Last week a column was written that directed some ire our way.
Voltaire said, "While I may not agree with what a man says, I'll defend to the death his right to say it."
Then again, Robert H. Jackson said, "The right to free speech does not grant you the right to yell 'fire' in a crowded room."
Of course they were both right. But how much of the discussion of race is free speech and how much is fire?
To a certain extent, race has been demonized as a topic of conversation. The post-modernist practice of dissecting everything has rendered racial discussion another skilled labor. The problem is that when words themselves become your enemy, communication is impossible.
Is it possible, today, to end racism? Is it possible to flip a switch, and live in harmony?
The problem with asking people to simply choose not to be racist is that the question implies that racism is an arbitrary choice. It diminishes what is a viciously prevalent issue in our society, and for proof, one needs not look any further than the presidential election. In an age when many people will still base their vote on the color of a man's skin, racism cannot be done away with.
People don't like to hear that we cannot end racism. But it is the drive of children to try to succeed where their parents have failed. Our parents, grandparents at most, were the first generation to try to end racism itself. And they failed. They made milestones, but they didn't want to make a dent, they wanted to shatter the walls.
And somehow, they never managed to teach us the humility that comes with failure; that some problems are too big to solve all at once.
By this point, I have probably offended a few people inadvertently. I'm doing my best, but this is a hard subject to write about, especially as a white man. I have been conditioned my entire life to believe that I am unqualified to comment on race.
This attitude, coupled with overall white self-segregation, has had a sort of insulating effect. White people have a hard time accepting the reality of racism because, if we can't talk about it, and rarely see it, it's hard to believe in its existence. Most importantly, we never feel its effects, so how can we understand it?
So it's easy to see how racism can be denied so fervently by some. If we cannot see something, how can we believe the people who tell us it exists, that it is dangerous, that it must be dealt with? Racism is the monster in our children's closets; we check for it, but we never expect to find it.
And so we find ourselves speaking about it as a thing of the past and don't understand that we radiate it ourselves. Comments that are meant innocently, progressively even, are hobbled before they even reach the gate due to our ignorance.
Remember that ignorance is not a sin, but a malady.
But the denial of racism is still racism. And the attitudes that come from a denial of racism can be more vitriolic still. People group together for solidarity, for whatever they find that unites them. Sometimes solidarity can be a form of shelter, and the denial of racism is the denial of the necessity of that shelter.
To say that this kind of solidarity doesn't need to exist is a denial of reality. It is a fatuous comment borne of a protected kind of racism, and it has arisen out of stymied communication and gated lives. It is suburban racism.
The doors have to be opened. Our generation's milestone must be to improve upon the work of our fathers and mothers. Our work must be to improve communication, so that we can see that we are all just people.
It will take centuries for racism to disappear, and it will be a disappearance, not a vanishing. We can only spend enough time with each other to truly accept each other.
This past week has been a blow, but I still have the greatest faith in what humanity could be.
Besides, you all annoy me equally anyway.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
