“It will take 50 years for racism to be eliminated in America.”
I was in Junior High school when I made that statement about 35 years ago. I knew racism to be one of the single biggest issues facing our society and it had the greatest, overall negative impact on me as an individual in terms of limits and constraints. While not the first, or the last, observation about racism I have made, it has long been the most profound during my lifetime. Profound, not because I had made such a declaration, but more so due to the fact that I was able to envision something that would be called a “post-racial society” with my limited age and experience. I also knew racism would continue until we acknowledged, faced and addressed it head on. With 15 years left on the timeline of my prediction, I do believe we are heading in the right direction. That is in spite of the turbulence we are and have been experiencing, here in the United States.
At 14, I believed that racism, as it was learned and practiced, would take at least two generations to eradicate itself. Mostly because I understood that the ignorance that perpetuates racism would eventually have to erode away and America’s reputation would hinge on the ideal that “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” was for all its citizens. I also considered myself to be positively enlightened by the Women’s Liberation and Black Power Movements that occurred in the decades prior to the 1980’s.
In my naiveté I did not understand just how internalized or institutionalized racism had become nor did I understand that it wore other masks and was frequently costumed with sexism and classism. I just knew that my Step-Father who was raised on Chicago’s south side believed that “Black folks ain’t got nothing ‘cause the white man has it all”. I also knew that I couldn’t bring home any of my non-black friends for fear that he would call or refer to them as something derogatory, embarrassing and downright offensive. I remember jokingly telling folks that he was a real life “Black Archie Bunker” who didn’t bite his tongue. The reality is that he was a product of his environment and upbringing which manifested itself in the opportunities available to him, chosen by him, and influenced by what he thought was possible. I think we all know someone who has lived a certain way or believed something for so long that they can’t see how it could be different or even accept that change has occurred.
I refused to believe that the trajectory of my life was going to be the same or similar as his, that things hadn’t really changed for minorities, and that my desire to go to college was a waste of time and money. I rejected for myself the belief that racism was inevitable, that I was powerless within its strictures and was somehow bound by convention to be a certain way or do certain things because I am black. As a teenager, I had begun to understand how a racist society was made and even had some insight on how it would end – one person, one attitude, and one day at a time.
Collectively, America, in general, and black people in particular, have been telling the world that the time has come and it is in fact overdue to finish the work towards a solution to what Dubois called “the problem of the color line”. The sad fact is that he wrote “The Souls of Black Folk” over a hundred years ago and the Niagara Movement he was part of spoke to the same issues that #BlackLivesMatter seeks to address today. Are we 15 years away from a solution? As I stated before we are heading in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go.
I think America is “stuck” the same way my Step-Father was. Not “Stuck on Stupid” in such a way that we are unable and unwilling to move forward, but in a way that suggests it’s time to change paths. Our greatness as a nation has always been clouded by racism. We cannot continue on this same stupid and erred path and expect to grow and prosper. Both as a nation and as individuals. In order to “be” different we have to “do” different, so that we can “think” different. All of us! What should we do that is different? Read a book from the ALA banned book list. Take the bus to work instead of driving alone. Volunteer in your community through your employer with co-workers, or through your faith group and with family. Join Toast Masters or start a book club. Learn to Break Dance.
Why? All of those things can help you to see life from a different perspective, which is what America needs right now. A new perspective that teaches and informs us that that race was socially constructed and needs to be socially deconstructed.
