Eyes on the Prize
How Far We Have Come
Paz, my man. The nomer you have chosen for your blog is paz y amour, which means peace and love. It's a lovely non de plume. It is full of good will and honor. It rings resonant for me, a 60's guy at heart forever, regardless of my rational swerve to the right in my later years.Peace and Love
For my readers, I highly recommend you visit paz' site, the path, one of the best blogs out there. It is a humorous and irreverent look at some of our cultural idiosyncrasies. For example, the most recent post is a hilarious investigation of the conservative over-reaction to Tinky Winky and the Teletubbies,
where some conservatives see hidden "gay" messages in the characters; and to other icons, like the recent movie Happy Feet, which some conservatives see as whacko environmental brainwashing of the young. Needless to say, I don't agree with everything paz says, but he is a great observer of human nature, is right sometimes, and often makes me think. So, as I've said before, kudos to paz, and check him out.Eyes on the Prize
Anyway, paz, my man. I was watching a segment I had not seen before of Eyes on the Prize, the 14-hour prizewinning documentary series about the American Civil Rights Movement. This kind of video history I love, as a history buff and seeker of knowledge about the world. As I watched it, I was disgusted with my race, the human race, but proud too with how far we have come.
Indiana Boy
I grew up in Munster, Indiana, a small white, conservative (at least it was then; I don't know what it is now) suburb of Chicago and Gary Indiana (both heavily black). I went to Catholic schools until I was a sophomore in college at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. At that time, I knew of no black living in Munster. My grade school, St. Thomas Moore, had no blacks, and one Hispanic. The kids in my grade school picked on this Hispanic kid not because he was Mexican, but because he was poor, and not very smart. You know how kids are. My high school, the great Bishop Noll Institute, had one black, the son of a doctor, and he played on the football team along with me.
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Rock
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You may not believe this, but our school had no racism. We accepted this lone black fellow as one of us. I was a star running back for a while in football, particularly in my freshman year on the junior varsity team. When we were slated to play Gary Roosevelt that year, 1961, we had fear in our hearts. Roosevelt was a black team. Again, I contend that we weren't racist. I never heard the "N" word, nor did any of my teammates say anything negative against the Roosevelt players. Just the opposite. We looked at them like gods. They were the best team in the region. I think we knew instinctively what is recognized now, but forbidden to say, that blacks do have some good genes when it comes to sports. (Notice paz, even when talking to you, I will not be politically correct. I think it does us all more honor by just being respectfully truthful.) We were terrified. I did pretty well in that game. I broke two long runs for touchdowns. We lost, though, by a blowout, and our fears came true.
I had a similar experience in high school when I was set to meet a "forbidding" black in a wrestling tournament. Again, I can admit to you that I was terrified. In this case, though, my fear pumped me up so full of adrenaline that I creamed the guy. I pinned him with all the fury of my fear in about two minutes. From that moment on, I no longer feared blacks, on the field or off. They became human to me, no longer gods. Of course, I still look at fellows like LADAINIAN TOMLINSON, star running back for the San Diego Chargers, as gods, simply because … they are.
My mother was a good Catholic, and quite a racist. I won't go into details, except to say that she was furious with my grandfather on my father's side when he remarried to a Mexican. My father was more forgiving of him. My father was less of a racist, although he did look down on blacks. On the other hand, he treated everyone with dignity and respect, including all races, and he looked upon each person as an individual.
My town was not racist, that I recall. My schools were never racist. I never in my life heard a person use the "N" word, except for blacks. I never personally saw anyone get mistreated because of race—that is, as I've said before, until I experienced quite severe reverse racism in later years in Los Angeles, in certain settings.
Unbelievable
Watching Eyes on the Prize, though, no matter how many times I see it, is shocking to me, appalling, unbelievable. How the whole country, just so very few years ago, in 1961, for example, and especially the people in Mississippi, could get so furious and mob like about one black, James Meredith, trying to register for class at The University of Mississippi. How the governor of the state, Ross Barnett, could stand at the door and bar Mr. Meredith's admission. Then came the riots, the dogs and the water-hoses, the Federal Marshals sent by John F. Kennedy, the black children in other white schools being accompanied by policemen so they could go to class, and the bathroom. The whole Civil Rights Movement, culminating, in my opinion, by the high point of Martin Luther King.
How Far We Have Come
It all seems surreal now. How far we have come. Yes, I agree with you, paz, that racism still exists today, as it always will, in every culture, every ethnicity. Whites, blacks, Hispanics, everyone seems to have their racists. Yet, your fellow blacks and you, by dint of the sacrifices you made in those glory years of the Civil Rights Movement, have earned your rightful place in society the world over. The laws have changed, both criminal and civil. Institutional racism is no longer allowed. You claim that racism still is widespread, and has replaced the white hoods of the KKK with the covert racism of the old rich white guy businessman. I don't even see that much anymore, although I could be wrong about the South, or other regions, I don't know.
Human Nature
I won't go into detail, but I think the level of racism that exists, on all sides now, is about as low as you can get it for the human race. There are those on the left and right who believe that human beings are basically good. I don't share that view. Else, why do we need policemen? Laws? Governments? Armies? Human beings are nasty creatures. We all have our Jekyll, and our Hyde. That's the way God made us. Blame Original Sin if you like. Blame heredity. We fight. We kill. We exterminate. We make war. We discriminate. That's why we need religion, or ethics training, moral teaching from our parents, philosophy that guides us how to be good. God gave us this nature, I believe, in order to struggle against it. Some win this struggle, and others succumb to the dark side.
On the whole, though, I will say this, the human race does appear to be evolving every so slightly in the right direction. We still have barbaric wars (caused by the Al-Queda's of the world, not by the just reaction to them by good countries like the United States and Israel). We still have slavery (blacks owning and trading blacks, and whites kidnapping girls into sexual bondage). We still have injustice and intrigue (Putin poisoning his enemies). Yet, there are pockets of goodness in the world, like the United States. And institutions that once engaged in barbarity, like the Catholic Church (the Inquisition), have now become mostly forces for good.
The Next Prize
So, is there still racism? Yes. Can it be eliminated? No, not unless you can change the genomes of the human race. Blacks still eat with blacks on campus. Whites fear for their lives in Watts at night. Blacks will have to fight their first impulse to hire blacks for the job, and ditto with whites. Prisons are segregated into white, Latino, Asian and black gangs. Why? I wish I knew. Those of us who imagine we're good, have friends of all races. Yet even we must allow or embrace cultural differences and the context of history.
Anyway, the idea now is to keep our eyes on the next prize, which should be becoming members of the human race; and improving life together on this earth. May we all be brothers to one another, paz, in struggling to overcome our baser nature. Peace and love to you, and all.