Eric Stubben
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America has a race problem.
I know quite a few people who read that are going to get upset. I’m the “stereotypical,” born and raised in a small town, middle-class “white boy.” What do I know about race, right? Besides being referred to as a “cracker” on the school bus in sixth grade, I guess I’ve been unscathed by race relations.
With all the political pundits and irrational voices our nation gives airtime to, my view on race might seem absurd: I believe the color of one’s skin doesn’t define them. In fact, I believe in colorblindness. I believe that when somebody looks at another person, they shouldn’t look at skin color, but the values, culture and interests of that other person.
What’s crazy about my belief on race is that it’s not far off from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “dream.” In that famous speech, one of his dreams was as follows: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Isn’t it ironic that today, more than ever, we define people by their race over all else? On college applications and scholarships, we are defined by a word next to a bubble that gives the reviewer a pretty good guess as to our race and skin color.
I would even go as far as to argue that asking people to define themselves by their race or skin color is not just outdated, but ethically shallow. Too often it seems we get race confused with culture, and vice versa. Race can define where a family comes from geographically, but culture defines who a person is. Too often it seems we confine people to their race without learning about their culture, values and traditions.
That being said, I believe as a society we focus on race far too much. Personally, I don’t want to be defined as “Eric Stubben, some Caucasian kid,” simply because I don’t define myself by the color of my skin. By giving our society the opportunity to focus on race and skin color, we detract from learning about the individuality and uniqueness every single person has to offer.
How is it fair that people with Mexican, Colombian, Argentinian or any other Central or South American country are lumped into one race, Latino? Similarly, we group people of ancestry from Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana or any other African country as African Americans. Caucasians have ancestry from North Africa, across all of Europe, and up to the Scandinavian countries. By grouping backgrounds, ancestry and cultures together into broad terms of race, we discount the uniqueness of each varied culture. Sometimes, we even forget each culture has its own subsets. From the rural South to New York City to California’s beaches, we define people by their skin colors. Yet we forget that these three areas have vastly different cultures.
By giving power to race over culture, we give voices to racists and bigots that discriminate people because of the color of their skin. As awful and unfortunate as it is, racism is still alive and, realistically, always will be. But by giving power to race, we soften what racism really means and prevent its demise. When public voices such as Bill Cosby and Hank Aaron call Republican opposition to President Barack Obama “racist,” and liken the party to the Klu Klux Klan, their foolish opinions detract from real racism that needs to be dealt with.
It’s important to realize the NBA’s banning of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling last week was a true step in the right direction towards eliminating racism and the power of race-driven comments. As he grew up in the segregation era, it’s easy to speculate where Sterling’s racism came from, hard to listen to his comments and harder to fathom his racism in this day in age.
Of course, I could go into greater depth about racism and its place in politics and in business, but I don’t feel qualified. I’m lucky enough to have grown up without feeling the effects and burdens of racism. Racism often results in a heavily emotional discussion that rarely ends well.
Now, history textbooks often use the phrase “melting pot” when referring to American culture. How unfortunate is it that our society has chosen not to follow the colorblind dream of perhaps our greatest civil rights leader, but we continue to group ourselves based on ancestral background and skin color? We choose not to be a melting pot, but a cracked pot with schisms deeply dividing us racially, seemingly unable to be fixed.
Schisms shatter nations, but it’s not too late for our cultures to be recognized individually, but welded in one common America.