© 2008 by Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
“I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one ‘race’ – the human race – and that we are all members of it.” – Margaret Atwood
Something is happening in our society unspoken of by the media, like the metaphor of an elephant in the living room that no one mentions. Young people might not see it but to the rest of us there has been a societal change worthy of note involving the ability to identify a person’s race as one and only one category.
Our society has an antiquated attitude about racial identity, where race is neatly tied into categories checked on an “either this or that” form. Someone with a blended ancestry must choose one descriptor.
People of different races are producing children of blended race. This is not theory; it is fact. The media is full of stories about Hispanics and Blacks and Whites, each in a neatly confined and defined category. While they do so we citizens work shoulder to shoulder with people of multi-ethnic parentage without any problem or comment.
Recently the media presented stories about the future projected racial makeup of
I grew up on military bases without a strong sense of race. I was much more attuned to the divisiveness of rank. As the son of a sergeant I made overwhelmingly prejudicial judgments about officer kids, but not racial distinctions in my playmates, the children of sergeants. At the time of my birth (1950) my father had already spent eight years in the military. He would retire in my junior year of high school.
The gift of this life on military bases was that I never had a time when racial distinctions held any sway with me. Cosmetically we were not all the same, but we all played together with an equality that came from the absence of racial pressure. This is similar to people who grow up in racially blended families.
Media, government need to recognize blending
Over the last couple of decades the numbers of famous blended citizens has increased. We see the same in our schools and workplaces. Everywhere our society accepts the blend of races as natural and does not speak of it. That would be fine if race simply disappeared; however, what has happened is that no distinction of blended race has been spoken of in the media and the halls of Congress. Our government treats blended citizens as if they have only one ethnicity.
Two multiethnic people in our society with high profiles are golfer Tiger Woods and politician Barack Obama, Jr. We also enjoy the talents of Dwayne Johnson (The Rock), Paula Abdul, Halle Berry, Mariah Carey, Mark Sinclair Vincent (Vin Diesel), Cherilyn Sarkisian (Cher), Jimmy Hendrix, Christina Aguilera, Naomi Campbell, Bob Marley and Carlos Estévez (Charlie Sheen), just to mention a few.
Importantly, while we cheer celebrities, it is our own children and grandchildren who we love unconditionally. They move us from believing in race to only believing in the sweetness of children. It is changing one family at a time. Over time the effect on our society is enormous.
The 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution expresses that we are all Americans, not one race this and one race that. Civil rights pioneer James Meredith said, “My answer to the racial problem in
It is a striking quotation given that nothing happens unless we deal with evil. Yet, there is a grain of truth in it to the point that the more we divide Americans by race for the purpose of ending evil, the more we perpetuate the evil of racism by keeping people in racial categories.
The blending of races will mend our world. Yes, there are those who do not want racism to end and will not change their racist ideas. They will die eventually. Who will take their place? There might be another generation of hate, the sons and daughters of haters. I think not. We may not ever change the current bigots in our society. But when they die their racial hatred dies with them. They have to blow on the flames of hate to keep it going. When their breath stops so does that culture of racial hatred.
In 100 years it will be all new people in our country. I hope by then the effect of blended citizens removes the race card from the deck. It may not take 100 years. Look how far we have come in just 50 years. I think racism will end much sooner.
The hold racism has on our country will end with the blending of our children and their children and their children. Our world is becoming race-hatred immune one child at a time.
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.