The Great Divide--Thoughts Upon the King Holiday (Part 1 of 2)

[selah_1977]

This is today's LiveJournal entry for me.  I wanted to share with you 
because I think these are things that are important to talk and think 
about (especially if like me you got some time off); however, if you 
offend easily over race relations and/or racial issues, you may want 
to skip this one.

My intent isn't to offend, but to inform.  At least four times in 
chats over the past six months race has come up and I've been shocked 
by some of the things that have been said.  I've also been asked to 
defend my personal position on several things ("personal" is the 
operative word, this is Eb's opinion, not that of everyone who looks 
like me); however, with the rapid pace of chat it's rather 
difficult.  This is why I am sharing this with the Harry Potter 
community.  Further debate, questions, or critiques can go to 
ebonyink at hotmail.com.

Before I begin what may seem like a very caustic essay, let me say 
this:  As impossible as it may seem, let's make every effort to live 
the dream.


===============================
(NOTE TO THE READER:  I understand that America is more than just a 
dichotomy of black and white, and that blacks are no longer 
the "majority-minority" in this country.  However, it is the King 
holiday, and as such I have chosen to explore some thoughts examining 
the current state of relations between the two most polarized races 
in America.  If this treatment seems to ignore non-whites and non-
blacks, rest assured that this was not the intent.)



It's the King holiday.  The vast majority of my predominately
African-American students no longer care.

As late as the 1980s, it wasn't like that.  It was the decade of
the push for a King holiday, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 
in my childish mind was a symbol of vast greatness.  If Harriet 
Tubman was our Moses, then King was something like my people's savior,
my friends and I thought.

My father didn't think so.  He thought, as most of my students
today think today, that King was hopelessly idealistic.  Too 
idealistic.  A great man, but a fool in thinking that his dream would 
come true someday.

In order to understand this apathy, in honor of Martin Luther King's 
birthday, I'd like to present a brief history lesson. Five-sixths of 
all Americans never take a course in American history beyond what is 
required in high school.  The vast majority of people in this country 
cite history as "boring".

History would never be boring if it were taught accurately.

History is not a set of facts to be memorized.

History *is* furious debate informed by evidence and reason.

One of the first things I learned in high school and college history 
was the value of something silly called "historical distance".  This 
meant that we were not to judge the grave injustices committed by 
Great Figures in History.  Christopher Columbus was both a great 
explorer and a murderer of Arawaks and Tainos.  George Washington was 
the great general of the Revolution and owned slaves.  Thomas 
Jefferson wrote the constitution and had an affair with a black woman 
(I take issue with the recent portrayals of the Jefferson-Hemings 
liaison as a "love story"—between master and slave?  Give me
a break!).

Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, very much espoused the views 
of his time.  In the famous Douglas-Lincoln debates he is quoted in 
the Charleston transcript as saying:  "I am not, nor ever have
been in favor of bringing about the social and political equality of 
the white and black races (applause)—that I am not nor ever have been
in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes."

But Columbus, Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln are heroes.  The 
latter three have huge monuments.  Because of historical distance, as 
an American I am supposed to respect and honor their legacy with my 
tax dollars and in my lessons.

You see, in our efforts to make plaster saints of our national 
heroes, American history books are full of omissions and in some 
cases abject mistruths.   Instead of quotes from primary source 
documents--letters, journals and diaries, records, newspaper 
clippings, etc.--we have instead summaries and tables because the 
authors of textbooks seem to feel as if the truth would be too much 
for high school students to handle.   They seem to feel that the 
truth would be far too... well, "divisive".

I think that there is something a bit more sinister underlying all 
this.  Recently I was chatting with a friend.  We'd spent the
better part of a half hour talking about gay rights.  Then I made the 
mistake of mentioning affirmative action.  Immediately the tone 
changed.  Over the next ten minutes I was exposed to some of the
mistruths about affirmative action that people seem to really and 
truly believe.  For instance, I kept hearing that affirmative action 
is "quotas".  No, quotas were struck down in 1978 by the Supreme 
Court's Bakke decision.  They've been illegal for 24 years!

Also, I heard that affirmative action was when a lesser qualified 
minority gets a job instead of a better qualified white person.  
This, again, is not the original intent of affirmative action but a 
sad abuse of it.  The intent of affirmative action is to ensure that
a minority with equal qualifications as everyone else in the pool  
gets a fair shot—for all but the past 30 years of US History, the 
minority with equal qualifications did not.   If some poorly 
qualified minorities slip through the cracks (and they do, especially 
in the university system), then they end up getting fired (if they 
can't do their job, they hurt the bottom line) or don't make it much 
beyond their freshman year of college.  

