Only this once do I want to touch in depth on the critical subject of racism and let me lay down some of the general principles by which, consciously and unconsciously, I respond to this issue, an issue I never let become part of the public discourse in our meetings. Recognizing that the term “race” was fabricated by scientists last century, used here only for the sake of discussion.
What we call Racism is a human trait. It’s universal. It’s learned and every so-called race or group has members who act on racist beliefs wherever they are majorities or minorities in numbers. Racism is one of the many elements of prejudice and discrimination, racism is a small portion of bigotry, all of them are human emotions. Even people who truly believe that they are not discriminatory, as well as those who believe that they are discriminated against, often exhibit the subtle signs of discriminatory behavior, not necessarily racist behavior, toward others. While to discriminate is an inborn human characteristic, part of profiling, part of survival, racism on the other hand is learned, not inborn, and it can be unlearned. Racism is discrimination to a specific target, the target is learned. Discrimination based on race is learned from our environment, experiences, and examples as we grow up. Peer pressure plays a big part. Some use racism as a target to promote their own agenda, learning to make a living from it, always trying to keep it alive. Others consider that by accusing someone of racism, they morally elevate themselves above it, thus dishonestly absolving themselves from it.
Over the years, thanks to the heroic struggle of conscientious people, the scale has tipped. In the United States, the proportion of people who blatantly act on their racist tendencies has diminished considerably, and this improvement is bound to continue. However, there is also a more subtle ingrain and unconscious degree of bottle-up apprehension worth overcoming. So-called minorities by learned prejudices, tend to be as much racist as majorities. To ignore this is bias. They just don’t win most of the time, and to this is added experiencing multitude more cases of prejudice. Thus, it is understandable that they become more resentful. The majority is not as subject to the constant pain and are not aware or feel the constant hurt that repeated acts of racism and discrimination can inflict. This per se makes them neither culprits nor innocents, they are simply less impacted. However, through sublimation of goals, institutional discrimination creeps in, and certain accepted discriminatory policies become standard, and is very difficult to become aware of them and eradicate them. To do so requires awareness with action, such as utilizing reverse engineering to find the initial core and then reconstruct the sublimation of goal process into an equitable result. Corruption is the main cause of the continuation of racism. It is also the cause of the continuation of poverty. Too many racial activists are corrupt. They use the wrong formula, pretending otherwise, while profiting from it.
To help understand why resentment happens, it’s a numbers game: let’s say that on a one–to-one, racism is 50% equally active among two green people, with one racist and one not, and 50% equally active with ten purple people, five racists and five not. As they mix, of the ten purple ones, only one out of ten will receive the wrong end of racism from the one green racist. While of the two green people each will receive multiple exposures of racism from the five purple racists. The odds in multitude experiences are stacked against the minority in numbers. Which group is going to be the more resentful? The only solution is to continue to reduce racism across the board, equally. Therefore, striking back is not the answer. It is a corrupt response. The answer is found in identifying where the sublimation of goals started, then approaching at correcting it from both sides, the greens and the purples simultaneously. Both need to study their individual soul and commit to change. But look at where you want to go. Remember that in all races, there are also victims and oppressors.
This is universal, but talking about blacks and whites as an example, simply because it is easier to visualize; both must place equal effort at unlearning improper acceptances from the past, but each has a different focus. Whites need to understand their part in the sublimation of goals process and counteract it. Blacks must replace victimization for realization of equal self-worth - the most difficult task of all, but the most to gain. 80% or more of this nation is ready for that, if we can only understand how corrupted individuals are interfering.
Pity in this case, or guilt, is a waste of time. We are all constantly subjected to discrimination for one reason or another: height, weight, clothes, language, color of skin, etc. We don’t like it, but most people learn to live with it without becoming victims. That is the key! Not to become a victim. Easier said than done. Physical color of skin is obvious, constant and intense, yet once we permit victimization, as victim or victimizer, we have lost because racism can only be overcome internally. No one will overcome it for you. Peer pressure can help or hinder, but it is the individual’s mind that controls racism, as a giver or a taker. Victimization is a popular, but a losing proposition. It is nothing but a move in the wrong direction. Beware of those who hide behind pretending to be angry at racism, they may or may not have cleared it off their own entrails. If you concentrate on racism you will end up there.
