Excerpt from the student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily
Although this is an isolated incident, one comment can shake up a whole demographic of people at the University,” Boswell said, “not just African-Americans, but anyone who identifies with a minority or multiculturalism.”
Link to the entire article
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2010/04/22/students-fall-victim-to-racial-slurs/
Showing posts with label Racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Racism. Show all posts
Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday, June 8, 2009
EDUCATING CHILDREN ABOUT RACE
It is well known that children are inquisitive by nature. Since their developmental skills are formulated through observation and questioning, what they see and hear from their earliest experiences will develop into lifelong attitudes. Children ask questions about everything. Why this, why that, and such things as why is a cat a cat and not a dog. For the most part the answers are simple for adults to answer but sometimes they are not easy.
When my son was about 3 years of age we encountered a young man in a wheel chair. We were going into a store just as he was struggling to exit in the wheelchair and I helped to hold the door open. My son looked at me and asked, "Mom, why is that guy in that chair?" I tried to hush him up, but the young man said, "M'am, if you don't mind, I'd like to answer that question myself." The young man went on the explain to my son that he had been in an accident and his injuries prevented him from walking so he needed a wheel chair to get around. My son was fascinated, he understood and accepted the explanation, and from that point on he did not see people in wheelchairs as particularly different but accepted that they had had a different experience.
Years later, when my son was about 9 yrs. old, in 1978, we were in the car on Main St. at the corner of Ridge St. in Charlottesville, Va. and we heard screaming. I was driving and I looked out the window to my left and I saw a young black girl holding her shoulder and screaming. Blood was gushing from under her hand where she had placed it to stop the bleeding. There was a very young child with her maybe, 2 or 3 yrs old. I stopped the car in the middle of the road and turned off the engine, got out and ran to her to find out what had happened. Others in the car were afraid and told me to come back and just leave. They were afraid a crime had taken place and that we were in mortal danger since the area we were driving through was predominately black. My husband, disabled by MS, was mortified that I would just stop the car and run over to someone bleeding on the sidewalk, and leave everyone else in the car.
Since this was a time before aids awareness, I did not know what to do except to try to calm her , watch her crying child so it would not get in the street, and put pressure with my bare hands on the triangle shaped cut in her shoulder. ( I was a Girl Scout) The cut was close to her neck and it was deep. She was lying down on the sidewalk and when she calmed down she told me she had been with some friends, on what is now the Downtown Mall, and they had pushed her into one of the store windows and when she fell through it, it broke. She had some other minor cuts as well but nothing like the big one in her shoulder. A young black man came from the direction of Ridge St. and asked if he could help. I told him to get to a phone and call the rescue squad, and the police, and he did. By this time people had gathered to see what was happening. When the ambulance came the men told me they had it, she was going into shock, and I should leave. I remember looking at the blood on my hands and marveling how it was just blood, not black blood or white blood, just red blood that runs through all human veins. My son's only comment was a question, "Mom is she going to be alright?"
One of the adults commented that I could have been killed just running willy-nilly to help a person in 'that section of town' and that I should have had more consideration for my family than that. It is true that the car was stopped dead in the middle of the road, but the traffic was very light and seemed to move around our car just fine. I was concerned about what might have been said in my son's range of hearing while I was not there. We had members of our family who were then, and still are, racist. I can only hope , that by example, I was able to negate any racist mutterings to which he may have been exposed .
When my son was about 3 years of age we encountered a young man in a wheel chair. We were going into a store just as he was struggling to exit in the wheelchair and I helped to hold the door open. My son looked at me and asked, "Mom, why is that guy in that chair?" I tried to hush him up, but the young man said, "M'am, if you don't mind, I'd like to answer that question myself." The young man went on the explain to my son that he had been in an accident and his injuries prevented him from walking so he needed a wheel chair to get around. My son was fascinated, he understood and accepted the explanation, and from that point on he did not see people in wheelchairs as particularly different but accepted that they had had a different experience.
