The topic of race is a charged and personal topic to many. Depending on one’s upbringing, their beliefs, their own history and the access they have to information results in certain assumptions and resentments being drawn together. In the eyes of those with the specific experiences and fears, there is legitimacy in how they feel. From my own family, I recall my grandmother stating her disapproval that my father did not get accepted onto the fire department and blaming an African American man and affirmative action as the cause. Her knowledge of how the system works was from experiences that she perceived as working against her own family, not for the benefit of the whole. It is not that there is no place for the resentments that are held by any race or that there is no legitimate reason behind those resentments, it is that they are indeed counterproductive to the change that needs to happen to form a more cohesive and successful country.
Resentments on any level affect our ability to listen and receive information from another. If someone has wronged us in a significant way, we do not take their advice or consult them regardless of their knowledge or experience. Anger makes it impossible to listen to someone clearly and think about their remarks with honest evaluation. In a study done in 2008, researchers found that people are least receptive to advice when they feel anger which in turn decreases their ability to make accurate judgments about a situation. (Gino & Schweitzer, 2008) This makes resentments very counterproductive as it means that a great number of people simply are not listening to each other at all. In truth, as President Obama says in the video, the problems that we face as a collective are not just black or white, Latino or Asian. (Obama, 2008) Looking a problem in the school system does not just affect the majority black children at the school, it affects every workplace, neighborhood, relationship and future that the child going to the school has in their future. Seeing the people on the street, in gangs, or living in poverty affects every citizen, every person their lives touch, whether it be the taxpayer, the property owner, the shopkeeper, the medical staff who have to treat preventable illnesses, the teachers who try to teach malnourished children, etc.
Some prefer to look at these problems as things that are in our past. That once slavery was abolished, there were no more problems and nothing left to worry ourselves over. In a way there are pieces of our past that are the past – slavery is no longer legal, neither is “separate but equal”. However, the root of the problems did not get pulled up and there are lingering problems and new problems that need to be addressed. The problems that we see today may not be the same as the problems that were seen 50 or 100 years ago, but they are problems none-the-less that need to be attended to. As long as some schools have less access than others to a quality education, as long as some people suffer more from lack of immediate needs, as long as some people are continuously under-employed, under-educated and forced to live where there is less access to quality food, transportation and jobs that pay a living wage, then we still have problems. These all exist on the racial diving line and only being honest about that will help us resolve the issues we face today as a country.
In order to change, we must change our culture. As the Presidents states, that starts with acknowledging that the problems that exist are real. (Obama, 2008) It means acknowledging that discrimination is real and that it is not just a matter of a few people not pulling up their own bootstraps. It means that we agree to have common hopes that include all people and races – hopes for a great education for children no matter what their fathers, mothers or their past would dictate. It also means changing our assumptions by recognizing that we have assumptions based on someone’s color existing in our minds already and doing the hard work of figuring out how to rid ourselves of these mindsets. My grandmother, mentioned at the beginning would have to admit that she did not think the man who got the spot on the fire department was as capable as my father simply because of his color.
Overall, I believe it is important to be aware of one’s own biases regarding race, be willing to talk about those biases, and to develop a clearer understanding of all the people that live in our country. It is only in this way that we will be able to fully understand and fully realize our own potential.
Gino, F., & Schweitzer, M. E. (2008, September). Blinded by anger or feeling the love: How emotions influence advice taking. Journal of Applied Psychology, pp. 1165-1173.
Obama, B. (2008, March 18). A More Perfect Union. Retrieved from National Constitution Center: http://constitutioncenter.org/amoreperfectunion/
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