On a recent trip to the zoo, an unusually warm day in February, I observed a lonely-seeming tiger. Just on the other side of his habitat, surrounded by the same moat, but separated by some large rocks, were the lions. 4 of them: 2 cubs, a male, and a female. I thought of the lonely tiger on the other side and asked my boyfriend, “Why do they separate the lions and tigers? They’re all just big cats, right?”
“Racism,” he replied.
Obviously, he was joking, but that got me thinking. I had unknowingly just asked the million-dollar-question. What if someone, God perhaps, was looking down at the zoo we’ve made out of planet Earth, and thinking, “They’re all human beings right?”
It seemed like such a joke. We, the inhabitants of this earth, black, white, yellow, brown, and red, are genetically much more similar than lions and tigers. Yet we can’t get along. In the USA, we’ve created an institution of racism that continues now. Other countries are facing similar problems. Europeans are seeing a large influx of Africans and Middle Easterners, and they’re not sure how to handle it. While most people of my generation might feel that they have no personal prejudices based on race, we must admit what is already built into our culture.
What drives this irrational distance? Fear? Hatred? Misunderstanding? Fear of what? Hatred of what? Why should we fear people that don’t look like us? Why should a diverse genetic pool be something to fear? Why is it that a neighborhood that looks the way we look gives us comfort? Where is this founded? In what is it rooted?
I attended a workshop about racism this past weekend. The facilitators (a white nun and an African-American nun from the Sisters of Notre Dame) asked first the people of color in the room to call out what they liked about being of color. This was easy for them. Food, dance, body shape, and genetic gifts topped the list. Then the facilitators asked the white people to do the same. It was quiet for a moment. I had never really thought much about being white. And that, exactly that, is racism. I don’t have to think about being white, because it’s “normal.” What is there to like or dislike about being white? At first glance, one sees nothing. But when we get into the heart of the matter, the racist core that stems from the oppression in this country, there’s a lot actually. I look at the world through my white face, I interpret the world through the way the world reacts to me, a young, white woman. I have white privilege. People give me the benefit of the doubt when I apply for job offers and rent agreements. When I go somewhere, I don’t worry about being the only white person there—unless I’m purposefully putting myself in a place I know will be a minority majority, I can assume there will be other people that will look like me there. And for whatever reason, that is comforting for humans.
I teach GED classes to a marginalized society in Northeast DC. Indirectly, this means a minority population (when a population is referred to as “uneducated” or “marginalized” or “under-privileged” it can be assumed that this population is minority. Our system is failing our minorities. But that’s another post…). I go into class rooms with few exceptions being the only white face in the room. And my white face is the one in the front of the room—teaching the class. It is not my intention to be a “white savior” or a “gate-keeper,” but here I am anyway, because of my traditional education (or the means I had to get myself that traditional education—again, that’s another post), telling people who are far older than me with quite different life experiences than me how to succeed by what we deem success in this nation. I’m the one called teacher, despite the things I’ve learned from my learners. Because the system works for a person like me. How can I know what these people need? Why am I the one telling them how to get what they need? I’m giving them the special key to join the club. If they’ll listen to me, they can have it.
Let’s not think of it that way. Education is empowerment, and I choose to see it that way. The former is far too painful of a reflection of what I’m doing. I think it’s important to keep in mind a particular approach to becoming part of any society: you have to go in not doing what you think is best for the society, but by asking this society what they need from you. As in Things Fall Apart, when things didn't go so well for Westerners attempting to westernize an African tribe,we cannot assume we know what’s best for a community we are not a part of. Being mindful of this, it is a fine line to walk between strengthening and empowering a community and giving a community a particular crutch.
It’s a grim thought—that we can’t escape racism. I’d love to think that I have lived a life without racism. It is undeniable, regrettably, that many things have been granted to me unwarranted, undeserved, and unearned because I was born looking a certain way. And many mistreatments of people of other backgrounds were caused by people that look like me. Though it’s an ugly thing, I’m trying to come to grips with this institution, so I can speak out against it, apologize for it, and instead of slapping band-aids over old scars and still-bleeding wounds, began real healing.
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