That's from the Bible's Isaiah, and it's mentioned in the conclusion of Errin Whack's thought-provoking and analytical review of Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman," the controversial sequel to her beloved "To Kill a Mockingbird," in which we have all learned that Atticus Finch apparently is a not the progressive civil rights champion as Gregory Peck played him in 1962, but a devout racist in the mold of George Wallace. Lee's novel has received fairly mixed reviews, and the negative ones seem to really focus on the revelation of Atticus' real beliefs and actions on race. Atticus, Lee wants us to believe, is a graven image of a god broken unto the ground of reality, and he probably benefited from white privilege.White privilege has benefited most whites in this country--racist or not--and the topic is the subject of Pulitzer-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas' contentious documentary for MTV in the mist of troubling race-related events: the Black Lives Matter interruptions of campaign events, killings in Baltimore unseen in 43 years months after the riots related to the death of Michael Brown, and the firing and indictment of University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing, who, if not for the mandatory body cam revealing the truth of the murder of Samuel DuBoise, would still be a cop, and DuBoise's family would have no way to prove that their son was innocent. This is a troubling time in America, especially with regards to race relations. We're told by authority figures on the news and by our family members around the table that rioters are "thugs" while forgetting that riots are what actually pushed society to change, for as Martin Luther King said, "riot is the language of the unheard." America is a nation crumbling under the vicious malice of gun violence, which has killed more Americans since 1968 than the entire amount of Americans killed in every single American war going back to the Revolutionary War (combined); blacks are twice as likely to be killed in gun violence as whites. And the optimists tell us that at least the Millenials will rescue this nation from the hideous reality of modern-day racism. It's fair to say that Dylann Roof, the young man (for lack of a better word) who entered a predominantly black church in South Carolina and shot and killed nine black people, probably did more than anyone to remind us that we Millenials aren't helping. The most recent research finds that Millenials may be less racist than generations before them, but only by about 1-3 percent. Michael Denzel Smith's fascinating article this past March informs us that this isn't necessarily Millenials' fault. Millenials, he believes, are taught from those in older generations to be fluent in the language of so-called colorblindness ("I don't see color") but illiterate in the language of anti-racism. Racism is a system. The government is racist, the law is racist, the education system is racist. We are made to believe that Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 eradicated segregation in schools. The sad reality, as just about any teacher would tell you, is that segregation in schools still very much exists, but now it's simply de facto.
A Canadian recently told me that diversity is not a strength of the United States but a weakness. I don't agree with him, but there has to be a better way of ensuring equality and justice for all in our society. (Incidentally, this Canadian is one of the very few white individuals I know who has experienced--albeit indirectly--racism against him, when he was in South Korea, and an elderly Korean man approached him and his Korean girlfriend and spat on her face.) My formative experiences do not provide me with many examples of being around people of color. The place where I grew up, according to the 2010 census, is 93 percent white. My university has over 17,000 whites but only about 2,000 blacks, and if not for me visiting my mother's urban school, I probably never would have seen a person of color growing up. To say my family didn't have it's fair share of Atticus Finches would be untrue; the night before I left for Korea, my grandmother, whom I adore, warned me that I "better not marry a chink."
I have taught in three different nations outside of the U.S., and in each one I was often the only one who looked like me. I didn't really feel awkward in any of them, I think. Was it because of white privilege? White privilege is a topic that seems to provoke so much rage among white people, and I'm not sure why. I can only think that a young white college student featured in "White People" was correct when she said that most straight white men in this country these days feel like something is being taken away from them. I'm not sure why. Thomas Jefferson had slaves and Andrew Jackson killed Indians, and we won't even remove them from our money!
"White People" is not as eye-opening as Jane Elliott's famous "brown eyes/blue eyes" lessons for her elementary school students, and it's not a documentary that will live forever. But for these difficult times, it's a necessary watch, particularly for young people. Virtually everyone interviewed is a university student, and they seem to agree with Vargas. Vargas first meets Dakota, a Southern gay, white student who chose to go to a predominantly black university. He has dinner with his white friends and black friends, who meet for the first time at the dinner. One of his white friends uses the word "ghetto" in a lackadaisical manner, which almost immediately causes one of Dakota's black friends to break down and cry. I was reminded of when I worked as a waiter at university; we were serving sorority girls at their annual end-of-the-year awards dinner. One superlative was "most ghetto"; I turned my head to my supervisor, a young black woman, whose mouth was hanging open with shock and anger. Words matter, and this is one of the reasons why I think political correctness still has, for the most part, a valid place in our society and its vernacular.
Vargas goes to an Indian reservation, where all the students are Indians and their teachers are almost all white (which is not uncommon in the U.S.). One teacher mentions how he did not give permission for one of his students to leave class to use the restroom. The student's response was to joke: "You stole our land and you won't even let us go to the bathroom," he tells him. Joking aside, the white teachers are concerned. There are obvious lingering resentments about the treatment of Indians by whites over the years, but it made me think of how us white people tend to dismiss the past as past. While I've never taught in an Indian reservation, this part of the documentary reminded me of my student teaching experience in a predominantly white school in which I asked my students if the Cleveland Indians Chief Wahoo image was racist; they profoundly said no.
Ultimately, the United States is a country that, for some reason, has a problem not only with race, but with talking about it. Vargas meets an 18-year-old woman who tells him of her experience being denied scholarship based on her skin color. The scholarship issue is almost always brought up by those who claim that whites experience discrimination on a similar level to non-whites. But facts are stubborn things: The distribution of private scholarship funding by race as recently as 2007-2008, according to Mark Kantrowitz's analysis, was 65 percent white, 12 percent black, and 8 percent Latino. When confronted with a counterpoint, the young lady originally feels like she is being attacked, but eventually comes around to Vargas' data. This documentary, it seems, would be a great starting point for a discussion with young high school students, and I only wish it had been made before I student taught all those years ago. But ultimately, more is needed than simply an MTV documentary. A conversation is a great first step, but actions speak louder.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment