End Racism - One Heart At A Time

I believe the key to end racism and racial attitudes is to take a long hard look into the mirror, asking yourself how you really feel about racism. If you discover that how you project yourself to others and how you feel in your heart is indeed two different views, then I challenge you to reach deep inside and muster up the courage to change.

When we are out in the world, mixing and blending with others we put on many faces in order to achieve our goals. We often times respond or act accordingly to how we think we are supposed to behave, bypassing what is truly in our hearts.

Days, weeks and years pass while we are busy behaving a certain way not realizing it might not reflect how we really feel until one day a situation occurs that stops us in our tracks, confused and at odds with ourselves. Sometimes that situation, that one moment in time can turn our world upside down. Sometimes that little heartbeat of a situation comes when it's too late. Before that moment happens to you, ask yourself:

Do I know how I really feel about other races of people and racial issues or am I just following the crowd to "fit in"?

Take a look in the mirror and have the "race" talk with yourself. Reach into your heart and get to know what's there. If you don't like what you see, change the reflection that is gazing back at you.

"Golden Rule" (Do unto others), April 1,1961

Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards. Though race related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race......read entire speech

As a nation we have done a pretty good job in melding the races in the workplace. We work with one another, lunch together and, when the event is at the workplace during work hours or shortly thereafter, we socialize with one another fairly well, irrespective of race. And yet even this interaction operates within certain limitations. We know, by "American instinct" and by learned behavior, that certain subjects are off limits and that to explore them risks, at best embarrassment, and, at worst, the questioning of one's character. And outside the workplace the situation is even more bleak..... read entire speech

An easy solution to an age old problem?

Sure.

In theory.

So why has generation after generation remained collectively segregated and isolated from each other? Why do we stubbornly and fearfully cling to senseless, one sided excuses, blaming each other while resolutely refusing to look in the mirror.

And so it goes. The first step leading to the second step while the second step simply flees in fear straight into the comforting arms of the first step. Unfortunately the reflection in the mirror now points a self righteous finger away from itself and back towards those they are afraid to bridge the racial gap with and the cycle begins again. Going nowhere fast. One generation steadfastly following the next generation.

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How much do you talk about race, interracial relationships and racism with your family, your children at the dinner table, your friends at work, at church and across the fence to your neighbors?

If you do, how much of it is spoken in positive terms, appreciating and celebrating differences?

Or is it a critical, berating, beat down of others who are different from you? Do you laugh at jokes that are in reality nauseating, just so you don't offend the person telling the joke?

Do you speak with anger and hostility about how you've been wronged by another race, neglecting to reach out and extend a hand and heart in hopes of understanding?

Are your children listening? Do they hear you laugh at ugly jokes and feel you lashing out in your anger at a perceived wrong? Are they following your foot steps that lead them down the well beaten path of prejudice?

Perhaps you avoid these subjects at all costs, deciding that this is the way things have always been and what can you do to make a difference.

Do your children observe your stubborn silence? Do they learn from your reluctance to take a step in bridging a gap? Are they accepting your failure to make a positive impact in the world and will they in turn pass your complacency on to their children as well?

Race is the great taboo in our society. We are afraid to talk about it. White folks fear their unspoken views will be deemed racist. People of color are filled with sorrow and rage at unrighted wrongs. Drowning in silence, we are brothers and sisters drowning each other. Once we decide to transform ourselves from fearful caterpillars into courageous butterflies, we will be able to bridge the racial gulf and move forward together towards a bright and colorful future.
-- Eva Paterson

"It's always been this way."

"That's the way they are, they aren't like us"

"That's just the way it is. Why change now?"

"That's the way I was taught, so that's what I do."

That's how my parents taught me. If it's what they believe in, it's good enough for me."

If we cling to old ways of thinking, then tell me how can we move forward when we try to do it standing still?

If we raise our children to be self thinkers, then we must accept the reality that they will not agree with us on everything once they are old enough to make decisions for themselves.

If you as parents cut corners, your children will too. If you lie, they will too. If you spend all your money on yourselves and tithe no portion of it for charities, colleges, churches, synagogues, and civic causes, your children won't either. And if parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out.
Marian Wright Edelman

Are you a product of your environment? Are you an adult who fought and carved your path to success, went to college, built a career, fought some of lifes important battles but steadfastly follow in the racially ignorant beliefs of your father and his father and so on? Have you surrendered the battle of ending racism before taking even one step to fight in the name of it?

"It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate."
James Baldwin

By allowing ourselves to be held hostage to ideals and fears from the past, are we allowing life opportunities to pass us by?.

What if you lost an employment opportunity in a career you dreamed of and prepared for years for because your racial inhibitions or hang ups showed through to a prospective employer who was of a different race?

