Okay, I admit it. I'm white. For me to write a diary on racism, as Armando recently requested we all give a try, my opinion is immediately tainted as coming from the "privileged class." I can't help this. One has to bear the load of their racial burdens. But I'll try to be brief. Brief enough to encourage discussion.
I was born too late to understand the most formative years of the civil rights movement. Still, my politics, my understanding of human nature, and much of what makes me a sentient human being is wrapped in what has grown out of that movement. I'm going to commit an offense that generally can only be committed by a white man and say that I am not a bigot. I think I can thank my mother for this, in spite of the many other difficulties we've had as mother and son. One thing she did was absolutely right.
One thing that must stop in order for there to be honest discussions on racism is the notion that only whites can be bigots. Racism is an equal opportunity affliction.
In order to encourage discussion of race, we all have to agree to something. We all have prejudices which are deeply ingrained. We can lose those prejudices, but not without a great deal of thought and self reflection. And we are all ignorant. We have no clue as to what goes through the mind of someone of another race - or less, someone who comes from different life experiences. We all will say stupid things to each other - but it is only by weeding our way through the stupidity, each supporting the other, that we will ever be able to understand what each of us want, which is - exactly the same thing.
This even carries over to sexual prejudice. I've suffered, over the years, the crap pop psychologists have attempted to foist on us. Men are not from Mars, and women are not from Venus (unless of course, I guess, they're Scientologists). We are merely different sexes from the same species. We have learned different ways to express ourselves as taught by our culture. This is not insurmountable so long as we remember we're not seeking different things, we are only asking for them differently. The same is true of race and nationality.
All that said, I think racism is on the rise. There was a period of time, after the desegregation of schools, where racial consciousness was real and public education was well funded and successful. As we have managed to destroy our public education, we've become far less successful at diminishing the ignorance of racism. One thing a lack of education breeds is the feeling that there is no past, and there is no future - there is only now. Yes, we had the institution of slavery, but that ended well over a hundred years ago, so why would a black man have a different culture than a white man? Didn't we all grow up in the same country? Without a strong sense of history and other sciences, such as sociology and anthropology, we fail to see that blacks were brought to this country on slave ships, lumping Africans from different nations - different cultures - all together. They were separated and denied participation in the thriving culture in the Americas when they got here. They were virtually forced to develop a rich culture - a rich identity, if you will - in a vacuum. To their great credit, but also adding to our national confusion as a "melting pot," they succeeded. A rich culture is a very durable thing, and it will not die for a thousand years. For those who wait for the "black culture" to disappear with the institution of slavery - well, we'll have to check back with them in a few more centuries.
We must not avoid discussion of the past merely because it is in the past. Slavery is as big an issue in this country as it was in 1860. We no longer seek to end it, but we still struggle every bit as hard to overcome what it has left us in 2006. And our chance to overcome the cultural divide is diminishing as our quality of education diminishes. Education is the bridge to everything bright in America's future. The education of all children is all that prevents some children from being marginalized.
Why am I a Democrat? Because I view Republicans as the greatest threat to an educated society since the Jim Crowe segregationists. How do we end racism? By making all of America's children the world's best educated. For the richest nation in the world, we should demand nothing less.