Racism is ugly and wrong. This may seem inherently obvious
to most people, but I have sadly discovered that the obvious isn’t always so obviously
understood, and common sense is not so common.
Recently a young man in a university dormitory had an
altercation with another student over misuse of the common area. John (not his
real name) was awakened in the middle of the night by loud noises in the common
kitchen next door, an area that was off limits after eleven pm. Annoyed by the
late-night revelers, he got out of bed and stormed to the kitchen. He scolded
the rule breakers for being in the kitchen after hours and pointed to the sign
that stated the hourly restrictions. One of the noise offenders, we’ll call him
Bill, got angry and defiant. Bill told John to get lost. They could do whatever
they wanted because John wasn’t a Resident Assistant. John shook his head and
disengaged, returning to his dorm room in hopes of getting back to sleep. Bill
followed, and pounded on John’s door taunting him to come out and settle things
man-to-man. John put in his earbuds and ignored him.
Two days later Bill saw John sitting alone at breakfast and
approached him. Instead of an apology, Bill threatened John and told him that if
he ever did anything like that again his parents might have to come get him and
take him home, and they might not recognize his face. John again ignored the
threats, but he didn’t remain passive.
John complained to the university authorities. They called
him in for an interview. When John walked into the office, they noticed that
his skin color and features were different than most of the students on campus.
Instead of discussing how to keep John safe, they lectured him on cultural
differences. Instead of discussing the behavior
of the threatening student, they told John to be more aware that he was
different and should be more tolerant.
Racism begins the moment we stop treating a person as an
individual and begin treating them as part of a group. The individual loses
their identity and becomes an impersonal member of a crowd, culture, or race.
This shift in focus then allows us to demonize them, make them less than human,
and rationalize our own bad behavior as acceptable. It keeps us from basing our
judgment on their behavior. Sadly,
this way of thinking is common practice.
It takes a great deal of introspection to break ourselves of
this habit. If we want to stop our own racist behavior, we must start at the
moment we begin to classify someone as part of a group. We must not pigeonhole
the individual and lump them together with any particular tribe so that we feel
justified in then treating them differently. We must strive to maintain the
individuality of each person we meet. If we succeed at that, we succeed in
judging each person on their individual merits and their individual behavior. We no longer see black, white,
brown, yellow, or anything in between. We see a person, another human being.
Strangely enough, if you succeed at maintaining the
individuality of the person, you can then recognize their differences without
passing judgment. You begin to see their individual features, their individual
personality, and their individual humanity. You will be able to pick them out
of a crowd, because you recognize their differences.
With the polar opposite ways the media handled the Trayvon
Martin/George Zimmerman case and the recent beating of the white thirteen-year
old on the bus, understanding, and stopping, racism has become more difficult.
In the Trayvon Martin case, the media doctored the 9/11 calls to make George
Zimmerman sound racist. The media referred to Zimmerman as “White Hispanic” in
an effort to polarize and foment hate and improve their ratings. Yet, when
three black boys beat the thirteen-year old white student, several media
outlets blurred the victim so that his race could not be determined. The bus
driver, worried about getting in trouble, stood by and watched it happen.
I was running on the treadmill the first time I saw the
attack on the thirteen-year old student. I couldn’t tell the race of the
victim. I didn’t care about the race of the perpetrators. My reaction was
visceral. I got angry. I ran faster. I could taste metal in my mouth. I just
wanted to stop it. My reaction was based on their behavior.
What difference does the race of the perpetrators or the
victim make? If it makes a difference to you, then you have ceased to think of
them as individuals and begun to classify them as part of a group – the first
step to racism. The punks beating up the boy on the bus were wrong and needed
to be stopped. If you cared about the race of the attackers on the bus, or the
race of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, then you have allowed racism to cloud
your judgment. You have stopped judging people on their individual behavior and started to judge them based on their race –
the definition of racism.
So, are you still wondering about the race of the threatened
young man in the university dorm incident or the threatening student? I’m not going to tell you, because
it doesn’t matter. One student threatened another with violence, and the first reaction by the university was
inappropriate – period. Fortunately, the university did the right thing and
called in the threatening student for counseling. They punished him based on
his behavior. John, the threatened student, was satisfied that
justice was done, and that he would be safe from harm, but he still wonders how
his skin color, or culture, had anything to do with the incident.
This entry was posted
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