Race in America

I know, the subject line sounds like a class title - but it happens to fit the circumstance of this brief blog.

Jason had brought this article to my attention earlier today: "Mounting racial tensions ‘resegregating’ America, activists say"; and I think it's worth examining.

While the article highlights only a few of the preposterous racially-charged injustices that have been occurring within American borders of late, it points out a major historical consistency... something critics of the Civil Rights Movement warned of after Dr. King's assassination (and the subsequent Civil Rights Bill that was used to quell race riots) - Nationalism Relies On Race.

What do I mean by that? As Potok states in the article (really, read it), the perception of many unsettled whites is that, "‘My country is changing all around me. This is not the country that my forefathers built. It must be because those brown-skinned people are coming in and destroying it.' ” And it is easily understandable how such a misguided belief can gain such popularity - look around you, no matter what city you dwell in. Isn't it true that the "black" part of town or "immigrant" part of town is run-down, frightening, and populated by a seemingly never-ending group of vagrants or drunks? White people look at this and they think, "Oh my goodness - black people just DON'T know how to take care of themselves!"

Now, you and I know that what white people should be thinking is something along the lines of, "Oh my goodness - my refusal to budge on the local school tax proposals has caused a terrible situation for the children of immigrants/African Americans/Latinos/(poor whites!)... now they'll spend their lives forced into positions that will end up in a poverty wage job, prison time, and a statistically higher mortality rate!" Since this rarely happens, even with the most well-intentioned of priveledged whites, another mode of thought occurs entirely. That is, white people want to stay as far away from minorities as they possibly can.

Hence, the notion of resegregation - or, at worst, the very flouting of civil liberties in cases like Jena, Louisiana. And why not? We already see a highly segregated system flourishing in the U.S. Schools are underfunded or ignored, and so are black schoolchildren. Public hospitals seem to cater only to the barest of health necessities for those in an urban environment - rural blacks and whites would be lucky even to have access to ambulatory services. Even those of us aware that we live in a society that refuses to be integrated are guilty of segregation - do your black and white friends get along?

Self-segregation is not to blame, either, however - the societal structure that minorities at my age are facing is one that makes clear, "We Do Not Want You." It isn't in my best interest to "flaunt" my race - it's a potentially dangerous situation (no less because of my Arab roots - having just crossed the border from Canada, this has been made very clear to me), and at the very least, an uncomfortable one.

I'm not sure what the solution is. I'm hesitant to suggest a revolution, but some days, that's all I want to support...



....just kidding, C.I.A guy.