When you hear a politician, a spokesperson, using inflammatory and divisive language to promote their position against racism, they’re espousing racism just as the one who disdains another human for his race. Remember, what you look at is where you end up at. Such a politician appeals to other racists on both sides when they claim it is systemic racism.
It’s a fact that the established system is often used to unfair advantage by those who can prevail, including the court of justice. It has been said that racism is deeply ingrained in social practice and supported by indifference. However, when the collective is declared guilty by a speaker, the individual on both side escapes responsibility making solutions unattainable. Those that do it, know it. Therefore, their agenda is not to find a solution, but is only for self-serving purposes, which is ingrained by individual acceptance, to be ungrained with individual effort.
Minorities tend to help their own, but contrary to the belief that minorities in power would always help their own, the opposite is often true. I explained how you would think that with so many Hispanics on the City staff, that encouragement for Barrio kids lifting themselves by their bootstraps would be widespread, but it was not so. We hear minorities claiming that there is no such thing as lifting yourself by the bootstraps, that you need other people. What they imply is that “we owed it to them” or to someone. They want us to step in line and play their game. They make you believe that there is a song and dance that they expect you to dance to, or you will be left out. Overall, about the Barrio we got as much help as unspoken resistance and derailment from “minorities” in position of group power as we encountered from the establishment. They prefer to keep their power desiring no competition.
At the TBA, we made no reference to race, but others did, and we had, in this mostly Hispanic neighborhood, more actual nuts and bolts support from persons who made no public or private reference to race. So, when the fighting was intense, we received the strongest verbal and voting support from the one so-called black Republican from another district, from memory his name was Ford, who made no secret of how much he respected what we were doing, making no reference to race, while we got no support from the one so-called Mexican American councilmember. I have developed much respect for black Republicans all over the country due to this one man’s actions, for he showed more guts and more principle than most other politicians put together. Here I am using color to describe one individual, which is okay, but I fall into my own criticism when I extend such characteristics to a group, such as ‘black Republicans.’ That is incorrect of me. This one man was a good example of racism not been ingrained in him, period.
Observations, based on brutal reality and not incendiary rhetoric, were necessary to give direction to our CDBG proposal for the Barrio. None of it had to do with race. It dealt with culture. Respect for the culture of the large number of Barrio residents did not imply disrespect for any of the others. Newcomers did not understand that. They took differences in approach as personal affronts.
Firstly, I always listened, and I always paid attention to advice, especially those of different opinion from mine. Value has a way to surface to the top when you let it. Thus, it was not my directions, goals, missions, objectives, or even my pitfalls and mistakes, value was coming from the Barrio’s will, provided we all could share the power. Granted, some of the mistakes were all mine, as we’ll see.
Secondly, since racism is universal, and mostly a learned human trait found in all races, we all tend to make different assessments about those who are not like us, be it Black or Brown or Yellow or White. The more visible the color, the more blatant. Thus, it is learned.
Thirdly, Racism is absent in the genes, but discrimination is not. For survival we all have a genetically induced capacity for discriminatory responses. That is how we start to ‘differentiate’ as a baby. Soon after birth, we start to profile and begin to learn. We are made aware that age makes a difference. As a baby, you are young, they are old. Family soon makes a difference; you are in my family, others are not. Absorbing cultural traits takes a little bit longer. They say you are really learning another language when you can laugh at jokes and dream in that language. It’s said that it’s proof that the brain interprets and learns. It is similar with cultural innuendos. Culture is tied to words and symbols. We just grow into them. So, it is with color of skin as it is very visual. What response we give to a different color is not innate, it’s learned, just as words are. Even within the same family there can be substantial differences in color of hair, of skin, of artistic expression, of athletic or academic endowments, but without outside influence, none of it would make a negative difference to a child. People who grow racially color blind may judge you individually by your character.
Fourth; racism is learned just like connotations with words. When someone writes a series of characters in another language, if you don’t know the meaning or its context, it has no impact on you, even if it’s an insult or a bad word. That is until you are told or experience their impact. Likewise, it is with color of skin. If you grow up in a surroundings where black skin color is spoken of as courageous, athletic, sincere, truthful, and wise, guess what! Wherever black or white, you will think well of blacks. The same is the case if all you hear is ex-slaves, victims, minorities, Malcom X’s violence. Guess what…?
That “blondes have more fun” may have some basis in statistics, but it’s a learned assumption, which then functions as base for statistics - as IF there is such a thing. In other words, the innate capacity to differentiate is in all of us, but not the specific slant, which is learned and reinforced through experiences.
