June - Reflections on Racial Equity
Sometimes internet searches parallel my thought processes, not exactly a point A to point B proposition. It's more like wandering the maze of streets in a beautiful village. The roads are winding and connect in unexpected places but so pleasant that you may completely forget that you had a destination in mind.
I was googling trying to find a quote that I half-remembered about the media. I couldn't remember the quote or who said it, but maybe William F. Buckley or H. L. Mencken. And while I was bouncing around and scrolling through my options, I happened on a debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley. My completed manuscript has themes of race, and I have been working to be an ally and learn more about systemic racism, so I clicked.
The debate topic was "Is the American Dream at the Expense of the American Negro?" It took place in 1965 at Cambridge University.
Many of the conversations about race, the recent protests and counter-protests, and discussions about inequity echo ideas expressed in this video from the 1960s. Laws currently being implemented across the country limiting access to voting make Baldwin's observations even more relevant. He made several points worth emphasizing, points that you don't hear quite so much in the discourse.
James Baldwin moved to France. In Paris, he watched Americans interact with the French, and he noticed that the Americans often walked over the wait staff with what he called a charming and cheerful condescension. Of course, people who traveled comprised a far smaller percentage of the population back in the 1960s, but it did make me wonder. I know that I grew up believing that America was the land where any particular individual had the best chance to make it based on their merit. Did that sort of propaganda cause us to hold the rest of the world in disdain?
He went on to say that it appeared that Americans seemed to lack "any sense that this particular woman or man, though they spoke another language and had different manners and ways, was a human being." Could this inability to recognize another person's humanity be part of the American culture? Sometimes it seems like it. Does a failure to connect with people who are different extend beyond being rude to the wait staff in America? Is it reflected in our justice system, school system, and medical system?
Baldwin spoke about the impact of being treated as if you were beneath notice. I thought internalized racism was a relatively new idea, but it was one reason he moved to France. Baldwin could not believe himself to have something worthy to say; he could not believe in himself when so much of his daily experience denied his worth and undermined his self-esteem. He specifically mentions the way his history books taught students about Africans and African Americans. He was taught that he was inferior, and he believed it.
There's a lot of pushback and talk of erasing our history when it comes to correcting the accounts or removing monuments to Confederate Generals who fought against the Union (also known as the United States of America). Still, James Baldwin seemed to realize that we needed to come to terms with the reality of our past. "What one begs America to do, for all our sakes," he said, "is simply to accept our history."
You don't know how much has been left out until you start learning another narrative. Traditional textbooks mention separate water fountains, separate schools, Martin Luther King and voting rights, and water hoses. But we don't hear as much about bombings, about black teachers in Mississippi who earned 10% of the salary of white teachers, that 99% of the GI Bill benefitted whites, or about Medgar Evers or Emmitt Till. We've heard of the Freedom Riders, but maybe not about the white mob that attacked the riders with baseball bats and hammers when they arrived in Montgomery. Or that the police stood by and watched. You may also not have learned that loitering laws were created to enable police to arrest black men for doing nothing and send them to serve in work camps, often doing the jobs that slaves had done.
How do we get to racial equity from here? Baldwin says the first step is to accept our history. I hope we can. I hope we look at our textbooks, our monuments, and our approach to "others" and choose to embrace our ideals. And then maybe we can be the country for the people and by the people and of the people. Getting there might be messy. It's definitely not going to be a straight line. But I hope we aren't sitting here 50 years from now having the same conversation.
If you want to watch the debate, go to:
If you want to learn more about Racial Equity, check out:
Equal Justice Intitiative https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/may/20
Racial Equity Institute https://www.racialequityinstitute.com/
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