Living Without Race
I'm bringing this up because I have somewhat of a unique perspective to this debate for a number of reasons. I'll just throw out a couple of situations to start.
1. I was one of the last 10 applicants chosen for an interview for a government funded outreach program for helping the homeless. During the interview process, I had the opportunity to observe some of the local homeless that took advantage of this organization's services, and they were present as 60 percent white, 30 percent African American and 10 percent of pretty much everyone else. What I found most interesting was that the staff working the government location was 100 percent African-American. Of the people being interviewed, 9 were African-American, and there was me. The three people in the round table that interviewed me were African-American. Surprisingly, I did not get the job.
2. A union organizing job. Got through the telephone screening with flying colors. In person, there was me, one of two white guys, and all women. Of the women, 80 percent were Hispanic and African-American. The staff making the decision consisted of three women, two of them of minority status. Surprisingly, the two white guys were not chosen to continue for the job.
3. During a phone call with another government job, I was told that my background was impressive, but I'd probably not be "comfortable" in the job environment. No further information could be obtained, other than that it was obvious the work environment was mostly minority status personnel.
One of the things that has always intrigued me at graduate school is that people immediately put you into categories based on knowing nothing about you, yet teach that you should never do that. During one class, we were discussing poverty. There were a few minority-identifying individuals in the group (although not of a minority living status in any way, shape or form these days) who actually got upset whenever anyone not of a minority status talked about poverty issues because as one African-American female graduate student stated, "You ain't never lived in my world." This came from someone with a great education who up until that moment, never used the word "ain't" in a single sentence. I remember being told that my living in a roach-infested home that we were evicted from didn't mean anything because I had no idea what it was like to be "black".
Recently, I got mugged by three African American men. I was actually told by someone to stop bringing up "African American men" because that's racist. That one kind of floored me because what I'm starting to see is a sense of blow back in that no one wants to talk about the bigger elephant in the room, which may actually be race, because that might cause people to have to talk about race, and I get the sense that as a white guy, I should NEVER be allowed to bring it up, unless I'm saying good things about minority races. I'm starting to wonder if there's a huge racial powder keg getting ready to explode and we keep adding fire to it because we don't want to run the risk of it exploding.
What's interesting is that my minority identifying friends from graduate school often don't want to discuss race or ethnicity at all because they've somehow managed to put it all behind them. Yet, those communities where the problems exist still exist and didn't go away because the lucky ones got out and managed to integrate themselves into more civil society. It's like the only people who want to talk about the problems are the ones who want to either "fight crime" by smashing down on anyone who lives in those areas, or rally the disenfranchised to fight against the system. In other words, no one actually seems all that interested in going to the specific communities and making those places better. The place where I was mugged actually has Joe Montana (of 49ers fame) trying to bring a huge industrial project to that area for community growth; it sounds like they're going to turn him down because his partner in business may have done some illegal things in the past. But no one else is trying to anything. And no one else seems to care.
I guess what bothers me the most is that I keep getting the sense that those who are of historically minority ethnicities and races realize that a discussion is necessary, but no one wants to have that discussion. And if you're a white male, you're seen as the problem, never part of the solution. Which in a melting pot society scares me, because nothing's melting anymore; we're becoming more and more segregated and pretending everything is all right because we're too scared to face up to the possibility there might actually be a problem that a speech can't easily solve.
In conclusion, I personally believe it IS possible to move past race, while being completely aware of the problems that occur because of people who focus on race (whether they be racists or people who can't get past it). What seems to happen is that we focus so much on the problems caused by focusing on race that we've become completely incapable of distancing ourselves from race. In other words, people want to keep invoking race as an important vehicle to be eliminated as a problem, but no one wants to eliminate the focusing on race as a problem. It's like we keep ending up with MORE race to deal with the desire to push away from focusing on race. M. King and R. Kennedy had it right, but we don't seem to focus on them anymore. Instead, the people discussing race and a future without race don't seem capable of ever allowing such a situation to ever happen.
