I like my readers to be comfortable here on the blog. After all, it's been awhile since I've made a post, and I want everyone to feel warm and fuzzy after such a long hiatus.So let's talk about racism again.
And as I say whenever I blog on this topic: I'm white, stupid, and I often dream of candy. If I say something ludicrously offensive, please accept my humble apologies ahead of time.
I'm eating lunch in the teachers' lounge today when race enters the discussion. This happens periodically in this school with zero non-white teachers and a 90% white student population. Specifically, two older male teachers are lamenting particular affirmative action policies in businesses. The one math teacher regaled us with the tale of how he developed industrial fasteners for a company that was hoping to make a lucrative business deal with the military to sell said fasteners. Unfortunately, the military refused their contract because they didn't have enough minorities working for the company. According to the math teacher, "We'd tried to hire minorities, but we'd interviewed 900 black applicants, but all of them failed the drug screening."
Now I have some problems with affirmative action policies, not because I don't believe that minorities don't need protection from the racist/sexist/homophobic power structure, but because the ill will seems to create more problems than are solved. Nevertheless, I had some qualms about the facts of the story. First, how did he have that kind of information? Second, I know quite well that companies can refuse to hire someone for the flimsiest of reasons. Who's to say that the official reason wasn't drugs but the "real" reason was that the hiring manager didn't want those brown fellows fiddling with his fasteners? Finally, what are the odds that ALL of those 900 black applicants failed the drug screening?
But hell, let's accept the premise. Let's assume that every single one of those 900 black applicants was actually a full-blown drug addict (ignoring the fact that you can test positive for drugs from, among other things, poppyseed cake). While neither teacher actually came out and started on about "I hate black people" or anything of that nature, the following general statements were agreed upon:
1. Black people are underrepresented in business (and the school) because they're unqualified.
2. Organizations for minorities are the most racist organizations in existence.
3. Poor black kids do not succeed in the school/workforce no matter how much help you give.
To provide another list, here are the reasons why I'm often uncomfortable discussing race and why I never said a word during this entire exchange:
1. I'm a giant white guy with the world experience of the postman from Mayberry.
2. I'm the English teacher and, therefore, filled with pie-in-the-sky impractical ideas.
3. My opinions are often derided as ludicrously naive because I'm young and haven't been properly jaded by enough bad incidents with black people.
Well, whatever. If I waited to talk about stuff until I thought I was fully qualified to do so, I'd never speak up unless someone had a bug up their ass regarding a comparative analysis of Captain Ahab's whaling ship and the hyperdrive of the Millennium Falcon. So here it goes. Here's why the lunchroom conversation pissed me off.
The two teachers seemed to be conflating cause and effect. The black people can't pass the drug tests; therefore, we're better than black people. Let's completely ignore the slew of economic conditions and media glamorization that leads young black kids to turn to drugs. Women and blacks have created their own organizations that discriminate against white men. Let's gloss over the fact that EVERY OTHER organization is pretty well dominated by white men.
It's all in how you look at it. I spent two weeks as a day-to-day substitute at the inner city high school closest to my apartment. In that school, the black students were clearly the most disruptive, the most unruly, and the most antagonistic. They seemed to have the worst grades, and they accounted for most of the security issues. That's not in dispute. It's not like there's a competing crowd saying, "Nuh uh!! It's the white kids doing all that." I don't think it's inherently racist to point out a particular racial trend. If the black kids are the ones being disruptive, that's the way it is. But a lot of people seem to put the cart before the horse here. The argument I've heard amounts to "Well, if the black kids wouldn't be so disruptive and cavalier toward their schooling, they wouldn't endure poverty, bad family lives, and drug addiction." The implication here is that black students are inherently inclined to bad behavior. But I think that this argument has it backwards. Here's how I would play it, "If we could pull the black kids out of poverty, their bad family lives, and the drug addictions, they wouldn't be so disruptive and cavalier toward their schooling."
It all comes back to economics (DISCLAIMER FROM JP: I can barely balance a checkbook so take this for what you will). Bad behavior, poor work ethic, and broken family lives are so often prevalent in households well below the poverty line. It just so happens that most poor families are black. Why are black families poor? Is it because black people inherently can't get their shit together? No, it's because white people had black people by the metaphorical balls (though sometimes the literal ones too, I'm sure) for hundreds of years. It's hard to work your way out of that. Maybe, just maybe, some of those allegations of "reverse racism" actually go a long way toward mending the inequalities that are inherent in our society and economic system.
Do minorities have to take responsibility for their own destinies? Of course. But we lovable pale males can't just sit back and pretend that black people are where they are because of their own stupid mistakes.
This lunchroom conversation weighed heavily on my mind all day, and that's always a sign that I need to write some of it down to work it out in my mind. It's incomplete, and a lot of people will probably annihilate my argument, but that's okay. This post was meant for me. It expresses my thought process about this issue at this particular time. I'm not trying to tell you how to think. I'm trying to explain how I think.
When I tell you how to think, the message will be loud and clear:
READ BLOG AND SEND JP FREE MONEY!!!
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"You see, Albert's got the right idea. He doesn't write about Negroes or Whites. He writes about robots."
"That's because he is a robot."
