Most citizens of the United States are in agreement that the relations between the majority and minority races have improved dramatically in the last fifty years. The Civil Rights Movement of the fifties and sixties led to landmark legislation that made discriminatory practices illegal in education, housing and the workplace. Martin Luther King Jr. in his famous I Have a Dream speech spoke of a day when people would not be judged by the color of their skin but the contents of their character (Knopf 4). I believe that only by knowing and communicating daily with people of other races, can we even begin to understand the contents of one’s character and develop a true brotherhood. While King’s dream is still alive in the hearts and minds of minorities in America, the dream in many cases has become a nightmare. A major obstacle to a lasting improvement of relations is the lack of understanding of the differences between races that make each race, unique. These differences often led to stereotypes and discrimination. Alfred A. Knopf sums up this lack of understanding in the title of his book, A Country of Strangers.
Knopf illustrates how we are strangers by telling a story that is true in most schools throughout the United States. The author writes:
When the lunch period begins, the lines dissolve in an instant of
fluidity. The hallway rings cheerfully with raucous teenage slang in
many tongues. A swirl of faces cascades through the corridor in a
blurry kaleidoscope of colors and casts, a flood of continuous
movement. Suddenly the moment of motion is over. The
hall is almost empty, the cafeteria full, the blending now fragmented
and hardened into separateness. At the first long table inside the
door, all the students are black. At the second, all are Russian,
speaking Russian. The third is the Cambodian table, and
the language is Khmer. In the far corner is another group of black
students, some sitting, and some standing. A couple of white
tables are at the side. Integration is scattered only tentatively
around the room: A black girl sits with an Asian girl; a black boy sits
with a group of whites (23).
Basically, the lunchroom is our society on a small scale, full of strangers.
The “strangers” that make up the citizenry of our country come from many cultures and backgrounds. According to Henslin and Fowler, Whites make up 66% of the overall United States population while the minorities races of Latinos (15%), African Americans (12%), Asian Americans (4%) and Native Americans (1%) (259). No other country on the planet has a more diverse range of citizens and no other country enjoy the freedoms we sometime take for granted. An example of this lack of understanding of a race of people is the current state of the Native Americans. Henslin and Fowler state that, “When Columbus arrived on the shores of the “New World” Native Americans numbered about 10 million. Four hundred years later, in 1900, Native Americans numbered 250,000” (259). Why were the original inhabitants of our country almost wiped from the face of the earth? They were strangers and killing a stranger is much easier than killing a friend. Another example is the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II. Because the American Japanese were “strangers” and even though not a single act of sabotage could be attributed to the Japanese Americans, all the people on the West Coast who were one-eight Japanese or more were jailed in detention centers called relocation camps. These people were charged with no crime; they were neither indicted nor charged with a crime. Many were stripped of their property as well as their rights. Is this the way we treat our friends? I say no, this is the way we treat strangers.
This lack of understanding crosses over into everyday life and causes African-Americans to seek separate refuge not only to escape racism but also to find comfort where their differences from whites will be accepted without friction. Knopf uses the example of hair to make his point by saying:
Hair is a key reason that many black schoolgirls and college women
want to retreat into familiar, all black territory where they won’t be
interrogated. How often do you wash it? How long does it take to
braid? Why are you so afraid of being in the rain? The incessant
questions from whites who are usually just trying to show some
friendly interest irritate African Americans who grow weary of
explaining themselves. One evening, a little girl, her head covered
with lovely braids, was approached by two white women before a
show for Black History Month at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High
School in Maryland; they ooed and cooed and asked her how long it
took to do them. She just winced (38).
Knopf also uses music as an example of differences between the races and says, “Music also marks a racial divide, pitting rap against rock, hip-hop against heavy metal. The clash of tastes has caused tension between blacks and whites in college dorms and army barracks, albeit tempered now by the invention of the Walkman, which has allowed students and soldiers to isolate themselves in their own musical worlds” (39).
The lack of understanding between races can also lead to Racial Paranoia according to the author Jackson who uses the following examples to explain this phenomenon:
Were those levees in New Orleans blown up on purpose during
Hurricane Katrina? It might sound absurd, maybe too crazy to
dignify with an earnest dismissal, but that’s exactly what the Nation
of Islam’s controversial leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan,
speculated about as soon as the storm waters subsided. The germ
infested waters had only just stopped rising. Journalists
had barely begun to dig themselves in for twenty-four hour news
coverage. Rotting corpses were still floating along the murky
waterways that were once city sidewalks, and Minister Farrakhan
was already asking his followers and anyone else within earshot-to
think the unthinkable (1).
