I am not a fool nor do I avoid unpleasant truths. I have always been well aware that, despite the stirring words of the Declaration of Independence and the many laws that have been passed over the years to decrease the instances of discrimination faced by our Black fellow citizens, Black Americans continue to face a life experience full of prejudice and discrimination. Many of my posts refer to this fact of life in America.
Recently, though, I finished reading the classic W. E. DuBois book, The Souls of Black Folk. This book has done for me what no newspaper article about a police shooting or hate crime or poverty could do. It has allowed me to feel the souls of Black Americans through its first-hand depiction of black life from slavery through the end of the 19th century.
It has allowed me to experience the hope that they experienced with emancipation and each following promise of equality. And the ultimate devastating realization that each hope was an illusion.
And I’m not just talking about the Southern experience. While the Northern experience was different, better, in many ways, pervasive prejudice and discrimination was still present.
This post will not again list the instances of both government … even Federal … as well as private prejudice and discrimination. Suffice it to say that despite an improvement in the living standard of Black Americans over the years, the lives of most remain mired in poverty, degraded living conditions, and inadequate education. Even for those who have “made it” and are solidly middle-class, they still face constant prejudice and discrimination.
We … both the government and the dominant white culture … owe Black Americans, finally, a real chance to be part of the American dream, not just materially, but to live in a country where, in the words of the Declaration, “all men are created equal … and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” To live in a country that offers true equal opportunity to all its citizens.
How do we get there from where we are now and have always been? To achieve true equality, a country must be free of prejudice and discrimination. That’s a tall order given our history and current state.
We must first acknowledge that this prejudice and resulting discrimination has very deep roots and exists throughout our society. The South may be more infamous for this, but it exists everywhere. Even the most liberal among us has some racial prejudice within him, if he can be honest.
It was thought by many, or at least some policy wonks, that integration, especially of the schools, would reduce if not eliminate prejudice and discrimination. And while that has to some extent been the case, that effect has been too limited, too localized, and very inefficient.
The whole experience with multiculturalism did not work either. While it bolstered self-identification and pride, it reinforced or even created a feeling of difference between groups. It was in many ways counter-productive.
No, the country must do what it should have done at the end of the Civil War, and what we forced Germany to do at the end of WWII. We must approach the question of slavery and racism the way we forced Germany to approach their Nazi past and anti-semitism.
I can hear people arguing that people are different now; things aren’t as they were at the end of the Civil War. Yet on many important dimensions that reflect our attitude about race, we really aren’t much further along than we were then. Yes, we have many laws on the books. But the attitude of people and society has nevertheless not fundamentally changed. Something may not be politically correct anymore, but it is still present behind closed doors. The country is full of unreconstructed racists and Southern revanchists.
The pillars of the de-nazification program in Germany were: education and keeping Nazis out of government and cultural leadership positions. Education had two principle components. One was sticking the noses of the German population in the facts of “the Jewish solution.” Whether it was watching documentary footage or being led through concentration camps, every German of every age was forced to face the inhumane horror that their government and their fellow citizens, including often their family members, had visited upon Jews and other people that had been classified as undesirable or subhuman by the Nazis.
The other education component was producing material for students of all ages that both debunked Nazi propaganda about the Jews and others and put forth the facts of the important role that Jews and others had played in the development of Germany, both its culture and economy.
Regarding the job action, to keep Nazis out of important government and other leadership positions, all Germans had to complete the Fragebogen, which inquired into their activities during the Hitler period. The idea was that Nazi perspectives should not creep into the new government. While that was indeed achieved, it is the case that many ex-Nazis made it into government and other positions, often with the knowledge of the allies. They just didn’t bring their Nazi-era beliefs with them. I should note that with the pressure of the Cold War and the program’s unpopularity amongst Germans, the program was dropped in 1951.
So how could we apply this German experience to our own history of slavery and racism? If someone argues that the two situations are not at all comparable and my suggestion is off the wall, I would respond that they really don’t understand the impact of slavery and racism in America.
I am not going to attempt to describe what such programs would look like or how one could keep racists out of important positions. I will just say that with regards to education, it is important that racial stereotypes be debunked as not having to do with race but with slavery. For example, DuBois addresses the sexual looseness of many Blacks and the extent of single-parent (female) families. He notes that this stems from the slavery experience not a racial characteristic.
Marriage between slaves was not permitted. Men and women were encouraged to co-habit and have children, thus producing new slaves, but there was no formality, no permanence to the relationship. These were socially loose relationships. Either the master could separate the man and woman at will or the man could cohabit with another woman, which was encouraged by the system.
While the end of slavery and the influence of Black churches helped build the concept of the Black two-parent family, the forces of economics, prejudice, and the slavery experience/training kept the number of stable two-parent Black families down. The pattern which was established during 200 years of slavery is thus to a large extent still with us.
Other aspects of ghetto life are the result of ongoing prejudice and discrimination, not, as many especially on the right would have it, Black culture. Drugs, crime, poverty, terrible living conditions are not the fault of Blacks or Black culture. They are the direct result of the prejudice and discrimination that continues to exist. Yes, Blacks could do more to address these plagues, but they cannot be faulted. They have been beaten down for more than four centuries.
My point is that we do not just need a discussion of race. We need something far more drastic to once and for all root out the prejudice and discrimination that exists in all corners of our society. Only then will the dream of Martin Luther King be fulfilled: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’”
