Organizing for America | Northern Idaho's Blog: Race in America: Barack Obama starts a worthy discussion

Race in America: Barack Obama starts a worthy discussion

By Northern Idaho - Mar 21st, 2008 at 4:26 pm EDT

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Tags: AC360, barack obama, race, Roland Martin, stereotypes

As a white American male, I welcome the latest frank discussions about race. I recently began peeling back my personal comfort insulation, and have, over the last few days really started to listen and try to understand the race issue more completely. I want to thank everyone for their comments and insight on the HQ blog recently.

Let me also say that I never really thought I was lacking in my grasp of race in America, but I have moved my knowledgebase further in the last week than I have in the past year.

On Anderson Cooper 360 last night 3/20/2008, Roland Martin mentioned that when he tells people what college he attended, they ask him if played football, instead of asking what he majored in. I know it does not sound like much initially, but his comment cuts to the core of things, in fact, I have been thinking about his statement deeply for the better part of the day.

Due to social conditioning people tend to draw from a large pool of stereotypes rather than engage in real discussion. I am not saying it is anyone’s fault, but a disservice is done to all races when this occurs. Stepping out of our stereotypes takes effort. More often than not the easy road is preferred while the road less traveled is the one that will lead to racial healing. I will be making a more conscience effort in the future to discard social norms and have real discussion when circumstances like this arise.

Thank you Barack Obama for getting the discussion started and for causing me to think deeper about race in America.

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Race in America | Report to Admin

By Susan in Spokane Apr 1st 2008 at 9:07 pm EDT

Hello, Northern Idaho and other readers,

Thank you for posting your thoughts about race in America. I listened/watched the whole video of Senator Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech and was moved to tears several times.

I am convinced that we white Americans are largely clueless when it comes to knowing, at any level, what it is like to be a person of color in this country. I have very limited experience by virtue of my first husband being an African American man. I basically thought that simply by being open-minded enough to undertake such a union meant that I had a grasp on the issue. Not so!

Several things happened during the years that led me to realize that race was -- and still is -- a big factor to many in our country. One was someone who yelled out "n****- lover" in Maryland when I was out walking with another black man I had been involved with for many years prior to the man I married. I remember being startled by that, not really thinking of Maryland as "south".

Then, before my marriage, the man I later married and I took a cross-country road trip together. We went into a Waffle House for breakfast one morning (I think it was in Arkansas), and if eyes could have lynched the two of us, we'd have been gonners. It was both surreal (the staff tried to be so cheerful) and scary (the customers weren't having any of it).

Lastly, we took a cross-country trip in Canada, ending up a little south of Vancouver for about 4 days. I felt people there did not like the sight of us together, but it was very subtle -- something I could not even say, "they did such-and-such and it made me uncomfortable". It wasn't overt behavior; it was a sensing kind of thing. I mentioned it to my then-fiance, and he calmly said, "Now you see what we live with every day of our lives".

A simple statement, but it had a very profound effect on me. I couldn't comprehend how people could live with that undercurrent of dislike, mistrust and even hatred.

Yes, the issue of race is still a deep wound in our national psyche. Whatever we can do to expand awareness, tolerance and healing is a plus. And Senator Obama started that process beautifully with his speech.

Yes.We.Can!

I agree, Aric and Susan! | Report to Admin

By Elyse W Apr 15th 2008 at 3:25 pm EDT

Thanks for your original blog, Aric. And thanks for sharing your own experience and insights, Susan.

When I was in graduate school, I participated in a seminar designed to better sensitize our largely white community to issues of racial stereotyping and racial profiling. One of the insights I took from that seminar was a challenge from one of the presenters.

We were asked to think about the last time we read a story or heard a joke that involved reference to race. Then we were asked what races or ethnicities were explicitly identified in that story or joke. To a person, we all realized that the white characters in the telling had their race assumed -- it wasn't ever identified or mentioned. It was just assumed as if normative. Even recently, when reading a series of marvelous stories centering around witches, wizards, and muggles, I noticed that white race was assumed as normative -- only non-whites had their race identified in the storytelling.

Bottom line: we do still definitely need to increase the frequency of peeling back the insulation (to use Aric's language) of our social conditioning and assumptions about what is "normal" or normative.

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