things that have never been. They are not content or complacent with what has always been. They seek to improve.

There is nothing wrong with being conservative. I think a lot of conservative ideals are great—ideals that center around morality and certain values. But often times, politically, officials and policies use this as a way of convincing people to make sure that those in power stay in power both in terms of elected office and in control of wealth, just as did slave owners and monarchs past. This is the status quo. This is the voice that seeks to ensure that nothing changes for the betterment of everyone in our society. This is King George asserting his own personal supremacy over the people of the North American colonies. This is David Koch ensuring that he and his brother can buy a government that makes policies that support their own greed. And this isn’t necessarily good for all of us in our society. The greatest moments in US history saw men and women challenge this stagnation. Change is what makes us great. And it’s what is helping our contemporary nations to surpass us as being world leaders. Progressivism is not a dirty word. But not progressing—becoming too comfortable in the way things have always been—ensures that everyone else surpasses us. We become regressive. We hold ourselves to our own ideals, regardless of global consensus. We gladly isolate ourselves from an increasingly integrated world that tries new things and boldly solves problems with new solutions. And we become socially, morally, culturally, and economically archaic. And if you want to know that that looks like, just visit Saudi Arabia or Yemen.