Driving my car slowly out of the U.S. Army National Guard
base, I immediately spotted a group of young men in white t-shirts, long pants
and black boots walking my way.
I clenched and took a closer look at these
darker-skinned-than-me young guys bobbing along in a throng.
Then they spotted me and suddenly I heard my name ring out,
“Randy!”
What? Oh my god. These were my guys, the ones I had just
spent the greater part of a day with in my role as leadership and communication
trainer for the statewide training center of the California Conservation Corps.
I cared about them. They were not a gang, they were not inmates. They were
youth taking extraordinary steps to make their lives better and make a positive
difference in the world. And they’d taken off their uniform shirts to relax
between training sessions in the sunshine and fresh air.
I was absolutely stunned I had mistaken them for a
threat. Gut punched with the
realization—again—at my deep conditioning and fear of “the other,” despite
serious efforts over the years to look at that and see how it had needlessly
and harmfully separated me from other human beings.
Black history is celebrated this month in the US, as is
Valentine’s Day. Other countries honor people of different heritages in their
own ways. Perhaps the celebration
of these two things, one of a people’s struggle to overcome tremendous
obstacles and their huge contribution to building the society we live in today
and the focus on love this month are no mistake.
In addition to finally recognizing and honoring many more of
the heroes in that struggle—I recently viewed the movie 12 Years a Slave and was amazed at both the atrocities and also the
power of the human spirit to persevere— perhaps we can look more personally at
today’s struggle to overcome and transform the barriers that have hurt and
divided us from one another.
While reading a new book by National Public Radio’s Michelle
Norris, The Grace of Silence, her
most sincere effort to better understand the father who took care of her and
his role and treatment during the entry of black soldiers into World War II
service—a lesser known piece of the civil rights movement—I also learned about
a project she had been involved with that encouraged people to talk about race.
In gearing up
for her book tour she had printed 200 postcards asking people to express
their thoughts on race in six words.
She found the
results to be both “surprising and enlightening.”
The first cards
she got were from friends and acquaintances. But after awhile ‘race cards’ came
in from strangers, even people from other continents who’d never heard her
speak. And the race cards keep coming. She and an assistant catalogued more
than 12,000 submissions on http://www.theracecardproject.com.
People now send them via Facebook and Twitter or type them directly into the
website.
A few of the
submissions include:
“You know my
race. NOT ME!”
“Chinese or
American? Does it matter.”?
“I thought I knew a lot about
race,” Norris said, “I realized how little I know through this project.”
I share this to highlight
how much so many crave to express what may have been locked up inside a long
time, perhaps a lifetime. There is an ongoing need for dialogue, safe and
respectful, that can help tear down the walls we may not have created in the
first place but largely subconsciously help hold in place.
Dialogue seems to be a
starting place and Norris had already begun that work with an earlier project
that got people together in person across differences to start the
conversations.
Coming closer to home, who
are your friends? Do you tend to surround yourself with people that look, think
and share the same cultural history as you?
I honestly find that inertia
takes me in that direction unless I purposely live in other cultures or go be
with people not likely to show up--why would they?-- at events and places that
are more homogenized with people that look and generally experience life as I
do. That could mean getting out of
one’s comfort zone. When I have, the rewards have been great. I feel more of my
own humanity when I learn about the history, experience and cultural delights
of someone different than me. And that is where the ogre of negative stereotype
can begin to break down and dissolve-- in the midst of budding friendship.
One of the more prominent
psychologists of the mid-20th century, Gordon Allport, wrote a book
entitled, The Psychology of Prejudice
which became one of the books in a college class I taught by the same name.
Many of my end-of-the-century students balked at his dated language while I
found it to be some of the deepest thinking and practical knowledge about how
to overcome the barriers of racism and fear of “the other.”
Allport lists one of the
critical factors for moving beyond the artificially created boundaries placed
between and implanted in individuals of the same species, as working together
for a common cause. When a group of diverse individuals comes together to rise
to adversity or meet a significant challenge, perceptions of difference begin
to fade. That’s what can and did happen in my beloved and diverse corps of
youth working to preserve the environment we all depend on. What becomes
important is how “we are all in this together.”
And of course, now we ALL
are. With ever increasing climate instability, loss of species and ecological
complexity and its negative effects on people’s lives and livelihoods, we
certainly have a common cause that can potentially help people rise to a new
level of acceptance and tolerance at minimum, real solidarity, harmony, and
yes, love at best. We don’t need to be attacked by aliens from outer space to
bring us together now. We’ve challenge and opportunity enough.
So, dialogue, friendship and
common cause turn out to be necessary ingredients to moving away from old
divisions and hostility in the direction of completely owning everyone’s
history of survival and triumph as part of our own. And love, don’t forget the
Love.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
