Menu
close
We live in a moment in America where our politics is increasingly defined by race and ideas about race relations. However, what is race? What is ethnicity? How do social constructs reflect biological differences, and to what extent can any race actually be identified as a stable classification? These are issue we hope to explore, while opening the discussion to a wider and wider audience. Join us in this national conversation.
We are building a community, a discussion space, and a set of ideas that we hope can forward the discussion of race in America in a respectful, productive and enlightening manner. Stay tuned as we continue to add not only to this site, but to the conversation.
ncor
By Gregoria Walls
We are restarting this organization’s conversation on race during Black History Month, a few weeks after Senator Kamala Harris and Senator Cory Booker announced that they’d run for U.S. President. Yesterday we learned that President Barack Obama and his team have been interviewing Democratic candidates. Senators Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown and Amy Klobuchar appeared in this list of Democratic hopefuls, as did Senator Elizabeth Warren and Beto O’Rourke, former Congressmember from Texas. Personally, I’m looking for a team of healers and doers who will help Americans get together and make this country work for every resident.
Last night, with CNN’s Don Lemon as the moderator, Senator Klobuchar held her televised town hall in New Hampshire. When Don Lemon asked her about the state of Black America, Klobuchar began listing some of her legislation that dealt with crime. This demonstrated that she saw most Black Americans as being connected to problems, and not as people who made America Strong and who even built the foundation that helped enable her to succeed. She also didn’t speak about what White Americans need to do to address their racism and to redistribute goods and resources so we can have an equal society. How quickly can white presidential candidates learn about our country’s diversity—which is its unrealized strength–when they’ve never lived outside of their white enclaves or wanted to learn about the rest of Americans?
But sometimes living in integrated neighborhoods and attending integrated public schools isn’t enough to get white people to recognize and act on their common humanity. Take the case of Ralph Northam, Virginia’s governor who grew up with black kids. Something very ugly happened to him when he went to college and medical school. He lost track of everything that you’d assume that he’d learned about standing together and demanding justice as a united body. Or maybe he didn’t learn it. Perhaps he just walked through his life, not seeing what was around him, what was happening, and what could happen. Maybe he missed out on the most important part of his democratic education.
Years ago, I met a very wise adult, who I’ve always called Mr. I. Mr. I said that a lot of white kids stayed friends with black kids until they started to become “adults.” When white teens began dating at age sixteen or so, he said, they generally imagined who’d they’d be as grown-ups and as adults. That’s when Mr. I saw white kids stop hanging out with their black friends. They changed and selected white people to become their serious adult friends. That’s when racism kicked in with a vengeance. The white kids’ goals became to marry white partners, have white kids, and raise their kids as White Americans who, for another generation, were taught to take whatever they could from other groups.
I don’t know if this happened to Ralph Northam. But he had vital knowledge about diversity and cross-racial friendships that he didn’t value. His culturally diverse life seemed to come to an end. When the wealthy white males in med school re-socialized him, was he clay in their hands? Was he a willing participant? Or was he a reluctant one, who went along with the bullies and the takers? Northam must have known somewhere in his heart that what he’s been thinking—and what he’s been doing– is wrong. All I know is, as long as he is in office, we must get Governor Northam to make serious economic, social, educational, and political amends that will undermine the structures of cross-generational racism and provide quality social resources and full equality to every person in Virginia.
As for Amy Klobuchar, she has some learning to do. I hope she starts and I hope she continues, because it will take her entire life to begin seeing where her heart belongs. Believe me, Amy Klobuchar, it’s not just the Mississippi River that reminds us of how divided this country has become.
I’ve searched for hope and light this month. I’ve searched much harder than I normally do, which is a lot. It’s very hard to put anything back in place once it’s been broken. But we have to try. And we have to manage to keep faith as we try to make things right for every person. I’ll experience all the special activities that relate to Black History in February and to Women’s History in March. I’ll hope that all these equalizing and democratic activities will continue as part of daily life, so that someday things will become right. And I’ll keep lighting my candles.
