They Lynch Negroes in Texas

This was a crucial line in a movie that I watched over the weekend on DVD, an interesting and well executed movie called "The Great Debaters" with Denzel Washington playing the lead character and protagonist, a professor and debate team coach at a small black Texas college in the 1930's. The line refers to a scene where the coach and his team are on the way to a competition, driving across the Lone Star state at night, and come across the aftermath of a lynching, images that will forever be burned into their souls. It got me thinking about the nature of race in our country today, how our racial history impacts us in the here and now, and how race and racism continue to play a role in so much of modern life.

It is tempting for people, especially white people, to say that this is ancient history, that people of color, as we inaccurately label all non-whites, should get over it and move on. (I've got as much or more color in my skin than many non-whites, and last time I checked even pasty white was still a color) Perhaps. Certainly there is a danger in the self-loathing that can come from excessive martyrdom, and if any people see themselves always as victims, and see another group, namely white people, as the oppressors, they are liable to live in a hostile and bitter world that offers little hope for advancement and for raising their stature in that society. There is also the danger of what is called the slave mentality. I witnessed this first hand while coaching basketball in the inner city a few years back, in fact it was a term I was not familiar with until discussing what we had witnessed with my colleague Anthony Wright, who is black, and who grew up in the inner city.

What we noticed was that when our team, which was predominately black, went on the road to play the mostly white schools, we played almost scared, and certainly at less than our best. It was as if our guys didn't feel that they deserved to be in these nice new gyms, we were fish out of water and we performed like it. When we were practicing in our own gyms, mostly run down and in the inner city, we were a different team. Coach Wright addressed the team one day, and gave us all an education regarding the slave mentality, which basically states that for many Blacks, it is difficult to fully accept that they belong in society on equal footing with Whites. Feeling like this can easily lead not only to self-loathing but also to feelings of resentment and hatred toward Whites, and this just leads to greater intolerance and misunderstandings on all sides. Martin Luther King stated that people don't like each other because they don't understand each other, and that they don't understand each other because they don't know each other. This is a major motivating factor for school and societal integration, but it is not enough for Whites and Blacks to occupy the same physical space, we must truly take the time and put forth the effort to know and understand one another, and that starts with open and honest dialogue as it pertains to race and the myriad cultural factors that stem from it.

One of the coolest things I experienced while coaching basketball was to see how these kids, black kids from the 'hood and white kids from the 'burbs, would fraternize after the games when given the opportunity. They were free and easy with each other, just kids being kids and doing what came naturally to them, away from all of the layers of separation that adult society often puts upon them. It gave me hope that things are really getting better in our society today and that in the future we may indeed live in a world where people are judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Yet to get to that point, we must recognize our history, not so that we can make Blacks feel inferior or Whites feel guilty, but as a way to acknowledge what we have so far overcome in hopes that we can continue to travel down the righteous path of equality and justice and respect and love for one another as human beings. Bob Marley sings that if you know your history, then you would know where I'm coming from. So when white folks talk about forgetting the past and letting bygones be bygones, that misses the point. How can Whites or Blacks appreciate each other if they don't know each other's history, where they have been, what they have experienced, what they currently experience?

The argument that this is ancient history doesn't fly either, because Jim Crow didn't end in the South until a couple generations ago, and while I have no first hand knowledge, I understand from people who do that many of these attitudes are still prevalent throughout the old Confederate states. I have seen first hand the more subtle effects of racism, the uncomfortable looks that attend to walking in a restaurant or convenience store with a group of young black men for example, and I have had numerous stories related to me of unfair treatment at the hands of authorities, from police to teachers and school administrators that Blacks still experience today.

Race relations and racial attitudes have certainly improved over time, thanks in large part to the courage of those who took part in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and 60's, laws have been changed and barriers have been knocked down. Today's generation of young people think nothing of certain equalities that previous generations might not even have imagined, from integrated sports teams and universities, to the notion of a black quarterback, to being just a few months away from, in all likelihood, our nation's first non-white president. Now is not the time however to pat ourselves on the back and stop moving forward, because there is still a great deal of work to be done. There may not lynch Negroes anymore in Texas, but they still drag black people behind pickup trucks, they still lynch gay people in Wyoming, and they still shoot Sikhs in Arizona. Racism may be more subtle now, but that only makes it tougher to distinguish and more difficult to root out. When one of us is in chains, none of us are free, and until we can truly unshackle the chains that hold our society back, we won't realize the ideals and the dreams and the promise of our great nation.