Years later, when my son was about 9 yrs. old, in 1978, we were in the car on Main St. at the corner of Ridge St. in Charlottesville, Va. and we heard screaming. I was driving and I looked out the window to my left and I saw a young black girl holding her shoulder and screaming. Blood was gushing from under her hand where she had placed it to stop the bleeding. There was a very young child with her maybe, 2 or 3 yrs old. I stopped the car in the middle of the road and turned off the engine, got out and ran to her to find out what had happened. Others in the car were afraid and told me to come back and just leave. They were afraid a crime had taken place and that we were in mortal danger since the area we were driving through was predominately black. My husband, disabled by MS, was mortified that I would just stop the car and run over to someone bleeding on the sidewalk, and leave everyone else in the car.
Since this was a time before aids awareness, I did not know what to do except to try to calm her , watch her crying child so it would not get in the street, and put pressure with my bare hands on the triangle shaped cut in her shoulder. ( I was a Girl Scout) The cut was close to her neck and it was deep. She was lying down on the sidewalk and when she calmed down she told me she had been with some friends, on what is now the Downtown Mall, and they had pushed her into one of the store windows and when she fell through it, it broke. She had some other minor cuts as well but nothing like the big one in her shoulder. A young black man came from the direction of Ridge St. and asked if he could help. I told him to get to a phone and call the rescue squad, and the police, and he did. By this time people had gathered to see what was happening. When the ambulance came the men told me they had it, she was going into shock, and I should leave. I remember looking at the blood on my hands and marveling how it was just blood, not black blood or white blood, just red blood that runs through all human veins. My son's only comment was a question, "Mom is she going to be alright?"
One of the adults commented that I could have been killed just running willy-nilly to help a person in 'that section of town' and that I should have had more consideration for my family than that. It is true that the car was stopped dead in the middle of the road, but the traffic was very light and seemed to move around our car just fine. I was concerned about what might have been said in my son's range of hearing while I was not there. We had members of our family who were then, and still are, racist. I can only hope , that by example, I was able to negate any racist mutterings to which he may have been exposed .
Friday, June 5, 2009
The New Obama World
President Obama has exceeded all expectations I had of him as candidate Obama. In his last speech to the Muslim world he has elevated, not only the status of faithful, law-abiding people, but he has elevated the status of humankind. He has not given in to terrorism by recognizing that individual differences in religious belief do not make us adversaries. He has not given in to terrorist behavior by acknowledging that there are far more good Muslims living day-to-day, with the same goals and aspirations as those of us who are Christian, than there are terrorists invoking the Muslim religion as justification for their savage actions. He has recognized Muslims of all nations as a people who have longed to be recognized for the good they represent and not for the hate brought upon them by their own saboteurs.
For centuries Muslims have been feared, hated and misunderstood. To be sure their culture is vastly different from our American culture. They have suffered great religious persecution in much the same way Christians have experienced persecution. Nor have Muslims , by and large, been recognized in recent world history for the contributions made to art, technology and science. Just as United States history text books have left out huge amounts of information of the contributions of African-Americans to our national development, text books for classes in world history conspicuously leave out huge amounts of information about Muslim contributions. In my pursuit of information of the history of black Americans, I read a lot of books about Africans' contributions to the building of America that I never read in a text book in school. It is as if, once considered not equal by Western standards, certain ethnic populations just never existed.
If there is to be any reconciliation with nations that are prodominately Muslim it has to begin somewhere. President Obama's speech may have appeared to be apologetic to some Americans and less than adequate for some Muslims, but it was a beginning. It is true that no one else could have given that speech and connected so forcefully with the very people we need to engage in order to defeat terrorism. Muslims have suffered mightily from terrorism too and they have a huge human stake in eliminating it from their own lands.