Stumble It!
1. I was one of the last 10 applicants chosen for an interview for a government funded outreach program for helping the homeless. During the interview process, I had the opportunity to observe some of the local homeless that took advantage of this organization's services, and they were present as 60 percent white, 30 percent African American and 10 percent of pretty much everyone else. What I found most interesting was that the staff working the government location was 100 percent African-American. Of the people being interviewed, 9 were African-American, and there was me. The three people in the round table that interviewed me were African-American. Surprisingly, I did not get the job.
2. A union organizing job. Got through the telephone screening with flying colors. In person, there was me, one of two white guys, and all women. Of the women, 80 percent were Hispanic and African-American. The staff making the decision consisted of three women, two of them of minority status. Surprisingly, the two white guys were not chosen to continue for the job.
3. During a phone call with another government job, I was told that my background was impressive, but I'd probably not be "comfortable" in the job environment. No further information could be obtained, other than that it was obvious the work environment was mostly minority status personnel.
One of the things that has always intrigued me at graduate school is that people immediately put you into categories based on knowing nothing about you, yet teach that you should never do that. During one class, we were discussing poverty. There were a few minority-identifying individuals in the group (although not of a minority living status in any way, shape or form these days) who actually got upset whenever anyone not of a minority status talked about poverty issues because as one African-American female graduate student stated, "You ain't never lived in my world." This came from someone with a great education who up until that moment, never used the word "ain't" in a single sentence. I remember being told that my living in a roach-infested home that we were evicted from didn't mean anything because I had no idea what it was like to be "black".
Recently, I got mugged by three African American men. I was actually told by someone to stop bringing up "African American men" because that's racist. That one kind of floored me because what I'm starting to see is a sense of blow back in that no one wants to talk about the bigger elephant in the room, which may actually be race, because that might cause people to have to talk about race, and I get the sense that as a white guy, I should NEVER be allowed to bring it up, unless I'm saying good things about minority races. I'm starting to wonder if there's a huge racial powder keg getting ready to explode and we keep adding fire to it because we don't want to run the risk of it exploding.
What's interesting is that my minority identifying friends from graduate school often don't want to discuss race or ethnicity at all because they've somehow managed to put it all behind them. Yet, those communities where the problems exist still exist and didn't go away because the lucky ones got out and managed to integrate themselves into more civil society. It's like the only people who want to talk about the problems are the ones who want to either "fight crime" by smashing down on anyone who lives in those areas, or rally the disenfranchised to fight against the system. In other words, no one actually seems all that interested in going to the specific communities and making those places better. The place where I was mugged actually has Joe Montana (of 49ers fame) trying to bring a huge industrial project to that area for community growth; it sounds like they're going to turn him down because his partner in business may have done some illegal things in the past. But no one else is trying to anything. And no one else seems to care.
I guess what bothers me the most is that I keep getting the sense that those who are of historically minority ethnicities and races realize that a discussion is necessary, but no one wants to have that discussion. And if you're a white male, you're seen as the problem, never part of the solution. Which in a melting pot society scares me, because nothing's melting anymore; we're becoming more and more segregated and pretending everything is all right because we're too scared to face up to the possibility there might actually be a problem that a speech can't easily solve.
In conclusion, I personally believe it IS possible to move past race, while being completely aware of the problems that occur because of people who focus on race (whether they be racists or people who can't get past it). What seems to happen is that we focus so much on the problems caused by focusing on race that we've become completely incapable of distancing ourselves from race. In other words, people want to keep invoking race as an important vehicle to be eliminated as a problem, but no one wants to eliminate the focusing on race as a problem. It's like we keep ending up with MORE race to deal with the desire to push away from focusing on race. M. King and R. Kennedy had it right, but we don't seem to focus on them anymore. Instead, the people discussing race and a future without race don't seem capable of ever allowing such a situation to ever happen.
Stumble It!
posted by Duane @ 1:15 AM
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