Not long after Farrakhan’s statement other paranoid paradoxes were presented. Jackson continues by saying, “The Grammy-winning hip-hop superstar Kanye West put a finer point (and name) on the race-based Katrina accusations during a national telethon relief effort when he exclaimed “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” (2). Jackson drives the point home by explaining:
The most prevalent rumors circulating within black communities
today tend to have more in common with Cointelpro than with 1996,
concentrating on systematic political ideologies rather than
personal attacks. The theories are based on racial paranoia and
distrust, but they start with an unchallenged faith in racial
indemnities as self-evidently real and discrete. For instance, there
is the prevalent idea that Church’s Chicken and other common fast- food restaurants are purposefully attempting to sterilize black men
with their secret seasonings. Not only are racial groups discrete
and real in this scenario, but races can be selectively targeted for
physiological engineering and sterilization, for race specific
pharmacogenetic assault. There are claims that “Evian” water is
spelled the way it is (naïve backwards) simply so that the company
can thumb its nose at the very black community it is allegedly trying
to poison with carcinogenic water. The idea here is that black folks
don’t see the obvious play on words because they can’t or won’t
read, which is the premise of an old joke about hiding $20
from a black person by putting it between the pages of a book.
Reebok had to take out newspaper ads to dismiss rumors about
its supposed efforts to use the profits it made selling sneakers to
support South African apartheid. And world-famous designer
Tommy Hilfiger might still be fielding questions about statements
he allegedly made over a decade ago that disparaged black
consumers by explicitly denying any desire on his part to cater to
the black clothing market (108).
Tony Brown offers great insight to this lack of understanding and the consequences of not improving relations. Brown says:
I believe in the inherent goodness of this country and all of its
people. But I fear we are on the path of self-destruction as a nation,
that the United States of America is committing national suicide. I
do not want to see this country destroyed because we fail to see the
truth about where we are headed. Unless America comforts its
racism, its greed, and its moral rot, we face at the very least
a drastically reduced standard of living. At the worst, I fear a racial
conflagration and national bankruptcy. To avoid these catastrophes
and to ensure economic growth, Blacks and Whites must join
together to work for the common good on a national scale. We must
have the courage to accept mutual responsibility, and to demand
change and shared sacrifice from all Americans. If we fail to unite,
there will be no Black or White winners, just American losers.
We are all responsible, but Black Americans have an especially
significant role to play in this process of national renewal. Blacks
must stop waiting for Whites to rescue them. They must take charge
of their own economic development. It is imperative that Blacks
take that responsibility and that they become economically
competitive through their own imitative. White people are not going
to do it for them. It is time we set White people-and ourselves-free
of that expectation. The fate of all Americans, however, is ultimately
in the hands of the nation’s majority and its ruling class, White
Americans. If this nation is to survive, Whites will have to lead
us all away from greed and self-interest. Whites must also reject
the lie that their fate is not tied to the lives of other racial groups.
Whites must come to see the truth in the philosophy of Whitney
Young, former president of the National Urban League, who
said, “We didn’t all come over on the same ship, but we are in the
same boat” (9).
In closing, I believe that most Americans feel the racial divide not only between Whites and Blacks but also Hispanics, Asians and others is widening. To close the gap we must not only discuss our differences but embrace them. It is these differences that make our country unique. Some believe that with the election of Barak Obama as our first black president is proof positive of a country where race relations is no longer an issue. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is my opinion that he was elected not because of improved race relations but because the republican’s candidate represented more of the same in the political arena and the country was desperate for a dramatic change. Now that the excitement of the election has faded and facing new challenges daily, we are forced to face a hard fact. Do we continue to see our differences as obstacles to understanding each other or do we embrace them and become friends, not strangers?
Works Cited
Brown, Tony. Black Lies, White Lies. New York:
Morrow, 1995. Print.
Henslin, James M., Fowler, Lori Ann. Social Problems: A Down to Earth
Approach. Boston: Henslin. 2010. Print.
Jackson, John L. Racial Paranoia. New York:
Basic Civitas, 2008. Print.
Knopf, Alfred A. A Country of Strangers. New York:
Knopf, 1997. Print.