There is such irony that at just the time when America needed someone to begin healing the religious and ethnic rifts in the world, that Obama burst onto the scene, seemingly out of nowhere as a African-American, and in short order, began a dialogue with the Muslim world.
For centuries Muslims have been feared, hated and misunderstood. To be sure their culture is vastly different from our American culture. They have suffered great religious persecution in much the same way Christians have experienced persecution. Nor have Muslims , by and large, been recognized in recent world history for the contributions made to art, technology and science. Just as United States history text books have left out huge amounts of information of the contributions of African-Americans to our national development, text books for classes in world history conspicuously leave out huge amounts of information about Muslim contributions. In my pursuit of information of the history of black Americans, I read a lot of books about Africans' contributions to the building of America that I never read in a text book in school. It is as if, once considered not equal by Western standards, certain ethnic populations just never existed.
If there is to be any reconciliation with nations that are prodominately Muslim it has to begin somewhere. President Obama's speech may have appeared to be apologetic to some Americans and less than adequate for some Muslims, but it was a beginning. It is true that no one else could have given that speech and connected so forcefully with the very people we need to engage in order to defeat terrorism. Muslims have suffered mightily from terrorism too and they have a huge human stake in eliminating it from their own lands.
There is such irony that at just the time when America needed someone to begin healing the religious and ethnic rifts in the world, that Obama burst onto the scene, seemingly out of nowhere as a African-American, and in short order, began a dialogue with the Muslim world.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Use of the 'N' word
Unless and until everyone is willing to analyze the word 'nigger' and stop using the term 'n word' we cannot fully understand what is truly embodied in the word. The use of the term 'n word' is more acceptable, much like the term 'f word'. Everyone knows what is meant and the abbreviation is just a way to sterilize, for social purposes, the idea behind the word. The word nigger,in this case, is much more than a word. It is a concept born of fear, degradation, worthlessness, inferiority and discrimination based on the baseless supposition that one's value as a human is wholly a matter of skin color.
I am certainly NOT advocating the use of the term nigger in conversation to refer to an individual. What I AM advocating is open dialogue between races about what is conjured in the mind's eye when the word is used. Diversity is as worthy of enlightened extra effort as any other form of education. We teach our children about sex, drugs, alcohol , but make no sustained effort to explore diversity. I personally seek out discussions with individuals of all races about what they have experienced on a day-to-day basis because of their race, and the interface with other races. What has ensued is a rich legacy of stories and experiences from both whites and blacks. I will relay one such true story.
When Obama was elected a white doctor I know took a day off from work in order to drive African-Americans to polls to vote. Shortly after the election I was in a doctor's office and I asked one of the LPN's what she thought about the election of the first African-American president in history and if she thought it would ever happen. She was herself African-American. We were in the waiting room and she lowered her voice to a whisper and said she was very happy but never thought it could happen. She then relayed a story which made my eyes tear up and left me in shock.
There was a doctor in the department who was deathly afraid of black people and would not deal with them at all. Keep in mind this was 2009 not some place far back in time. This particular doctor was afraid that if they touched a black person , or if the black person touched them, the black would rub off. The doctor, who of course, will remain nameless and sexless, came into contact with a patient who was black. The patient knew of the doctor's fear of skin-to-skin contact and decided to touch the doctor to show them that indeed the black would not rub off. The doctor totally freaked out and left the room and would not come back. This is not made up, nothing this absurd could be imagined.
The incident left me wondering how the doctor developed such an idea and how on earth did such an attitude persist after all the years of education? My conclusion was that he/she was raised in a racist environment which had embodied some deeply held notions that intellect and education simply could not overcome.
There must be education, on many levels, about racism and not just by African-Americans. To start with I don't know why African-Americans have to be called by national origin when I am not called a German-American because I am of German, actually Prussian, descent. I don't especially like the term black either, because black does not describe all people of African-American descent any more than white describes persons of European descent. I would, in the best of worlds , like to hear people called by their name with respect for who they are. This applies, in my world view, to all people be they poor and homeless, of any race, any sex, or sexual orientation, from any place.
