An Ode (of sorts) to History

Harlem Race Riot
- Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

I have the privilege of being able to teach a 20th century history class on my spare days, an experience which has invariably taught me more about the 20th century than it has my students. I have heard that a person will always learn more about his subject matter by teaching it than he will ever learn by being taught about it.

During my last class we were learning about the 1960's and early 70's, and inevitably the issue of racial struggles came up in discussion. The race riots and discrimination of the 60's in America are not subjects to be taken lightly in any conversation about the 20th century. However, one of my students raised her hand and made a point which not only took me off guard, but resonated as true the more we discussed it.

To paraphrase, this particular 16-17-ish student made the point that her particular generation (from her own experiential point of vew as a teenager) is relatively immune to the racial issues of the 1960's. Not only has she never had a problem with mingling with black people, but none of her friends have either. There is no discrimination in the circles she moves in and never has been. Whatever racial discomfort there has been in her experience has come from her elders.

It was a powerful point that I had never considered from that particular angle. And I realized that the same is true with my peers as well (I am only about ten years my students' senior.) We simply don't really care about racial issues the way our parents and grandparents did. This may not be the experience of my generaation as a whole, but it is of all the people my own age that I have encountered. I am constantly witnessing seamless integration of blacks and whites where I live, kids hanging out, going to high school and college together. Color just doesn't seem so important to us.

I wish I could say the same of my parents' and grandparents' generations. I was fortunate to have loving and racially colorblind parents who taught me that what people say and do matters infinitely more than what they look like, but the same cannot be said of the generation from which they came. The baby boomers have much to answer for in this respect, as do their elders who were responsible for racial segregation in the South and general discrimination against blacks nationwide. But the real sin of that generation is not so much that they discriminated and shunned in the past. No, their real sin is that they desperately attempt to foist this stupidity on every fuure generation they can get their hands on.

Think about it for a second. What is the average age of those news anchors who irresponsibly take hold of any story with a possible racial angle and run with it? I cannot be absolutely sure, but my best guess is mid-to-late forties. The average age of those political and social commentators who are stuck on the idea of perpetual racial conflict is no different, maybe even higher, as is that of racially-driven politicians. Barack Obama, who will turn 51 years old this year, is just as much to blame, especially when his own Department of Justice refuses to prosecute blacks who attack whites as vigorously as whites who attack blacks. As much as I dislike talk show host Neal Boortz, his description of Rev. Jesse Jackson as a "race pimp" perfectly sums up my point here. These commentators, politicians, and anchors all have one thing in common: a racial agenda that became old fashioned years ago but that they cannot seem to let die.

Perhaps the passage of time is a mercy here. It may sound harsh to phrase it this way, but it is true nonetheless: racism will only die when its perpetrators and hangers-on pass away. It does a tremendous disservice to the youth of America when one or another class or race is constantly portrayed by the 'older and wiser' as the victim group. People with a victim complex make poor citizens and even poorer human beings, and the ones responsible for perpetrating this idea must carry a good portion of the blame.

So, the next time you hear someone proclaim that we live in a 'post-racial' society as evidenced by the election of our first black president, it would be good to remind them that the same Obama who was elected because of unity of race should stop trying to divide them again. It would be well for all of Obama's generation to remember that as well, but for the moment it would seem that old dogs cannot be taught new tricks.