In the New York Times opinion pages this September, a scholar by the name of Charles Blow wrote an article commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington. Blow’s approach to writing on this topic begins in an endearing manner, for he states that he so badly wants his article to be a celebration of how far America has come in these last fifty years. He wants to celebrate the great Martin Luther King Jr., his leadership of the brave march, and the progress that has been made in the realm of race relations in the United States since then. However, he admits he cannot simply write a celebratory article. Despite this realization, he does not fail to recognize the leaps that America has indeed made since that memorable day, as he states, “Most laws that explicitly codified discrimination have been stricken from the books... and diversity has become a cause to be championed in many quarters...” However, Blow feels the need to recognize the not only stagnant nature of race relations in America today, but the fact that the nation is actually reversing course.
Blow discusses three significant points which stand out to me in his argument that America is backtracking in its path toward racial equality. First, Blow expresses a worry that our nation has plateaued, positioning us in a place where we have surface level conversations about race but refuse to confront implicit biases as well as structural and systematic racial inequality. Secondly, he reveals that African Americans and whites regard racial progress in two very different ways, causing a resegregation in the American people. According to Blow, three times as many African Americans as whites feel as though they are treated unequally at work, restaurants, stores, schools, and in health care. Twice as many African Americans as whites feel as thought they receive unequal treatment from the police and the courts. Thirdly, the shocking facts of segregation in modern school systems are quite revealing of the state of racial progress in our country. A study done at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill reveals that “students are more racially segregated in schools today than they were in the late 1960’s and prior to the enforcement of court-ordered desegregation in school districts across the country.
Ultimately, these three points that Blow addresses all point toward a question that he suggests which I find quite necessary in trying to answer: “I wonder if we, as a society of increasing diversity but also drastic inequality, even agree on what constitutes equality.” This is a strong point, in my opinion, and something that I am beginning to think is a significant obstacle for us as Americans today. America is a melting pot of cultures and a melting pot of opinions. Today, I think we are living in a particularly complicated combination of mindsets when it comes to racial issues. We seem to be in a time and place in history where there are large gaps in the thought processes of different generations. Much of the generation who lived through the civil rights movement is attached to strong opinions which were formed during the critical years of the movement. Many continue to protect their reasoning for inflicting oppression or fighting against oppression. People of our generation often have the notion that racism has been left in the distant past. Many white people feel so distant that they view the white population of the times of slavery up until the civil rights movement as an evil race of people who no longer exist.
Given the large gaps in trains of thought, we are left with a melting pot of people: young adults who throw around racial jokes while assuming that it no longer inflicts any harm, older men and women who are either stubborn in thought or hyperaware of racial tension, students and others who are trained to see inequality within everyday life to figure out how to advance equality, people who avoid the talk of racism because they think that too much attention on the subject will only perpetuate it, and everyone in between with their wide array of stances. Although, like Blow, I would like to say we are no longer in transition - that have overcome the issue of racism in America - but we have not.
What do you think has caused the stagnant racial nature of our country? Do we even agree on what equality actually means? What needs to be discussed to make these “puddle deep” conversations about race more fruitful?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/opinion/blow-50-years-later.html
This article is very interesting and I am glad that he brought this issue up, especially on the anniversary of the march on Washington. I do agree that in some parts of the United States have plateau in the progression in racial equality. I am from Somerville, Ma where it is one of the most diverse city I have ever been to and the equality is very strong. My high school has set forth a precedent that all cultures are equal and everyone has the right to equal treatment in school, work, public spaces, regardless of their skin tone (Black, White, Hispanic ect) However, moving from the south, I have seen the cultures of equality diminish. Even racism and stereotyping of skin color at such a young age. I think that this is a problem because if some areas in the States are progressing with race equality and other areas are staying the same or moving backwards, it can hinder our nation. I don’t think everyone agrees on the term equality, which is a problem. Some may think everyone gets equal opportunity, equal treatment, equal rights; while some may think they get one of the three. The question is how do we do this? How do we get everyone on the same page of thinking? For me it starts out at a young age and it is generational. My city taught me to love the diverse cultures and that it didn’t matter what color your skin was but coming to a school where kids didn’t get the same upbringing my school, city and parents taught me show that these ideals need to be taught some where and taught soon.
ReplyDeleteUntil taking Professor McKinney’s Civil Rights class last semester, I didn’t realize what a predominant role racial division still plays in our society today. Like Regina, I grew up in a very diverse area where I never experienced any significant issues regarding skin color. That doesn’t mean that they weren’t happening, but they weren’t prevalent enough for me to notice. However, this past summer I moved to rural Alabama. Some of the people I met there had a radically different outlook on race than I did. Though none of them considered themselves to be (and this is a direct quote) “actually racist”, they did not find it inappropriate to make racist jokes and use the N-word on a pretty frequent basis. This was the kind of talk they grew up with, the kind of talk that their parents grew up with. Does that make it acceptable? Of course not, but it does lead me to believe that this is one of the reasons for the continuous inequality in our society. When they first said things like that around me, I was too uncomfortable to tell them how I really felt about it because I felt like it wasn’t my place, like I didn’t know them well enough to chastise the language their parents had probably taught them. In my opinion, that is another reason for the stagnant racial nature of our country: the inability or unwillingness of people to stand up for what is right because they are too scared. It was only after I got to know these people better that I told them how I really felt and that their language was offensive to a lot of people. Whether they agreed with me or not, they stopped saying them (at least when I was around, but hopefully entirely). Of course this doesn't magically fix racial division in our country, but it definitely beats doing nothing. Until everyone believes that his or her own individual efforts can make a difference, we’re going to remain at a plateau.
ReplyDeleteTaylor, I admire your ability to talk about the issue of race and think it is an important step towards making a difference. It seems that the subject of race is often avoided at all cost--that is an uncharted territory that few wish to venture into. Unfortunately, I think that this makes the problem even larger and causes enormous amounts of tension. In my Urban Community Health course, we have been talking about race and the implications it can have on health. One author suggested that we remove the category of race altogether and shift towards categorizing by ethnicity. I don't completely agree with this because I think that people will always differentiate and categorize people because we do externally look different. Yet instead of focusing on the negative aspects of these differences, I think that society should gear towards bridging these differences and appreciating the culture and beauty of each race and individual.
ReplyDeleteNoelle, I am interested in your insight from your Urban Community Health class. The idea of removing the category of race altogether reminds me of Robinson's "Plans Dat Comes From God". Toward his conclusion, he states that the results of his study lead us to see the parallels between the freed people's adjustment process and that of other rural lower-class groups who struggled with the experience of urbanization. He poses the question, "Should we accept Harold Woodman's persuasive argument that we must see both poor blacks and poor whites as parts of an emerging southern working class?" (97) Do we need to reclassify people groups depending on the scenario? I think this is an interesting proposition. I am not claiming to know the best way to categorize people - I actually wish we did not have to categorize each other at all. However, our history necessitates placing attention on certain people groups whether that is to study certain parts of history or simply to recognize and learn from our past.
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