I used to blanketly oppose affirmative action until I began *really* 
listening to the arguments against it.  Some of the rhetoric was 
inherently racist.  Two assumptions in particular made me bristle.  
The all-but-stated assertion that minorities were *always* less 
qualified for any given job made my teeth hurt.  Most educated 
African-Americans were raised on the principle that you had to be 
overqualified for a position, work twice as hard, and run twice as
fast.  

After pausing to think about it, I can honestly say that I don't 
personally know of anyone of my race who is underqualified for the 
job they currently hold as far as paper credentials are concerned.  I 
am sure there are some; I can't believe there are many.  I *do*
know of people not of my race who are—-one example among many is a
current classmate, a white woman who is an engineer at Ford finishing 
up her B.A. in English.  No, it's not to change careers--she has no
degree at all.  Trust me when I say that every single black engineer 
at Ford has at least a B.S. in engineering or the hard sciences (not 
in English or marketing, mind), and many have an M.S.  

The other implication was that someone was being cheated out of what 
they had earned by some undeserving minority.  Now, the first 
assumption is nonsensical, but this one is actually funny.  First of 
all, not only am I sure I didn't get into a school because of my
race (more on that later), I am sure I didn't get *three* teaching 
positions because of it.  I had the credentials.  I was overqualified-
-my undergrad and grad grades were stellar, I'm certified to teach 
Many Things in two states, my observations and recommendations were 
stellar.  Problem was, I was applying in the wrong places... they 
didn't have staff members who looked like me, and they didn't want 
any.  :-)  A business may "say" they're an Equal Opportunity 
Employer, Lender, or Housing complex, but the truth is often more 
complex.  Outward compliance.... in practice, Business as Usual.

I always ask opponents of affirmative action two things.  First, show 
me raw statistics and not generalities.  The statistics show that 
across the board, minority numbers in universities and the 
professions have *decreased* sharply since the onset of affirmative 
action.  I also don't see evidence of large populations of 
disenfranchised white men due to the evil EEOC and other entities.   
My problem with affirmative action isn't that it's evil or reverse 
racism.  It's that it's pointless and stupid... like welfare, it 
isn't working, and it only made things worse. 

Then I ask for policy to replace affirmative action.  "Nothing" is 
not an acceptable answer to me.  "A fair meritocracy" is not
acceptable either.  This country has never been a meritocracy and it 
never will be.  And what determines "merit", by the way?  The fact 
that you have two educated parents who supplement your education with 
sophisticated cultural amenities?  The fact that you were educated in 
a private school system, in boarding schools, or your parents could 
afford to move into a certain school district?  The fact that 
generations of your ancestors are alumni of Harvard or Oxford or some 
other school, that your family donates to the school, and that you 
somehow got admitted?  The fact that our brilliant president is a 
Yale graduate?

Please.  Meritocracy is inherently unfair.  Propose meritocracy if 
you wish, but please, do not perpetuate the myth or try to pretend 
that it is fair.

Yes, there are parents that sacrifice a lot so that their children 
will be well educated.  My parents were two of them... they worked 
their fingers to the bone so that my sisters and I would have 
computers, learning tools, encyclopedias, musical instruments, etc.  
They made sure that we got into the best schools that our district 
had to offer, and they supplemented our education at home and in the 
community.  Yet there are still some measures in this "meritocracy" 
that were barred to my parents.  When I was growing up in the `80s, 
many neighborhoods were barred to us... not that my father wanted to 
live there anyway, for reasons that I'll spare you.  My mother tried 
to get me into an exclusive local private school—she was going to 
work two jobs to send me—and met resistance at every turn despite
my test scores, grades, and required IQ scores.  (I thank God I 
didn't attend that school, though—-my high school boyfriend did and he
hated every second of kindergarten through eighth grade.)

Meritocracy, indeed.

People resented the presence of blacks in places prior to affirmative 
action--they use affirmative action as an excuse for their resentment 
now--and after affirmative action ends, I daresay they'll still 
resent it.  

As far as race relations are concerned, though, I think I've shown 
that affirmative action ought to be the least of our concerns.


(to be continued in the next post...)