Racism is as American as Apple Pie

Something hit me the other day.

Racism is as American as is apple pie.

That “apple pie” phrase has always had power when it has come to describing what America is about, hasn’t it? Baseball is American. Hot dogs are American. Democracy is American …and racism is American.

Our racism bubbles under everything we do, under everything we say and under everywhere we go. From the beginning, racism was an American issue. Brilliant men who wrote the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, owned slaves while espousing liberty. Some of them owned slaves themselves.

Even when some of our heroes, like Abraham Lincoln, did heroic things addressing the issue of slavery, many of them still carried racist values, believing that white people were inherently superior to black people and that not even emancipation from slavery meant that one believed blacks were or could ever be equal with or to whites.

America, it seems, was intent on having a “master race,” even before Germany. America’s beliefs as concerned keeping the white race pure was so powerful that it “caught the fascination of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi movement,” writes Edwin Black in his War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race.” Of course, the eugenics movement did not just target black people; anyone who was considered “inferior” stood the chance of being targeted from removal from American society. Thus, Black writes, one could be black, but also “Jews, Mexicans, Native Americans, epileptics, alcoholics, the mentally ill…and anyone else who did not resemble the blonde and blue-eyed Nordic ideal” could be targeted.

But our racism, our peculiar and unique chasm between whites and blacks, is so distinctly American. Our racism is bubbling now, as it always does, as the nation reels from the report of the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin, but it has always bubbled. I cringe at the subtle and not-so-subtle racist jabs at President and Mrs. Obama. They have been there from the time the president took office. Mean-spirited jabs are called “jokes,” with those who are saying or spreading those things vehemently denying they are racist.

The racist belief that all black people, or too many black people, are lazy, continues to feed a society, too many of whom believe the hype, and causing otherwise intelligent people, like Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich, to say the most insulting things about black people and the (lack of a) work ethic of black people.

Racism keeps urban schools in the state they are in, with school boards, politicians, and individuals alike finding reasons not to provide adequate funding for public schools that are not fit for human habitation, for needed books and computers. The prevailing thought, points out Jonathan

in his Savage Inequalities is that poor (primarily black) children cannot learn, so there is no need to throw money into building better schools for them or paying a little more for better teachers for them.

Racism allows injustice against African-Americans, especially African-American males, to continue to exist, with the same politicians and individuals who do not want to “throw money” into building better schools for poor black children thinking nothing of throwing literally hundreds of thousands of dollars into building bigger and better prisons – for profit.

Racism has been behind the “war on drugs” as author Michelle Alexander points out in The New Jim Crow, making it commonplace to arrest and incarcerate black and brown people for addiction to crack cocaine, while virtually ignoring the explosion of prescription drug abuse by wealthy white people.

Racism bubbles beneath us; it is like an infected, festering sore. While overt discrimination is for the most part gone, the covert discrimination, the belief that black people are “objects” to be dealt with and ignored, still exists. In the Trayvon Martin case, accused shooter George Zimmerman reportedly said, “they” always “get away with it.” The “they” would mean young, black men, one might suppose. Zimmerman said young Trayvon looked “suspicious.” The fact is, for many white people, no matter how an African-American is dressed, he looks suspicious.

So, yes, we have some wonderful things that are “as American as apple pie: hot dogs, football, democracy and Superman, the NFL, the Superbowl, the World Series.” Those things make us smile.

But racism has its own place in the list of all things American. And from the look and feel of things, it’s not likely to lose its place in line any time soon.

A candid observation…

What to Do with African-Americans?

While the country girds up for this 2012 presidential election, I found myself last night thinking of how far America has to go when it comes to her African-American citizens.

I was in a roomful of people, primarily African-American. At issue was a discussion of changes that will take place in their neighborhood. A housing development is slated to be demolished, and residents are being relocated. There was some anger, some cynicism, and some resentment. For me, though, there was sadness.

America is always trying to figure out what to do with “them,” African-Americans. That “them” includes me.

