Message to White Folks about Racism

Recently I watched an article on television about black people in America. The article pointed out that while 30% or more of native born blacks were unemployed, unemployment among immigrant blacks was below the national average. The "experts", both black and white, displayed on the program rambled long and eloquently about the complexity of the problem. But they failed to satisfy the narrator's curiosity. He concluded with the mystery, "America has one of the most generous and free societies on the planet. Why aren't we producing the happiest, most productive black people in the world?"

Well, of course I'm just an ignorant Red-neck, but I don't think the problem is that big a mystery, or that its solutions are very complex.

I have a white friend who had a bad encounter with the law as a young teenager. He ended up doing time,  not for a crime, but for his own protection. (To this day I've never understood why they jailed the victim instead of the assailant.) That single incident apparently still haunts him to this day.  He says he feels terrified and angry at the same time when he has an encounter with the law, even when they're on his side and even when the encounter has nothing to do with the law.

A colleague of mine recently spent thirty minutes telling me about a black student that tried to sue him for racism for dropping her from the class roll because of excessive absences, (something he is required to do). It is apparent that this single incident at the tender age of forty five has left him fearful of black people for the rest of his life. 

Now think a moment about just what you personally have observed in life, and ask yourself how hard you think it would be to go out and find a black person, especially a male, who has managed to reach the ripe old age of fifteen without having a racial encounter at least as bad as the one above, and an encounter with the law at least as bad as the one mentioned above. Then ask yourself what we as individuals and as a nation could do to minimize this kind of a situation.

I learned a long time ago that it is really counterproductive to denigrate someone, especially publicly, for making degrading racial comments. But I hear a lot of comments from people who really are friends of mine about how dumb and/or lazy black people are. I usually respond with a "yeah but I've got this black kid from such and such whose name is so and so who's really tearing up the Calculus",  or some such statement as that. That usually stops the bad-mouth black people tirades, but recently I kinda got carried away and rambled off a brief description of 3 or 4 of my former black students who had just recently graduated at the top of their class at a university somewhere, some supporting families at the same time and after a few moments of silence my friend responded, "well, ain't you gittin afraid they maybe trying to take over?" For some reason that struck me as hilariously funny, maybe it was just the way she said it. I finally stopped laughing enough to say "yeah, may be, but I've never heard of anyone being taken over by an eye doctor or an electrical engineer."

It needs to become a matter of pride in the hearts of Americans to have as an objective to produce the best brightest and most well adjusted black people on the planet. At this time, we are systematically, methodically, and perpetually raising an entire population of abused black kids. Even those that excel and prosper carry emotional scars all their lives and thereby actually help in the destruction of the next crop of black kids. The whole thing is just really ridiculous. So what can we white people do about it ?

Well, we can try to stop thinking and saying blanket statements about any race of people.  Remind yourself that every time you do it, you make yourself less of a person. We've got to stop "taking care" of black adults. That undermines their personal self worth, especially those that are already taking good care of themselves. Those that aren't are going to have to learn to control their own emotional problems, just like all the rest of us, both black and white, do.   Besides, from what I have seen, these days, everybody in all walks of life seem to be raising about the same percentage of "disadvantaged" kids.

Like most folks, I'm wary of any endeavor that uses religion or hatred as a means to an end, no matter how attractive it may be.  But I believe there are lots of black men involved in the million -man -march movement that are not in it for either of those reasons. It is just an opportunity to really shake loose from the helping /crippling hand of white people and say "turn me lose mother, I want to do it myself. I can stand on my own, I will stand on my own!"

Several years ago I helped a student of mine get a minority scholarship to a local university. He did thank me, but the next summer it was important to him that I and everybody else know that his minority scholarship had been canceled and replaced by an academic scholarship complete with checking account and all the dignity that comes with it.

It is the kids that need to be the focus of all our efforts. We can change the racial abuse quicker and more pleasantly that way than any other way.  We've got to learn to treat all kids, black and white, as if they were our own kids. If black folks want to raise their kids to speak some cool-dude Afro-American cultural lingo, that is their business. But when that kid walks into my class it is going to speak proper English. I wouldn't send my kid off to the world talking like that and I'm not sending their's either. I get a kick out of hanging out with my farmer friends and talking good old southern drawl and using a whole bunch of words that aren't even in the dictionary, but I certainly don't show up for class and insist on the cultural right to express myself any way I please.

