For some, this view is quite contrarian, like the broker who advises his clients to buy stock while other brokers are advising to sell. There is a large constituency that still buys the idea that we must see ourselves racially, and have others see us that way too. It remains a seller’s market.
Some of the rationales for maintaining a racial orientation, and its related preference regimes include:
(1) we are multiple “races” of people,
(2) others will see us racially anyway,
(3) our power is in racial solidarity,
(4) we won’t have as ‘diverse’ a culture if we don’t,
(5) we’re denying, “Who we are” if we don’t see ourselves this way.
I’m sure you can come up with other examples.
Perhaps I’m one of those people for whom the term, being “in the world, but not of it,” applies. I understand the rationale behind all the arguments that favor race preferences. But they tend to require (1) maintaining a wariness of, if not disdain for other groups, and (2) putting the interests of the “home” race group first, irrespective of the position that is being sold. This mental and emotional space is not a healthy one, and is maintained at great cost to the holder.
Therefore, there is but one race that I need claim membership to; i.e., the human race, in which I affirm to be the best “me” I can be. I have no problem with discrimination. I favor choosing the best experiences that my natural and/or cultivated human abilities help me to create in concert with like-hearted others, while opposing, avoiding, healing, or otherwise rectifying that which causes harm. This doesn’t make me “lost”; to anyone or anything, especially to my “race.” If anything, I am found.
My “culture” is contemporary American, as it has always been in this life. If “ethnicity” is defined by genealogical, geographical, and historical factors, then my lineage can be traced to Africa and other locales, as can virtually every person living on the planet today.
It makes no sense to favor one contributory aspect of “who I am” over another, simply because of my physical characteristics, or based on how others view me. The “blueprint” of my spirit is unique in the entire world. The “signature” of my identity in this world -- that defines what I can, and cannot aspire to -- is written on my human foundation. Therefore, it is the only one that I really need to know and understand.
All history is human history. All of it is illustrative and rich with life lessons for anyone who is willing to pay attention to the whole picture. There are no “chosen people” as to who can or cannot live, love, and pursue their dreams. Except by agreement -- conspiratorial and otherwise -- there are no designated laborers, leaders, sufferers, victims, or villains. Our existence as human beings is evidence enough of being “chosen”… to be. What we do with the choice is up to each individual.
Over the years a few people have suggested that my maverick thinking -- which includes “fraternizing with the enemy” -- is evidence of self-hatred (heaven forbid), and a betrayal of my “race.”
“Why are you trying to deny who you are?” some have wondered, sincerely.
“Black people need role models that look like us!” they say plaintively.
Here’s the rub for me. No one really agrees on what being “black” means. It’s actually a form of linguistic “shorthand” that means different things to different people. I don’t buy the “role models need to look like us” argument either. If we base our role models on how they think and act, and what they aspired to instead of how they looked, the “shortage” of viable role model examples would disappear immediately. The important factor then becomes how we are choosing to think, aspire, and behave. This includes our choice of attitude.
While watching stories of early aviators, the Wright Brothers, and Glenn H. Curtiss on the Discovery Wings Channel recently, I could fully identify with the challenges they faced in building the first successful airplanes. Their color meant nothing to the example that they set. All children can be inspired by their actions, if the adults do not make their dissimilar looks meaningful.
In the recent case of the D.C. area snipers, the now “famous” John Muhammed and John Malvo pose far greater threats to the psyche of children raised to believe that their “role models” must look like them. Since they are the most impressionable human beings, anyone who comes to a child’s attention will be a “role model.” Any idea will be embraced as Gospel. Of the two examples given -- between the aviators and the snipers -- which would you really want your children to be open to? Does their color, ethnicity, or race really matter?
Men and women who suggest that unrest and violence are inevitable responses to social grievances by “black people,” espouse a way of thinking that is beyond foreign to me; it is alien. They stretch the boundaries of plausibility that ultimately make their neighborhoods more dangerous. I reject the idea that the terms disadvantaged, angry, unfair treatment, under-achievement, or victim should be assumed to go hand-in-hand with being “black,” or that intelligence, prosperity, resourcefulness, science, mathematics, enterprise, and invention should be considered foreign concepts to “black” people. While few “leaders” will actually make such outlandish suggestions literally, these are the subjects that most often come up. That is, when the words crime, thugz, incarceration, recidivism, and gangsta-ism aren’t being used.
Defining one’s self as “black” carries its own laundry list of assumptive meanings; assumptions as to how a “black” person is supposed to think, talk, and behave, and where his or her “allegiances” lie. They tend to be clustered at the lower end of the achievement spectrum. Picture someone who reaches for the minimum, and expends high effort toward low goals, or low effort toward high ones. This practice reflects a “back-of-the-bus” mentality, and does not spark the kind of thinking that leads one to design, build, and own his or her own buses. There are also assumptions as to how all (non-black) “others” think about black people.
As though it was a religion or political party, “afro-centrism” yet lives among certain men and women who believe African allegiance should be the first priority, albeit here in America. Africa is romanticized as a Motherland for “black” people, whereas acknowledged anthropological evidence pegs the continent as the modern emergence point of all humanity.