What if you lost the love of a life time because you were raised by parent who taught you "we just don't do that"?

What if your comments about "them" and "they" and your racially derogatory jokes raise children who go out into the world spreading more of the same...or worse?

What if you choose to cling to your fear filled beliefs and by doing so you lose forever the precious gift of a relationship with your child or grandchild? Are you willing to accept that pain because you are too afraid to deal with your personal fear of change? It can happen you know. I personally know two people it happened to. My parents.

But......

What if you shed the old habits that cling to you like an insecure child? Sure it's hard to let go, often even tremendously painful, but what if you did? Would you be stronger, more sure of yourself? Would you be different from the person you saw in the mirror now?

"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."
James Baldwin

Look in the mirror. Do you see a person who tells others that you see nothing wrong with interracial relationships. A person who says that all races can and should live together in harmony, therefore ending racism?

But be honest. How would you react if your teenage or college age child brought home a special someone for you to meet. And he or she was black? Asian? Hispanic? Muslim? Jewish?

What would your reaction really be? As long as it doesn't come into my house?

In this era of "post racism" a double standard is alive and well. Here is a snap shot of what I see or experience of "post racism" every day.

I see the way you look at me and my family. I see the judgment in your eyes while your mouth is uttering polite words. It's not all of you, by any means, of course. But you know who you are.

You look at me in church with contempt in your eyes while your lips speak of God's children and how we are all one. You shake my husbands hand, a white hand embracing a black hand and call him "bro" all while your eyes communicate what you don't have the courage to speak out loud: "how dare you take one of our women.

Ladies, there is the look you give me when you look past my brown daughters to see who their mother is. But you don't disguise your message at all. Your hostile eyes communicate clearly the accusation that I stole one of your own.

Yes, we know who you are. We know you well.

There are those of you who openly ask my black husband why he "talks white", and others who point blank accuse him of "selling out" to the white world. There are his coworkers who tell jokes about porch monkeys, lynchings and proudly fly the Confederate flag and even a few who still are coward enough to wear a white hood on their heads in a pathetic attempt to show the world what they stand for while they are disguised.

Yes, we even know who you are.

But at the end of the day when you look in the mirror, who do you see? Do you know who you are? Are you honest with yourself and admit you talk out of both sides of your mouth and live by a double standard? Do you acknowledge your life is built on lies?

Is this what you want to stand for?

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.
-- Maya Angelou

If you harbor some form of judgment, hate or fear of another race in your heart, has it ever occurred to you what you may be missing?

What if you let it go, set it free?

"We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them."
Charles Caleb Colton

Diversidad -Diversity
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I believe that those of us who are followers, follow the path we are shown. That path was forged by our parents and their parents before them. We as people all too often take the path of least resistance and follow the way of our family beliefs and traditions even if they are wrong.

Are you willing to continue living with the traditions and beliefs of racism? Do you want your children and grandchildren to learn how to take the easy way out? Have you been taught to hate and are you poised to carry out the legacy of the past only because it's easy?

Are you content to look the other way, living your life quietly and safely, afraid to stand for what you know in your heart is right? Are you satisfied living your life on Earth choosing to not make a difference?

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
Martin Luther King, Jr

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
Martin Luther King, Jr

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Are you one of the good people? Standing by silently, your stomach churning inside, welling up, feeling the injustice of so many wrongs. Do you feel anger that racism continues to fester while your feet are planted firmly within the boundaries of the "appalling silence" fearfully refusing to move?

Has your mind directed you to change, to do something...anything to make a difference, but the thought has become lost or disoriented before it reaches your lips or your feet, the two parts of us that are capable of giving birth to change and action?

Do you want to move forward but feel the fear inside that firmly grasps you by the shoulders each time you think about stepping out of the boundaries that become more firmly entrenched with each passing generation?

I have lived with and felt the hate and fear born from racism as well as the pain of conditional love. It almost broke me and seduced me into following in the footsteps of those before me. It was enticing to know there was an easier way.

But something inside me always called out, even as a little girl, whispering in my ear that the people I was closest to were wrong. So I followed my own path, even though it brought ultimatums and threats from those who were supposed to teach me unconditional love. Ultimately it caused those who God created to love and nurture to cast me aside. The resulting pain I still carry with me, but I wouldn't change one moment that has elapsed since.

Now when I look in the mirror, the woman who looks back at me is proud she found the courage to break away from the hate and fear of racism. Her face reveals some pain from loss and rejection, but it's worth bearing those scars to know the peace and love that were waiting at the end of her path.

One Human Race Art Print
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The quotes you see here are quotes that inspire me in some way. In this case they inspired me to communicate my thoughts to you on this lens.

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