Response to issues of race

Too long post:
(For those who find this out of context, this is a response to one of my friend's posts on his livejournal. My response was too long to post, so I sent it to him as an e-mail, but am posting it here.)


I forget, sometimes, while I'm here in W'burg that there is a whole 'nother world out there.
Then I go home.

People in Southern Virginia are poorly educated. In my county they discriminate against women, non-Christians, hell, anyone who is the least bit doesn't fit the "white men in power" role. We don't have the same sort of "diversity" as in NoVA. Instead we have one public high school that is 60% black 40% white. But the honors classes are 95% white 5% black.

The thing is, though, that it's not just because people discriminate based on race that the honors classes are filled with white people. It's because we have a class-based society where a lot of minority groups are in the lower classes and continue to remain there. I know that the few black kids in my honors classes came from the "good families" of the county just like the white kids who were in there. The stratification of the school had very little to do with race if you really looked at it...instead it was all about whose parents had enough time/money/resources to make sure that their kids stayed on top of things.

But my town is also very racist. And in both directions. I had white friends who openly publicized their intolerance and had white teachers who were openly harassed by students when they were teaching in primarily black classroom settings. Racial tension got so bad on the cheerleading squad that they had to have the principle come in to talk to us.

I agree with Will when he says that a lot of the talking we do here at school about "race" and what it means is a bit lofty and pretentious when it comes to actually addressing the issues that are going on in every day life. Some of my friends from home would feel very uncomfortable here because they would probably have people comment on their frankness; some of my friends I have taken home have remarked at how racially candid my grandfather is; I have to remind them that my high school only integrated in 1970 when my mother was in school there and that my grandfather grew up in a different time and in a different place. Then again, he also gave my uncle a hell of a spanking when he was a kid and put up a sign on his playhouse that said "no coloreds allowed." It remains true, though, that it's just not as diverse of a place as W&M. When I told my church that I wasn't sure I was Presbyterian, I was practically told I was going to hell. Even my mother, who is very smart and graduated as valedictorian of her college, still shows me articles that demonstrate redeeming qualities about Quakers because in her mind this is her way of reconciling my beliefs to her own (since I worked at a Quaker camp).

The fact of the matter, though, is that education and conversation are good. Even better are the few, the brave, the bold who are willing to come and get this type of education and take it back out there into the world of less educated people, convert some of the things they learned into 6th grade English (or lower) and share them with those who are not fortunate enough to come to (or live in) a place where racial prejudice is discussed with some sort of civility.

By that same token, I think that it is important to remember that being a black studies major or reading a bunch of books by black writers doesn't meant that a person understand what it means to be in the minority or to be black. I am not saying that there are no ways to experience racial prejudice as a white person, but I don't think that it comes from conversation. I am also pretty sure that the system of oppression that is created by those in power is pretty invisible to those of us who are standing outside of it or are building it. In fact, we may not even realize we're building it. Outsiders hardly ever understand what it means to be inside.

I have written too much and didn't really mean to and have so many more things I could say, but I wanted to end with one observation I had this semester. I was driving through the poor area of DC where I saw an ad for Nike that read something like this (I can't find the original text anywhere): "Sometimes the fastest way up is from the pavement." It had a guy in basketball shoes jumping off the asphalt. Needless to say, the faceless legs were black. I didn't see any advertisement for bank accounts or mutual funds. True, advertisers try to hit up their prime customers, but what messages are they sending? If you're white and in suburbia, buy life insurance, invest, save and you will be successful. If you're black and in the ghettos and you want to get ahead, get Nike and get good at sports. Somehow that just seems wrong to me. Maybe I'm overreading it, though, but I do think it's true that we give different messages to different groups of people that result in a cycle of either financial success or poverty. Even at our best, we do our worst. And who are any of us to say we know anything about it?