Did you hear there was an inauguration this week? Apparently it is kind of a big deal. Ahh, I kid. Truly a momentous day in American history. With all the doom and gloom of economic downturn, lack of consumer confidence and the housing market crash, there are aspects of America and therein the world that are on the upswing. The scar of racism is healing.
Racism isn’t born, folks, it’s taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list. -Dennis Leary
Here is the story of how Barack Obama caused a play change in our house as to how we deal with race.
Our oldest boy is in kindergarten. They had considerable coverage of the election process in his class and it was the subject of emphatic discussion after school and over dinners. Whether or not anonymity was encouraged was a moot point as he could recount the position of every student in his class. He informed us he voted for Barack Obama because John McCain was “wayyy too old” (my wife insists he did not hear this from her). He asked us “Do you know why Barack Obama is special?” My initial honest response was “Do you mean why do people like him? Well, he is a great speaker, very charismatic, etc…” He interrupted “No, why is he different?” My knee jerk reaction to “different” was negative. We are sure his teachers did not present it this way but felt the need to clarify “different”. Why? One of our core principles of raising our kids is tolerance. Our vision was not that race would be ignored but that skin color would be as inconsequential as shoe size or hair color. Here we were now acknowledging the differences rather than his similarities. Bigotry, prejudice and racism are ugly human conditions but from a personal development level they are limiting. Intolerance means you are no longer open to a person or situation as a learning opportunity because you think you have all the information you need.
It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows. -Epictetus
Was our plan being derailed? How do we get back on track? OK, step back. HUDDLE!! What were we missing? What was the intention of our principle of tolerance? We wanted to raise responsible, educated and accepting adults. Simply put, we missed something HUGE. We were trying to use forced ignorance (albeit good-intentioned) to fix ugly ignorance. It would be doing a great disservice to the occasion to soften the history behind it and why it was so world changing. Only by acknowledging where we once were can we appreciate where we are or where we still need to go. There was a comment from a reporter to (then candidate for) President Obama that he was using the race card to get him ahead. Personally, I never saw that as a predominant focus in his campaign but he had a though provoking response. I can’t find the quote verbatim but the gist was that if someone wanted to increase their chances of being elected President of the United States they would most likely not choose to be an inner-city black boy named Barack Hussein Obama. I believe our 44th President was elected in spite of race, not because of it.
There is ugliness in the world. A LOT of it. There are wars being fought on the simple difference of what you call your god or what book you read about him/her. Racism is less vocal but just as dangerous underground. This “great melting pot” we live in is more of a tossed salad. You can still pick out the individual parts. When filling out “race” in most any form or questionnaire there is no pie chart or percentage breakdown. 25% Black is Black, 25% Hispanic is Hispanic. There is work to do.
Ya’ll don’t know what it’s like being male, middle class and white. - Ben Folds (Rockin’ the Suburbs) read satirically
While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about. -Angela Schwindt
This is not the first time we have dealt with race or ignorance in our house. It won’t be the last. While the goal is that it no longer be an issue for discussion, progress is when it is.