I said to the person sitting next to me, “Why is it that it’s always African-Americans who are displaced?” Interstate highways have traditionally been run through African-American neighborhoods. When gentrification becomes a standard in a city, again, African-Americans, primarily, but also anyone who is unlucky to live in the path of urban renewal districts, get relocated.

It doesn’t feel right.

There was a huge effort by the people handling the community forum to comfort and encourage the residents, but I could tell it wasn’t really “taking.” “What is the plan you have for our neighborhood?” asked one woman. “Where are you locating us? Where are the people who have already been relocated?” asked another.

I found myself getting sadder and sadder, and also wondering what I’d feel like if I were about to be relocated, God only knows where. What would I feel like if the only home I’d ever known was going to be demolished? There is a connection people have between their homes and their neighborhoods, and their very selves. When that is disturbed, people lose an important anchor, and all of us need anchors that we can depend on, no matter what.

One woman stood up and invited all of the people in that room – about 200 or so – to visit her neighborhood, to see that it was and is a good neighborhood, and so are its residents, those who remain. There was pain in her voice. As she talked, she held her little girl,who looked at her with the widest eyes, as if waiting to see the sign that her mommy needed to be comforted.

It seems that “we,” African-Americans, are always the negotiable portion of any deal. It’s OK to go to our neighborhoods, it’s OK to uproot us…and as the wheels of progress turn, it seems that, far too often, America is wondering what to do with “us.”

This apparent inability to appreciate African-Americans and to wonder what to do with “them” (us) unless they (we) are helping to build this economy has a history to it; our beloved President Abraham Lincoln wondered if, after the Civil War, we might be willing to be shipped back to Africa.

After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, there was “the question” again: what do we do with “them,” the poor African-Americans who have lost everything?

It feels like we’re still regarded as chattel,and it doesn’t feel good.

At the end of the day, the people in this neighborhood in my city will be “moved,” and the planned development will go on as planned. The planners promise to include those in the neighborhood as they actually do make the plan and put it into place. That’s nice. That’s good and right…but last night I didn’t feel any spirit of gratitude in that room.

The little girl whose mother spoke clung to her mother’s hand as they left the meeting, and as I watched them, I found myself whispering to myself, “Hold on, little girl, and grow up to know your worth and your power.” I wondered why I whispered that, and I guess it’s because I feel that still, way too many of “them” (us) don’t know our worth and power. And so we continue to be moved, shuffled, escorted out of the way of the American dream.

It’s as though our dreams don’t matter, and it feels like we as a people have bought into that ethos. If we don’t dream, the let-down won’t hurt so bad.

The heck with that. We need to dream more, and dream with audacity and tenacity, so that in the future, the planners-that-be won’t be able to move us as easily as they have in the past.

Enough is enough.

A candid observation …

Right to Bear Arms vs Mental Illness

Rethink Mental Illness — Image via Wikipedia

America doesn’t feel so safe anymore.

The school shooting in Chardon, Ohio, has left three teens dead and their families devastated. The alleged killer has forever altered his life and the lives of those whom he killed and injured, and countless others. Sending one’s child to school used to feel like a safe thing to do. Not anymore.

Frank Ochberg, in an article on CNN’s web page entitled Why Does America Lead the World in School Shootings,” concludes that there are a number of factors leading to primarily boys going into schools with guns, including bullying and revenge, mental illness, violent role models, drugs and access to guns. (see http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/28/why-does-america-lead-the-world-in-school-shootings/?hpt=hp_c1) But Ochberg says that such problems exist in other countries as well. Why is America leading the pack, and why doesn’t it feel safe anymore, not like it used to?

I remember growing up in Detroit, I had no fear. Particularly annoying would be guys talking with their friends in the middle of a side street; one friend would be in his car and the other friend would be hanging onto the open window of the driver’s side. The two would be chatting as if nobody else in the world existed. You could honk your horn and, though the two buddies wouldn’t move immediately, you didn’t have to worry that they would pull out a gun and blow your brains out.