We have the innate capacity to develop learned preferences and distinguish differences. We learn what is behind a smile or a frown. It may start as neutral, but the feedback we get may play a pivotal role in our survival. Survival is in our genes, while preferences are not. They are learned. We learn how to profile for or against when giving direction to preferences by successive experiences. Profiling is necessary for survival. If you are hungry and you cannot tell the difference between a lion and a deer, you don’t eat, you are eaten. And you can make mistakes, it is as simple as that. It becomes part of bonding, friend or foe, or the fight or flight syndrome. How you learn to apply it, it is up to you. And what you have learned you can unlearn.
Fifth. Indians in the 1860’s displayed strong feelings of superiority, which is what often leads to racism, maybe same for blacks while in Africa. If a feeling of superiority leads to racism, then whites, or anyone, who do not feel superior or inferior to blacks, have no racism. At the same token, if the Elite of any race feels superior to the rest of the population, then they will very well have strong feelings of racism towards all others, including their own race. This can also happen to the ‘useful idiot’.
If a feeling of superiority leads to racism, then it follows that if you are affected by racist behavior towards you, it’s because you consider yourself inferior. If you complain you are a victim of racism, then you are ingraining your feeling of inferiority. If you have someone tell you that you are a victim of racism, then they are calling you inferior. They are the problem. Not you. Don’t make it be.
During my ten years in the Barrio, neither color of skin nor racial background was to be a subject of discussion or conversation. It was also not encouraged nor discouraged in meetings, programs, activities, behavior, and never utilized for decision-making. We shared the power. A few others would try not to see it that way.
Sixth, we are all equal, but at the same time, we are not. Men and women are not equal even if we have equal rights. What we call equal is a matter of how we define the term equality. Let me give an example of recognizing this reality.
The following example may sound contradictory when talking about equality as it merges with differences, based on point of reference, the subtle difference is important. We need to have acute awareness without judgement of the similarities and differences relative to behavior of different groups, families, and cultures. It’s imperative to recognize reality, not to succumb to false appearances, innuendos, wishful thinking, nor hearsay. Here is the example:
In a Hispanic community, if you ask for volunteers after a house burns down, no volunteers will show up. If in an Anglo community you ask for volunteers, a hundred people will show up to help. However, if a Hispanic’s house burns down, a hundred family members will show up to help, even if you don’t ask. If an Anglo’s house burns down, other than parents and maybe a sibling or two, no relative at all will show up to help. The hundred volunteers that do show up are mostly total strangers. The helpers are exact in numbers in both cases, namely one hundred. They just come from different sources. Equal behavior manifested unequally. Each culture thinks the other fails for either lack of human volunteerism or lack of family love and unity. Therefore, if you need a hundred people at any one time, the tactics that you use will make a difference and your intercultural communication skills are critical to the outcome. Do you call for volunteers or call for families? If you miss this point, you may fail to get the people you need. It’s a learned cultural trait. It has nothing to do with color of the skin[xxii]
Seventh: equality is static, a point in time. You can try to start equal or to finish equal, but not both. ‘Impartiality’ is a process. ‘Equity’ is the intent to get fair or just results, it is freedom from bias or favoritism. Who is to say you must impose equality? Who? A contradiction in term. The moment someone steps up to do so, that person is no longer equal to the rest.
Trying to grasp the meaning of things, one day I said to Ray,
“Reality is that we all have some prejudice, or a lot of prejudices. I include myself in this observation. I look at the reality of it and I try to overcome my prejudices, and when I see them, or am told about them, I try to do something to eliminate, subdue them, not allow them to flourish. If I learned them, I can unlearn them. Racism is only one of the elements of tainted profiling, and as I have said, proper profiling is necessary and imperative to survival. Big difference! The first time I was 100% aware of my profiling, and the need for it, was in high school when I asked out my first date. You’ll bet I used profiling. And who does not?”
Ray laughed at that. He didn’t think he treated anyone differently. But he did. To some extent, we all do. Although I could tell he did not discriminated based on skin color profiling.
“But people are not equal.” He observed. “How can we treat them equally?”
“What about equity?” I asked.
“The Webster dictionary defines ‘equity’ as “justice according to natural law or right” and specifically “freedom from bias or favoritism,” for example in ‘no’ to bias in racism and freedom from favoritism, and as in ‘no’ to the favoritism found in Affirmative Action. Yes, I treat people with equity. I think.