That kid I mentioned above showed up in my class with lousy algebra skills and terrible English. Instead of a grade I put a note in his first lab telling him to come see me. When he showed up I asked him what he wanted to be. When he said "a doctor", I said "son, there isn't a medical school in the country that will let you in if you cannot write a complete sentence, and you're not going to survive my physics class if you don't learn some algebra.  So here's what we're going to do. You are going to show up twice a week to get some algebraic indoctrination and you're going to get your English teacher to grade your labs before I do. " He looked a little bit nervous and asked if I really thought she would do that? I said "of course she will! You're the customer, remember?" To make a long story short, by spring quarter he was the best physics student I had and the best student his English teacher had.  But we were not the heros in this little drama. We were just doing what teachers do.  He is the one that put forth the heroic effort.  We go through that kind of process with  all our students in his position.  It doesn't work on all the black ones, it doesn't work on all the white ones either.  But it wouldn't work on any of them if we did not try it at all. That kid went through twelve years of school without anyone making him responsible for his own education. Is that because he is black? Maybe, but probably not. We've had lots of them both colors in the same boat. The point is, if he'd been their kid they would certainly have tried it. Ask anyone who was a teacher's kid and they'll tell you they were made to be responsible for their own grades, and never allowed to use teachers as an excuse for bad grades.

PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE

OR

THE MAKING OF A RACIST

I became race prejudice when I moved to Alabama. I didn't become prejudice because I encountered a great horde of mean, nasty black people who sat around exuding foul odors, robbing me and beating me up every time I turned my back. All the black people I've met or encountered here have been clean, neat, polite, courteous, friendly, diligent and helpful. I'm sure there must be some bad black people here, but I have never personally had a bad encounter with one.

I didn't become race prejudice because I ran slam into great mobs of black students absolutely dumber than posts that could never be taught anything.  I have seen black people with short attention spans, lack of persistence, patience, self confidence, and direction, all typical disorders of children in single parent homes and/or disrupted lives.  Lots of white folks of great learning, (why, even some of my best friends), interpret those as characteristics of poor intelligence, but I do not, because I have been there.

I didn't become race prejudice because all those nigger jokes I've heard were so funny (some of them really are funny, and nowadays most of those jokes are directed at nerds, like me).  My race prejudice isn't in the form of hatred, or distrust, or disgust, or denigration, or condescension, but of sadness, disappointment, and frustration. I became race prejudice against black people, in the form of half-hearted efforts to teach black students, as I became increasingly aware that lots of black people are prejudice against black people. It comes in at least two forms that I have personally observed.

Many black people are convinced that they are intellectually inferior to white people. It even gives them a sense of security, and allows them to justify their sad lot and being on welfare. This security and justification is shaken by members of their group who demonstrate their beliefs to be false. This gives rise to the second form, hatred of the successful black person. The "Uncle Tom".  No, they don't go burning crosses in their yards or hanging them from trees, but it is a definite peer pressure thing to which young people are very susceptible and every one of my really successful black students have suffered from it. Some to the point of dropping out even though they were doing very well.

Well, you might say, why can't successful black kids just hang out with each other ? For one thing, so far, there's never been enough of them here at once to form a group. Well, why can't they hang out with white kids ? Some of them do partly, but it isn't sufficient.  I don't know why, but my personal observation seems to affirm a couple of psychological studies I ran into somewhere which concluded that birds of a feather really do like to flock together.  Black kids need association with and approval of other black kids. It doesn't really matter how many old folks of whatever color keep patting you on the back, if you ain't got friends your own age your own color, you're lonely, and that's it finish.

