Race and America

If you read the blogs you can hear every kind of opinion imaginable about the Obama speech. Most open-minded people who actually saw and heard the speech in toto praise the speaker for bringing the subject up in such a context of clarity and fairness.

What I liked about the speech (I sat through it all) was the sheer eloquence and courage of explaining something most of us fear to discuss among mixed groups (mixed races). After all, the laws protect all minorities (except gays), so end of story. But there is still de facto racism in all areas of the country and it's high time this disparity is addressed.

I like having this conversation. I teach college writing in a major university in the Northeast, and I was given the chance to design a subject matter focused course. I chose to teach the writings of prominent black authors of the 20th century. Having spent my early years in the south prior to the civil rights movement, I grew up being conscious of race as a permeating issue right beneath the surface, all the new laws notwithstanding. But my teenage students don't resonate with racism until we get deeply into writing about their raw observations. What I see in them is an obvious generational divide. Some of my generation, the same as of their parents and grandparents, still harbors white resentment. Their generation (everyone up to about 35) has no harbor at all. They grew up with mixed races and many of them, at least superficially, see a benevolent racially mixed atmosphere everywhere they look. But when they look more deeply, they see what's still there: Your advantage is at my expense and creates my disadvantage.

This is the most telling aspect of the speech. Until we have the conversation that mutualizes our understanding, we will not become as a nation a true melting pot and appreciate that we are in this together. We have nothing to gain from emotional distancing.