Innocent Evil

There is a tidal wave of political and ethnic division rooted in tribal ambitions and tribal fears threatening the very fabric of our nation.  And we can’t afford to ignore it.  On C-Span Book TV yesterday, I watched the live Miami Dade Book Festival as one of the authors of “One Nation After Trump” presented.  During the question and answer period, a 20 something clean cut and very articulate white male stood up in front of a packed audience and respectfully asked if people like the author were not the racist because they seem to celebrate the fact that whites will soon be a minority in their own nation? Most of what I’ve learned about human nature I’ve gleaned from a combination of watching people and reading books, including the book of Proverbs in the Bible. There’s a proverb that begins with, “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes.”  It’s Proverbs 16 verse 2.  The rest of the verse says, “But the Lord weighs the spirits.”  I’m calling it innocent evil.  As human beings, we are prone to acting in our own self-interest be it from a place of love, ambition, lust, greed or fear.  We see ourselves as doing good, just trying to provide for our loved ones.  But we are also tribal: protective, proud, connected, and inspired by people who are like us.

NPR reported on a recent poll wherein 55 percent of white respondents said they believed white people were discriminated against.  Perception, but not actual personal experience according to the same poll.  When we see young white males marching in the streets shouting “Jews will not replace us” and the Nazi slogan, “Blood and soil”, then we as people of color need to pay attention.  We are still in the minority.  We are still fighting discrimination, seeking equal opportunity, and trying to reach a level of educational and economic parity.  In a nation where white males continue to hold both the purse strings and the legislative strings, we can’t afford to write off these young people as silly privileged white boys who need to get with the diversity program or go to hell.  We cannot summarily ignore them along with their complaints (no matter how unfounded) because they will act on their perceptions, not on the reality and we will all be in serious trouble.

History is here to remind us what happens when majorities turn on minorities when stirred up by powerful elites who want to maintain a certain social order.  After slavery, Reconstruction felt like a threat to elite whites and they successfully pushed a narrative on poor whites that Blacks were a threat to their well-being.  We ended up with a Ku Klux Khan that reached 250,000 members, lynching parties, mass incarceration, police brutality, and voter suppression.   White efforts against blacks have never slowed down. This is why we have to insist that “Black Lives Matter”.  And even that phase has been co-opted to denote racism against whites. Taking a knee has been co-opted to be anti-patriotic.  But some of these whites today see the threat to them in all forms of diversity and any acceptance of multiculturalism.

As people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ, and religious minorities, we value diversity, inclusion, and equity because we want opportunities for ourselves and our group members.  In truth, we are just as loving, ambition, lustful, greedy, and fearful as these white guys. This is what has made America great (while destroying the environment, but that’s another topic).  If we are to continue to progress, we need to  recognize the danger inherent in the false “perception” that they are losing what they have.  And more importantly, that we are the  ones responsible for it.  Fear is a dangerous motivator in the hands of the majority who have economic and political weapons at their disposal.  Both legal and illegal immigration can be shut down.  LGBTQ rights can be rolled back.  Education grants for programs and scholarships that help underrepresented students at HBCUs and HSIs can be cut.

To my colleagues in education and to mothers and fathers, both white and of minority status, we had better come up with a strategy to deal with the misperception that confronts us because this is no benign threat.  Yes, we must vote like our lives depend on it, because our lives do depend on it.  But we must also fight for a different narrative about how our strength lies in our diversity and how our true tribe, is the human tribe and how we can and must rise together in a way that we all win.

The author of the book patiently and respectfully responded to the young man that our nation depends  on the vitality of all its people and then advised him to look at an aging white Europe that depends of immigrant labor. He gave him examples of real racism and treated him to a brief history lesson.  Thankfully, the predominately white audience applauded the author and not the disenchanted young man.  We need a lot more of this.

I feel like the robot in that old television series, “Lost in Space”.  I’m waving my arms, exclaiming, “Danger, danger, danger”.