Then there is the racism against white people that is perhaps even less apparent than these two, but just as great a hurdle and just as real. I saw Nelson Mandella recognize it and react to it quite undiplomatically on television once, and, from a brief interview I saw on TV with Malcom X, I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't have a lot to do with his death. Many black people are so accustom to blaming their failures on prejudice, they sometimes cannot tell the difference between racism and the plain old dog-eat-dog friendly competition of a free enterprise society, and the higher you go, the tougher it gets. L.L.Bean was a white Anglo-Saxon male, and he got 99 of the first 100 pair of guaranteed waterproof boots he sold right back in his face. Instead of looking for someone to blame, he looked for ways to circumvent his failure, and stuck with it until he made it. Perhaps neither Nelson D. Rockefeller's son nor Nat King Cole's daughter had as rocky a road to riches as the rest of us, but that's life. It can still be lots of fun. In fact, sometimes the tougher it gets, the more fun it is, and the greater the satisfaction when you make it. I know prejudice does exist, and not just white versus black, but also well-to-do white against not-so-well-to-do white. I also know that it is counterproductive and pointless to use it as an excuse for failure. Utilize your advantages. In the words of Nelson Mandella, black people in America have opportunities not even dreamed of by black people in South Africa. In the words of Malcom X, black people are going to have to stop depending on white people to give them a better life, and take charge of their own destiny.

However well justified any prejudices may be, they should be overcome and eliminated for several reasons. Its counter productivity is a detriment to us all. (Can you imagine just how much prejudices cost the US in real dollars each year ?) It doesn't browbeat those who deserve it into overcoming their deficits, but more important, it is unfair and very debilitating to the honest, hard-working responsible members of the objective group being maligned. As I mentioned before, most of the black adults that I know personally work at least as hard as I do and some of them much harder.

At the risk of sounding like a side-walk preacher, I believe we all should strive to take each one we meet up front at face value and respond accordingly, rather than according to some pre-conceived notion. We need only look at Iran and Iraq to see that prejudice as an idealogy is a dead end street traveled only by deadbeats. For elimination of the objects of our prejudice doesn't eliminate the prejudice, it merely gets transferred to some other group of individuals. Diversity of a population living in harmony and tolerance is a major part of what has made America great. We should embrace and nurture it, rather than struggle to eliminate it.

SEX AND THE SLUM DWELLERS

If you are one of those millions of black men in the slums of America who feels dispossessed and helpless in this supposed white male dominated society, what can you do to help the plight of black people ?

(2011 update:  A huge percentage of black children are being raised these days without two parents.  In case you don't think that really matters, consider this: 

A couple of years ago I was involved in a one week summer workshop for high school students.  I sat with a different group each day, trying to get to know them.  Most of the students in this workshop were black, and most of the black students were female.  It was a good workshop, we got a lot done and had a lot of fun.  Like is a bit strong, but I do believe many of them began to lose their fear of math and science a little and even began to admire me a little.  At the end of the last day I thanked them all for their interest and effort and asked if there were any questions.  After a whole week of being immersed  in robots, technology, math and physics, they had three questions for me. 
Was I married?  Yes.
How long had I been married?   The answer, 40 years, produced an audible gasp throughout the room.
Did I have any children?  The answer, no, produced a collective sound of sadness.

Look at South Africa and realize that the plight of black people in a country is not determined by their numbers alone, much less the number of disorganized, distraught, dysfunctional black people. A huge army of black people on welfare bringing this country to its knees will not raise the plight of black people of this country, or any where else. What is needed is a small army of well disciplined, self confident, secure, optimistic young black people, eager to go forth in the world and make their mark constructively.  Such people are made, not born.  So when you get ready to stick your pecker into a woman of whatever color, take a hard look at her face, a long look down the road twenty years ahead, if you are not ready, willing and able to live with that woman for the next twenty years, and prepared to love and cuddle her child every day, reading to it, taking pleasure in its company, teaching it self discipline, direction, and self confidence, providing for its worldly needs and preparing it for the future, then put a rubber on it or stick it back in your pants, and you will be doing your people a great service.

Look at China, India, most of the Middle East, most of Latin America, well over half of those on welfare in America, and realize that no race no place has a monopoly on destitution, and that no group of the destitute anywhere has ever managed to populate themselves into affluence. So the same message above applies to the destitute of all races everywhere.