“Yes, ‘equality’ is the state of being equal, while ‘equity’ is not about an end state of equality. Equity does not lead to virtual equality. It is ensuring that equal opportunity is available. But choice is the key. How we use our opportunities is the result of experience, effort, wisdom, etc. Using equity correctly should eliminate systematic ingrained discriminatory laws and behaviors.
“Of course, you may understand this in different ways, and mostly in ways that supports your beliefs. Some think that both terms mean the same, but equity is a free and just process that allows free choice, not an equal choice or even equal process which would disallow individuality. Since racism is learned, people who grow up in a non-racial, or mixed, environment react differently, and can’t be grouped into a disingenuous ‘collective’, or as the only factor. Sorry, but history of slavery is not all inclusive, only racist people will, or can, accuse all others of racism. Today, those are a minority.”
“Wouldn’t you say that we all need to confront this issue of racism head on, internally, and hopefully deal with it in a truthful way? That each person must do so individually?” I inquired.
“Yes. Your parents, siblings, and your peers, mostly your peers, have the greatest effect on you, but you have to consciously work at changing or interpreting what they convey to you.” Ray had made an interesting observation. Combating racism trickles up, as much, or more, or before it trickles down.
I wasn’t about to argue. We are very inept at recognizing the effects of our surroundings on our positive point of view, probably because we are more aware of the issues we disagree with, and more conscious of our resistances than our acceptances. Thus, if we accept racism, we begin to agree with it without recognizing we are doing it. We need some awareness only to reverse the process, but then, don’t look at it.
I didn’t allow racism to be a topic of conversation or discussion in TBA meetings, as most TBA members did not dwell on it either. Black Power, La Raza, and others did not participate in the TBA activities. They may have useful purposes in many of their missions, but in terms of race, they thrive on disharmony, not on solutions, and the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) is as racist as you can get, as is the case with Black Power and ACORN. My exposure to these groups was short lived and violent. They claim to teach organization, but their agenda is totally corrupt. It includes confrontation, control, and applied extortion. The moment I had contact with them and learned about their procedures and their agendas, I kept them away from active participation in TBA activities. They did some infiltration attempts; you will feel them.
“All of that is well and good,” Ray said one day in response to my description of prejudice due to how you interpret profiling. “How profiling has led us to justifying slavery?”
“I don’t understand,” I responded. “Slavery may have been accepted at one time, but today it is not justifiable.”
“I wasn’t talking about blacks. I was talking about slavery in general, be it Indian, sexual, African slavery, or the slaves in the mines. Although it is underground, slavery is still common in the world, and even in his country. Is slavery racial or financial, both or neither? Besides, slavery and sex trafficking are still going on today, coming across the border.”
I didn’t say anything here, but I noticed how Ray jumped from the word ‘slavery’ to the word ‘blacks.’ He was right in that Indians had slaves within their races, and the Greeks in Athens had slaves and helots, maybe that was his point, and then he added: “Aristotle said, not referring to any race, slavery was natural and even necessary. It was Socrates who said maybe not so. Today, blacks don’t have a monopoly on slavery within African tribes, despite their long history of enslaving each other, but not exclusively, since more whites were enslaved by blacks in North Africa than blacks were enslaved in the New World”
“You are saying those that make money out of claiming slavery or claiming they are anti-racist have falsely made American slavery exclusively black, blaming ‘the’ system, not themselves?”
“Yes, correct, the leadership does. Make slavery an issue that they can make money out of it. Many other countries also indulged in internal slavery.” As usual, my friend was highlighting the distinctions and ignoring solutions.
Just because I write what Ray said, doesn’t mean I completely agree. I could understand that the fifty-six or more major African countries with untold number of tribes, fighting, enslaving and selling each other, the same as with American Indians fighting and enslaving each other, was no different than the many European and Arabian kingdoms fighting and enslaving each other. Arabs don’t tell Europeans to go back to where they came from.
“You have a point there,” I replied, “if blacks seized blacks and sold them as slaves, then it is not a racial issue. Same for Indians using or selling other Indians as slaves. Not a racial issue at all. However, surely, at times race may have something to do with it.”
