Can we talk?

In a 1962 Gallup poll, 85% of European-Americans responded that African-Americans had the same opportunity for a good education as their children did.  In 1963, 66% of European-Americans felt that Afican-Americans in their communities were treated the same or better.  In 1968, only 17% of European-Americans would agree with the generality that "African-Americans have been treated poorly in their communities".  (Statistics drawn from Anti-racist Activist Tiim Wise's book "Speaking Treason Fluently")

In a time in which racism and discrimination was blatant, there was a resiliency for many people to express this observation.  It seems like there is a cultural pressure to minimize the truth of racism, even when it is recorded and demonstrated on your TV's,  as it was done during the civil rights era.

Over 40 years later, I find that there is still incredible resistance to see and express the results of racialization and racism.  Some of that stems from the desire to believe in the national myth of the innocent nation (our nation always acts on the best behalf, even its evil had a honorable purpose).  This myth is why Americans could not speak out against the war and still be considered patriotic.  It became difficult to question that motives of leaders because it violated the innocent nation mythology.  Yet, even beyond this, there is a national guilt that is too painful to realize. We dare not touch it because then our identity and our mythology must succumb to the unflattering portrait of realism. So insidious is this blindness that we have even labeled our current era (after the election of President Obama) as "post-racial era.

Why can't we talk about what's plainly there?  Why can't we dialogue about the entrenched discrepancies of education, healthcare, distribution of wealth, opportunities for enterprise that are apparent between European-Americans and Americans of color?  Why can't we share our observations of the predilection of capitalistic systems to have cheap labor in order to have increasng profits, and that cheap labor is predominantly brown, black, olive, and tan in America?

When can we have the courage to make observations and take ownership of that reality, so that we can simply move forward to solutions.  Yet, I find, even in the halls of academia, we can't even have the discussion.  Its too powerful, too frightening, and too overwhelming.

I want to have the discussions so that my children will inherit a nation with the conviction to own its past, and wrestle with its present, so that its future is one of true democracy and justice.

Can we talk....


Pastor M Traylor