That’s not the case anymore. There seems to be unrestrained, wild anger amongst people, anger which people either cannot or do not want to contain. Rather than deal with their anger, more and more people reach for a gun.

It’s troubling that that seems to be the modus operandi in general, but the fact that kids have so much anger and despair that even they resort to gun violence makes a tenuous situation even more frightening. A child (and yes, a 17-year-old is a child) presumably doesn’t have the control that an adult has, nor does he or she really understand the repercussions of what they are doing. Kids generally have less fear as well, because it seems that it is life that provides us the experiences that makes our fear so solid. Kids have lived fewer years, and so have had fewer opportunities for carmelized fear…but the experiences they have had, it seems, has wrecked them to their very souls.

When I was young, a fist fight was the way to handle conflict. Not anymore. It makes me shudder to think that many people, especially kids and young adults, are carrying concealed weapons, because it’s legal to do so. Cell phones have made it so that we do not have much privacy anymore; the ready and easy access to guns have made it so that we do not have the luxury of feeling as safe as we once did.

Ironically, incidents like the Chardon High School shooting, or the Virginia Tech or Columbine shootings, do not make the outcry for more restrictions on guns in this country louder; no, the defense of the right to bear arms becomes more tenacious, because violence brings with it the fear of more violence. People look on mass shootings as evidence that there needs to be more access to guns, not less.

I refuse to enter into that argument, but what I am concerned with is that we are missing something early on. We are not learning, and therefore are not teaching, effective ways to handle conflict. Nor are we paying attention to a malady which is as prevalent as is heart disease or cancer: mental and emotional illness. In Ochberg’s article, he mentions schizophrenia and depression as being major mental illnesses that we pay way too little attention to, to our own detriment. Nobody wants to admit that they don’t feel so good in their spirits or in their minds, and so they go on being sick, and doing things that only a sick person would do – like shooting someone because he or she offended, betrayed, bullied or ignored you.

My hunch is that T.J.Lane, who will remain in custody pending his trial for a triple murder, has been sick and tormented for a long, long time. My hunch is that he gave signs but that nobody paid attention, or, if they noticed, ignored what they saw. My hunch is also that there are a lot of kids “out there” who are angry, depressed, lost, alienated and scared…and who would, if given the chance, do just what T.J. Lane did, or worse.

I doubt we will ever gain serious ground against those who defend the right to bear arms, but we had really better let go of our inexcusable fear of mental and emotional illness. It is a problem our society cannot afford to ignore – especially since the right to bear arms is a right that some hold more dear, it seems, than the need to take care of our sick. If we don’t open our eyes and our minds, I doubt that America will ever feel safe again.

A candid observation

Apology for Burning of Qurans?

I a trying to figure out why “good Christians” are attacking President Obama for apologizing to the Afghan people for what some Americans did to the Quran, the holy book of the Muslim people.

President Obama, in his apology, said that the burning of the Qurans, which were taken from possessions of a detainee center’s library and were burned because in the opinion of the Americans, they contained “extremist inscriptions,” was an “unintentional error.”

But some Christians are attacking the president for that, including Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin. Gingrich said that the president “surrendered” to the Afghans by apologizing for the burnings. His anger is tinged by resentment that the president has not asked for the Afghan government to apologize for the killing of two Americans, reportedly in retaliation for the burnings.

Palin, as well, says that “now the Afghans should apologize for killing two Americans.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has extended condolences to the parents of the murdered Americans, but has not issued an official apology. His energy at this point is being put into trying to quell the rising anger of Afghans who were insulted by the burning of the Qurans.

Gingrich and Palin cannot be faulted for wanting an apology for the Americans who were killed. These were two innocent people who, as far as we know, had nothing to do with the horrific act of burning the Qurans.

But as Christians, i.e., people who say they believe in Jesus the Christ, ought these two prominent political people admit that we as Americans need to apologize when anyone in the name of our government offends another country by an act such as this?

I keep thinking of how we would react, as Americans, if a foreign army official burned some of our Bibles because they thought they were being used for purposes other than spreading the Good News. I shudder to think of it; there would be outrage the likes of which we cannot imagine.

