Racism: Subtle Inclinations and Stepping Outside of Ourselves

One of my "must see" TV shows is Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO.  While I don't always agree with him and sometimes feel that he's an obnoxious douche-bag, I find that his show often causes me to consider topics and points of view about which I might not otherwise have given much thought.

Last summer Bill quoted a man named Ta-Nehisi Coates, a senior editor for The Atlantic and blogs on its website.  Bill's quote was of a piece that Mr. Coates published in September 2012 entitled "Fear of a Black President."  The quote, "Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others" struck a chord with me and I decided to look up the article and read it in its entirety.

Whether or not you agree with Mr. Coates, his article is well written and conveys a point-of-view foreign to anyone--liberal, conservative or otherwise--who has not lived life as an African-American.  His words are powerful and should cause anyone who takes the time to read them to stop and think about an issue that has the ability to galvanize people like few others.

Regardless of your take on racism in America, I hope that by publishing a link to the article I will in some modest way further the discourse on a topic deserving of thoughtful, open-minded contemplation rather than knee-jerk reactionism and myopia.

I have no idea what it's like to live as anything other than what I am: a middle-aged white male.  It's my awareness of my own perceptual limitations that helps me in my attempt to keep my own biases and prejudices in check.  It's what allows me to recognize that my attitudes and opinions might be radically different--yet no less valid--had I been born into a culture whose ancestors were once constitutionally and simultaneously considered both three-fifths of a person and chattel property by many of the Founding Fathers who adorn today's classroom walls.

In 1619 the first Africans appeared on our shores.  They weren't seeking religious freedom or greater economic opportunities; they were stolen from their homes and families, endured a horrific and often deadly voyage across a vast sea and arrived to an alien world terrified, heartbroken and enslaved in chains.  Not until 2112 will more time have passed during which blacks were free rather than enslaved in North America.  Think about that for a moment: another 98 years from today until African Americans as a race will have spent more time on American soil legally recognized as people than as property.  Another century just to break even in terms of time spent owned by other Americans.  And another century on top of that until the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

To discount the effect facts such as these have on a culture, to insist that "it's been long enough and they need to get over it" is at best naive and at worst arrogant and inflammatory, thus impeding or even reversing the glacial progress of American society toward tolerance and acceptance.

Is history sometimes used as an excuse by the historically disenfranchised?  No doubt.  But today's individuals are products of their cultures, cultures which are themselves byproducts of history.  History matters, if for no other reason than to help explain the attitudes of the present.

We as a society and as civilized members of the human race owe it to ourselves and to each other to occasionally turn our gaze from mirrors to windows, to see beyond ourselves and acknowledge the validity of points of view other than our own, points of view colored by the prism of of our own unique history and culture.

"Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others."  

It is the subtle employment of prejudice that is often the most toxic.