As best we can tell, the variety and range of external human appearances are better explained to be the result of our mass dispersion -- a human diaspora -- and natural adaptation over time, than by fundamental dissimilarity. How else would “genetically pure” members of nomadic tribes in Kenya or Gambia reveal gene patterns that closely resemble that of someone from Germany or Sweden? While it is possible for man to not grasp these concepts without much “trial and error” over many generations, Nature has never “forgotten” who or what we are. It has always favored the union of potent male and fertile female human beings, with the power to beget another human being. The more conscious the presence of love in the union, the better.
Staunch defenders of “blackness” would frown upon the notion of regarding others who are not “black” or “disenfranchised” with equal amounts of friendliness, kindness, grace, love, and respect. A distrust or disdain of “white” people is “Standard Operating Procedure” for some black folk, even some who sincerely claim to hate racism. However, they’ll tell themselves and anyone who’ll listen, that blacks cannot be racists, or that it is “okay” if they are. Wrong. Holding disdain for a group based on their racial make-up is racism. If it’s not good for the goose, then it’s not good for the gander either.
More blackthink: Black people need special laws, remedial entry programs, and relaxed academic standards for college admission. Such measures are important because blacks have been systematically held back, and need to “catch up.” The former part is true. Systematic obstructionism was, and has been part of life in America for black people, for far too long. But trying to “catch up” with anything or anyone will be an exercise in futility. Anyone who feels “behind,” will always feel that way unless they first make an inner change. An institution-sponsored, race-related advantage will not benefit an unmotivated black student or worker. It unfairly and unjustly stigmatizes one who is. To truly move ahead, their mind must be firmly planted in the present -- not past or future -- and actively engaged in the full pursuit of one’s personal dream from this point forward.
None of this is meant as a slap against people who identify themselves as “black.” It is a reminder to be selective in what we are embracing. If “being black” means that I believe I will have fewer options than someone else, or a harder road to my dream than someone else, then I need to select a new way of thinking, for this train of thought does me a disservice. If my dream is wonderful enough, it won’t matter how many obstacles stand in the way. And that is the point. When the obstacles are no longer the objects of one’s attention, then real progress can be made to the goal.
Fortunately, once it is examined with a critical mind’s eye, thinking can be changed. Equality, of perception and being, which has always been there, can emerge and see the light of day. Only we can make ourselves “equal” -- in ability and belief -- to the dream that lights our mind and warms our heart. Only then will we choose to embrace and become the actions that fulfill the wish.
The journey to equal perception begins within, when we acknowledge where true equality already exists. It lies in the inalienable powers that we hold as conscious and sovereign, human beings, blessed with a spirit that, if exercised, is indomitable. We have the power to think, to envision, to synthesize our thoughts into a life direction, and to put said vision into motion through our actions. In the beginning, no one need see one’s vision, but the vision holder. Yet, as we believe, share, move forward, and persevere, our highest dreams can come true, just like the dream of any other human being. Secure in this knowledge, our responsibility becomes simple: to dream our highest, most wonderful dream, as we bring about an “arc” of our conscience, from a point that serves the “black” within, to one that knows and loves our humanity. From this perspective, we can change the world.
The political factors surrounding the subject of racial identity often get in the way of gaining a healthy understanding of, and respect for self. In this case “political” does not refer to Democrats and Republicans, but to the idea of “us versus them.” Racial politics create and maintain “walls” that are real in the “eyes of the beholder.” When we voluntarily put ourselves into groups as though they were racial “mini bags” and define ourselves by way of checkbox, the environment that we so desperately want to change is actually perpetuated. If we allow divine diffidence to rule, we lose an opportunity to appreciate who we really are, and where the power to make real change lies. I do not profess to speak for God, but I do speak from, for, and to the human spirit.
Adam Abraham is author of I Am My Body, NOT! (www.iammybodynot.com), A Freed Man: An Emancipation Proclamation (Release Pending), Love Proclamations™ and other works. He is also publisher of Fresh Thought an e-Zine for Life Transformation. To receive Fresh Thought, send an email to: fresh_thought@topica.email-publisher.com and type “Subscribe” in the Subject line.
Also by Adam E. Abraham:
When the Reality of Race Oneness Sets In
Favoring Meaning Over 'Ease'
It’s Not the ‘Ism’ Anymore
Calling for More Good Change
Putting the Spirit of ‘Us vs. Them’ to Rest
Notes from a ‘Political Expatriate’
Allowing the ‘Miracle’ of Change
To the Birth of I Can
Focus On Humanity
A Wonderful and Not So 'Silly' Dream
Musings of a Philosopher: Or When 'Silence' is No Longer 'Golden'
Wedges Are Not ‘Tools’ Of Unity
On the ‘Birthing’ of New Futures
When Simple Truths Are Submerged In Complexity
Bush’s Dilemma in “Gunning Down” Saddam
Race as Yesterday's Religion
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