President Obama’s apology (and that from other U.S. officials) has not stopped the umbrage felt by the Afghan people, but that does not mean that as a person of faith and of decency he should not have offered that apology. Right is right. The Jesus I read about in the Bible demands love of our neighbor, and love includes treating them as human beings, rather than as an “object.”

It feels like Gingrich and so many others are attempting to feed into the fear so many Americans have of Muslims, repeating over and over the threat of “radical Islamists.” Yes, there are some radical Muslims, who would tear the world apart if they could, but so are there radical Christians who would be willing to do the same, if given the chance.

Like it or not, we are not living in a vacuum. Because of globalization, we are more and more in contact with people we as Americans never had to think about before. They are our neighbors; they are children of God, like it nor not, deserving of respect. I, for one, hope that President Karzai can calm his people down, and get them to know that there is not a need to hate all Americans because of what a couple of insensitive Americans did.

The president was right to apologize. It was the Christian thing to do.

A candid observation …

Merriam-Webster: qur’ans definition: the book composed of sacred writings accepted by Muslims as revelations made to Muhammad by Allah through the angel Gabriel. →

Don Cornelius and the Silent Killer

The only thing that makes the death of Don Cornelius more troubling than it is on its own is that he reportedly killed himself.

This brilliant, innovative visionary man, who forever changed lives of African American entertainers and the music world with an American experiment called “Soul Train,” apparently shot himself in the head at the age of 75.

The report made me weep.

Why? Because of all the illnesses we talk about in our society, mental illness is still taboo. Mental illness is rampant, just as are other diseases like heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease, and yet, we don’t want to talk about it. To admit that we do not feel good emotionally, that we are depressed and just cannot seem to “get it together” makes us feel like we are weak.

And so, to escape being called weak, people drown in depression or other mental illnesses on a daily basis. People are sick and are not getting treated, nor have many of them ever been treated.

I am quite sure that much of the dysfunction that is so much reported about the African-American community is because a lot of African-American children suffer from some sort of mental illness. The illnesses are written off by parents and teachers alike; sick children are labeled “bad,” are suspended or expelled, because nobody likes their behavior – behavior that comes as the result of being mentally ill.

Children of more affluent families at least have parents who recognize when something seems to be wrong with their children emotionally and some, not all, get help. But even in those families, it seems that there is a stigma to needing help to deal with one’s emotions or mental health.

But back to Don Cornelius: here was an African-American man who apparently walked with horrendous mental anguish and didn’t know how to deal with it. He carried it inside him, as so many people who are mentally ill do, until it drove him to the depth of desperation and despair that resulted in his committing suicide.

I cannot imagine how badly he hurt. What people don’t seem to realize, or don’t realize, is that mental illness really does hurt. It’s not like a headache or a sore elbow, or even a bacterial infection, where some pretty readily accessible medications can help the pain go away. The pain of mental illness is different; it is a cloud that forever hangs over one’s head. Some days are less cloudy than others, but that stupid cloud is always there.

When little children, especially poor children, are labeled “bad” in addition to already feeling emotionally bad, the illness of self hatred is added to the broth already simmering within. When one hates oneself, one hates others as well, and that self-hatred, fueled by an illness that was never treated, leads, I am convinced, to much of the criminal behavior we see today.

Mental illness is no less an important issue than is hypertension, breast cancer, diabetes or heart disease. It is no less a silent killer than is hypertension…and it is way past time that we take our heads out of the sands of shame and “man up” to the fact that way too many people are suffering silently, and are being driven to despair.

It is no more a sign of weakness to be mentally ill than it is to have any physical disease or ailment. In both cases, something physiologically and or biochemically is out of alignment, causing discomfort and pain.

As we work hard to heal physical illness, so should we be working as hard, or maybe even harder, to at least effectively treat mental illness, and move the stigma out of the picture.

Too many great people are living with mental illness, and too many have died way too soon from it…

Like Don Cornelius.

A candid observation …