President Obama has me pegged. LAST FRIDAY Obama addressed the Florida jury ruling that found George Zimmerman not guilty for the death of Trayvon Martin. Though he didn’t agree with the verdict, Obama was not critical of the judicial process. MORE IMPORTANTLY, how can we as a society overcome racial stereotypes? SOME WANT to “dodge” our history, like the tool on a computer program that erases imperfections. Go to the Deep South and Confederate flags still wave, as if the war over slavery was way overblown.
As a white woman, I have hugged my purse tighter when on an elevator in the presence of black youths.
As a white woman, I have locked my car doors when in a section of a predominately black neighborhood.
No personal experience has formed these irrational fears. That I live in rural Kansas, where African Americans are increasingly few, plays a big part. You fear what you don’t know. It’s also easy to have statistics paint a more ominous picture than reality.
Obama knows from first-hand experience that racism exists in the United States. As with other black youths, Obama has experienced women hugging their purses all the more tighter when in their presence; he has been followed by department store guards for no reason other than the color of his skin, and he has heard the click of car door locks when on the streets of South Chicago.
It’s experiences like those and a million others that prepared the black community for another letdown with the Zimmerman ruling.
Blacks in America have experienced a history of racial discrimination, that continues to this day. African-American boys are “painted with a broad brush” that warns of trouble, said Obama. That as a country we expect black males to be more associated with crime than their white counterparts, speaks of our inborn prejudices. If George Zimmerman had shot a white youth carrying only Skittles and a can of pop, would the police response to the situation have been the same? Would the jury have ruled the same way?
First step; gain some understanding.
Little things help.
Such as knowing African Americans (and women) were not eligible to receive Social Security during its first 15 years. The program was begun in 1935 under the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt to help take Americans into their sunset years.
Southern Democrats, however, feared that assistance would steer African Americans and women away from the lesser-paid jobs of domestic service and farm labor. The powerful Southern bloc held sway, and Social Security was passed exempting those two “classes.”
It wasn’t until 1950 African Americans and women were granted Social Security for participating in the American work force.
This is recent history, folks.
And of course, there’s the bit about slavery — 245 years to be exact. The first African slaves arrived in the new world in 1620. Slavery was not abolished until 1865.
These lessons need to be kept fresh in our hearts and minds just as with the atrocities of the Holocaust, lest we minimize their importance.
President Obama implores us to start conversations in our families, churches and workplaces as to how we can be more open-minded, less judgmental and bigger-hearted.
He’s asked me to “wring out as much bias” as I can, to not judge others by their color, but by their character.
And for the next time I’m on that elevator, to relax.
How to ‘wring out the bias’ woven in our fabric