“No, race has little or nothing to do with it until now. You keep saying that sometimes the worst enemy comes from within. Any race claiming that slavery against them is because of race, while their race has indulged in slavery too, they have themselves to blame. Only they can cure themselves. Africans did not sell ‘their own people’ just like Indians did not sell ‘their own people.’ They took slaves or sold their territorial enemies conquered in battle. Africans created bigger empires in Africa than Indians did in America. Neither of them sold each other for being black or Indian. Slave owner’s exclusive relationship to the word Black, or Negroes then, exists in the United States still. Slavery continued to take place, leading to a civil war, with the South coalescing diversity into a recognized unified group by skin color, what was innumerable different black races, cultures, tribes, dynasties, kingdoms, and empires from Africa, were grouped into one because of color by Democrats. Then blacks did it too. However, in Africa is where they captured each other, so you must go there first if you want to talk about retribution of a general all inclusive, if inaccurate, ‘African-American’ token. To call them, as if they were all one, ‘African-American’ is the result of the Democrat party’s policies and the enemy from within. It is a racist statement, as it makes you perceive ‘black’ intending to gain power but without delivering solutions through divide and conquer. You don’t hear people say European-American or South-American-American, so why identify people as African-American, a whole continent? The goal of some people is violence. You will see more of it coming. Black Power will see to it. Yesterday, it was the KKK. Today, it is the Black Power movement. Democrats are the main cause of perpetuating racism in the USA. Racism has united them, and they both work together; it is mutually convenient. It is refutable proof that at the time of the Civil Rights Act, only 5% of black kids were raised by a mother alone. Now, after so much work by the Democrats, the figure has grown to 73%, therefore making blacks live off the system, without accepting much self-responsibly. Some blacks and some Democrats seem joining together for power, but not to undo the racial issue they themselves helped create.”
I mostly agree, but I kept him going. “You are being too harsh. Maybe there is plenty of blame to be shared.”
“Despite the 72-day filibuster by Democrats in the Senate, the Civil Rights Act passed albeit with strong opposition from Democratic senators, such as Al Gore Sr., J. William Fulbright, Strom Thurmond, and Robert Byrd. It has been the Republican Party that opposed slavery, fought to give women the right to vote, fostered individual rights, and fought for the right of all Americans across the nation. Our history is no longer written that way. So you share all you want, Chuck. Don’t implicate me. I had nothing to do with it,” Ray argued. “Go to Africa and hang all those who sold slaves first.”
I said without smiling, “You can get in trouble for saying that.”
“What else is new?” But he was never one to keep from saying what others only dared to think.
Not fair, I had to say something: “Not to pay attention to racial injustices is considered by some to be supportive and racist, while hiding behind a false sense of not been racist.”
“Guilty if you do, guilty if you don’t. Then whoever said that is not paying attention to present day sex slavery. They’re hypocritical for ignoring other people’s plight by looking only at their own.”
He got me there, and I wasn’t getting anywhere. It must be obvious now why I just didn’t bring race or racism into the conversation. There is no happy ending when you do so. With that being said, learned racism is real, and the moment money and power are involved, racism comes from all sides, as do other greedy symptoms from money grabbers. If you want to get things done, don’t bring race into the picture. Otherwise, talk about race and differences and it will divide and kill the momentum, like putting sugar in a gas tank. If someone calls you racist out of nowhere, after sincere introspection, IGNORE THEM! It’s a ploy. Show them a mirror and move on.
Racism is learned. It takes wisdom, not intelligence, to eradicate it from our own system. Don’t need to be intelligent to be wise. Therefore, everyone yellow, white, black, or brown can eradicate racism from their entrails. It takes a formula of time, wisdom, and intention to do so.
Forget about restitution or compensation based on racism. Forget about ‘getting back at…’ Such tactics only keep wounds alive and leads to more of it. No words or explanations can help erase years of built up anger and resentment created by life-long exposure to racism, past promotion of racial criminality, and mental degradation inflicted on others.
Africans who sold their neighbors in the slave trade had a superior, if corrupt, economic mentality and power over other Africans. It stands to reason they may be the same, or their descendants of so-called ‘African-American’ who now claim to get money and want to administer the money collected for restitution, double dipping or making money out of ‘TSS’, a.k.a. Twice Selling Slavery.
Only through self-generated effort, avoiding misconception of superiority, and aided by a faith that life is better once such feelings are overcome, can a person, black or white, become free of racial bondage, or racist behavior.