An aging Black man came to my home during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He was a jack of all trades. He did the tasks my mother couldn’t. Throughout my adolescence he educated me, a snow white youth, caring for me and encouraging me. In his words, “There aint now and aint goin to be colorblind people. Aint gonna happen.”
He was the most important of my teachers though I hold a doctor’s education.
My old mentor mothered me like no one could. He often referred to me as his son though we held no legal or blood relationship. He also knew convergence, the long road from Gethsemane. He had traveled it.
I remember hearing in high school “They’re all like that …”. I stood up. Arriving home, telling him the story, he said to stay out of the battle. Keep the faith, though, he said, there will be other times to come.
The subtlety of racism cannot be underestimated.
Consider “I don’t think of you as Black.”
Critical Race Theory has been mentioned in current political dialogues. Recently only known in academia, it’s simple and honed by observation. Race is created in social contexts. There are not genes for white and genes for Black.
The theory is single-focused. It states that racism exists. Oddly, it has become a flash point.
The loud side has become the right side. Meanings have become catchphrases.
When presidential candidates dance their figure eights on stage, looking left then right, like bees, they look for like-minded spirits. Both white and Black candidates are selling shadows of the truth. It’s important to understand this.
Orwell noted how simple it might be. Word meanings always change. The word awful once meant something worthy of awe. Politicians are using whatever meanings they prefer.
“Don’t pay attention to CRT, ” one of the candidates says, much like the wizard said as the curtain was drawn in Oz.
Racism is ordinary. It is a social construction, there are no genetic markers.
The theory challenges politicians who know nothing of the theory.
Racism exists. That’s not confusing.
Politicians suggest that we reject the fact that racism exists. Racism is real, hateful and destructive.
The theory of CRT does not encourage racism. It states we recognize it. Without recognition how do we change?
If we aren’t attentive, we are prone to believe anything.
Our society has long promoted an ethos that we are colorblind. If you are told this, you are victim to a terrible lie. I am not colorblind and neither are you. Times are that we stand up. If not, we are accountable for what comes.
For example, most children of color attend schools with relatively few whites; very few white children attend schools where they are the minority. Race theory is without threat. The nominees who wrongly use it are threatening everyone with assertions that CRT has a secret agenda. In fact, this race theory may be important in taking down walls between us.
Imagine a teacher saying women aren’t as good at math as men. The research shows that the women in that class will do poorly. Or the example that because you are male you are not as emotional.
In research, studies show the effect that when told they are less emotional, men’s emotional behavior is diminished.
The race theory provides simple, straightforward observation meant to encourage us to think. It’s not subversive. Yes racism exists.
And that must be acknowledged if it is to be changed.
My old Black mentor would say it’s about time.
Tim Trenkle lives in Dubuque and has worked as teacher in the Iowa community college system and is a counselor at the rescue mission in Dubuque.
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