Stuart’s Thoughts  6/26/2020

Racism In The U.S. Today

Recent incidents focused on by the media have again raised the notion that the United States is a racist country.  Robin DiAngelo’s book “White Fragility” would seem to second this notion and attempts to reinforce the corollary that all white people are racist simply because of the color of their skin.  If you deny this, you are racist because you fail to acknowledge that being white gives you certain inherent advantages over blacks.  If you don’t deny this concept, then you accept the premise and, thus, if you are white, you are a racist.  

I find the above discussion to be pointless.  White people who are feeling some degree of guilt about racism simply because they are white, maybe need this book to ameliorate their guilt.  However, in the greater scope of things, how does this truly benefit anyone or solve any of our present day issues.  It doesn’t.

The first thing we need to do, in my opinion, is to properly frame today’s race relations in the U.S.  One’s race is just one of many tribes one is a member of, not by intention but by default.  I have had no say in my membership.  I was born white.  I was born a male. I was born having primarily Scottish heritage and on and on.  There is no reason for me or anyone else to feel guilt about membership in the tribes into which we were born.  Thus, the concept for generalized white guilt makes no sense.  Granted, a number of white new borns develop into racial adults but many do not.  I have no hard statistics to back up this claim but my feeling is that a large percentage of today’s white adults in the United States fit the category of being non-racist.

Rather than focusing on the negative viewpoint of most whites being racist, why not focus on the more positive thought that most people today in our country are not racist.  Yes, there certainly are some who are. There will always be some people, for some unexplained reason, who are attracted to the negative aspect on anything.  Rather than focusing on them, let’s focus on those who are on the right side of the issue.  Let’s focus on kindness, compassion and treating all others as we would want to be treated.  Let’s overwhelm the negativity in our society with positivity.  That will be the best approach for all.  It will be the best prescription for the health of all.  Contentment reduces stress and stress is one of our greatest foes in fashioning a better life for all.  So above all else, accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.