Many are racist ,and don't believe they are racist, and would actually swear they are not, whether they happen to be black or white. They may think they are not racist but the attitudes are so deeply embedded, so insidiously repressed, that the behavioral expression is not even recognized as racist. The indoctrination of racism begins early in childhood and is where lifelong discriminatory attitudes are formed, and perpetuated, from generation to generation.
By writing this book, 'Daddy, is James a Nigger?'( a question I asked my Dad when I was 4 yrs.old) I hope in some small way to contribute to education, and racial healing, so the scourge of racism can ultimately be eliminated. We have to begin with ourselves, black and white alike, by honestly examining our own individual attitudes regarding others. Then, and only then, can we positively influence children when they are young enough to ask innocent, truth-seeking questions. Their questions require enlightened , wise, and forthright, answers from those of us who bear the responsibility for guiding childhood development.
I am certainly NOT advocating the use of the term nigger in conversation to refer to an individual. What I AM advocating is open dialogue between races about what is conjured in the mind's eye when the word is used. Diversity is as worthy of enlightened extra effort as any other form of education. We teach our children about sex, drugs, alcohol , but make no sustained effort to explore diversity. I personally seek out discussions with individuals of all races about what they have experienced on a day-to-day basis because of their race, and the interface with other races. What has ensued is a rich legacy of stories and experiences from both whites and blacks. I will relay one such true story.
When Obama was elected a white doctor I know took a day off from work in order to drive African-Americans to polls to vote. Shortly after the election I was in a doctor's office and I asked one of the LPN's what she thought about the election of the first African-American president in history and if she thought it would ever happen. She was herself African-American. We were in the waiting room and she lowered her voice to a whisper and said she was very happy but never thought it could happen. She then relayed a story which made my eyes tear up and left me in shock.
There was a doctor in the department who was deathly afraid of black people and would not deal with them at all. Keep in mind this was 2009 not some place far back in time. This particular doctor was afraid that if they touched a black person , or if the black person touched them, the black would rub off. The doctor, who of course, will remain nameless and sexless, came into contact with a patient who was black. The patient knew of the doctor's fear of skin-to-skin contact and decided to touch the doctor to show them that indeed the black would not rub off. The doctor totally freaked out and left the room and would not come back. This is not made up, nothing this absurd could be imagined.
The incident left me wondering how the doctor developed such an idea and how on earth did such an attitude persist after all the years of education? My conclusion was that he/she was raised in a racist environment which had embodied some deeply held notions that intellect and education simply could not overcome.
There must be education, on many levels, about racism and not just by African-Americans. To start with I don't know why African-Americans have to be called by national origin when I am not called a German-American because I am of German, actually Prussian, descent. I don't especially like the term black either, because black does not describe all people of African-American descent any more than white describes persons of European descent. I would, in the best of worlds , like to hear people called by their name with respect for who they are. This applies, in my world view, to all people be they poor and homeless, of any race, any sex, or sexual orientation, from any place.
Many are racist ,and don't believe they are racist, and would actually swear they are not, whether they happen to be black or white. They may think they are not racist but the attitudes are so deeply embedded, so insidiously repressed, that the behavioral expression is not even recognized as racist. The indoctrination of racism begins early in childhood and is where lifelong discriminatory attitudes are formed, and perpetuated, from generation to generation.
By writing this book, 'Daddy, is James a Nigger?'( a question I asked my Dad when I was 4 yrs.old) I hope in some small way to contribute to education, and racial healing, so the scourge of racism can ultimately be eliminated. We have to begin with ourselves, black and white alike, by honestly examining our own individual attitudes regarding others. Then, and only then, can we positively influence children when they are young enough to ask innocent, truth-seeking questions. Their questions require enlightened , wise, and forthright, answers from those of us who bear the responsibility for guiding childhood development.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)