Race Diet

Like food is for the human body, education, in its myriad forms, is the fuel for the human soul. Just as what we fill our stomachs with determines how healthy our bodies are, our consumption of books, movies, music, friendships, and all other informative experiences determines how healthy our spirit is. Two recent local events, taken in view of the broader national Presidential election which, today, seems as though it is the black candidate's to lose, make me think that We the People are overdue for a change in what we consume, specifically in our education system.

I've been tutoring some inner city school kids for the past few months, and recently one of my six-year-olds asked me questions regarding several events of the Civil Rights movement (why blacks sat at the back of the bus, why policemen unleashed their dogs and firehoses, etc). It turns out, his 1st Grade Class was watching videos on the assasination of MLK. The boy was shown all of the horrible things that happened back then, but was clearly not told (or at least did not understand) that those days are almost a half-a-century behind us.

A few weeks later, I had lunch with friends at a very understated 9/11 memorial garden in the downtown area. There were models of the Twin Towers at one end, and a few park benches inlaid with tiles that had been painted by a local elementary school class. Of the 27 depictions on these tiles, 6 of them were of MLK. One of the paintings were of police dogs (the only representation of that proud group of civil servants who acted heroically on 9/11) attacking a defenseless black person lying on the ground. Imagine the confusion historians and archeologists will have, say, in the year 2501, when on a dig they discover this site--the one long-lost relic memorializing the events of that historic day. I think they would be at a loss to explain just what exactly MLK and race riots had to do with 9/11 at all--but at least you'll grant me that they would have a very hard time figuring out why these images were so over-represented at this particular memorial.

It is clear to me that kids in these public schools are being indoctrinated at a very early age with the absurd notion that we're still living in the 1950s and that the "system" is inherently designed to oppress people of color. This notion is fed to these kids at 6, and is pounded into their heads for the next 16 years--the most formative years of one's life--so that they emerge from American schools (1) grossly undereducated and (2) either (a) angry, bitter, defensive, with a sense of entitlement to something they didn't earn simply because their 300-year-old ancestors got off to a rockier start in America than their white counterparts, or (b) angry, bitter, defensive, with a sense of guilt for having the same color skin as those who perpetrated crimes against the Indians, crimes against the Africans, and every other minority population you can think of.

Our overindulgence in self-flagellation over our nation's past sins (which are sins not unique to this nation, or even to Western civilization) is bleeding into the current Presidential election. Shelby Steele purportedly writes, and many agree with this assessment, that it is "white guilt" that is driving Obama's popularity. I believe this is probably true--Barack's and Hillary's platforms are virtually indistinguishable. The major difference between the two are simply their anatomy and skin pigmentation. Historically, women were treated better than blacks, so today's emotion-driven electorate seemingly prefers to atone first for the bigger of the two sins by nominating (and possibly electing) the minority candidate WITHOUT even truly understanding his platform (platitudes of hope/change are hardly informative--for instance, is he proposing to change affirmative action?).

This obsession with race is a sickness, and we had better shake out of it. There are bigger problems facing us today than race, and better virtues than "tolerance" and "diversity" to celebrate and practice. A great place to start is for the schools to get back to teaching reading, writing, and arithmatic--the fruits and vegetables of education--and pass up the chocolate-and-vanilla milkshake of race relations.