While many of us have reached or exceeded perceived social and/or financial levels, our success does not negate the impact stereotypes still present. I, for example am 6’9″ and 260 lbs. I have been described as austere or angry, neither description is remotely close to who I am.

I’ll be 60 years old this year. I’ve been arrested at least 7 times in my life, even though I never committed a crime. I have been stopped and/or detained by police too many times to count. I’m still followed in “high end” stores, in spite of my 6 figure income. I’m still ignored at resturants, or placed in poor locations [unless of course I have my staff with me - mostly white].

In business, I headed a major project to revise my company’s procedures. One of the [white] attendees, who knew my name but had never met me, saw me prepping the conference room. He introduced himself and happily said “if there are aspects of this you don’t understand, I’ll be happy to help you!” Once he realized I was the facilitator, he reacted angrily and told he I had embarrassed him!

I agree we are all human and I would love to see the day when we are judged “not by the color or our skin, but by the content of our character”. Unfortunately, too many situations arise that reinforce other’s negative perceptions. However, I do feel discussions, such as are found on Diversity Inc, are valuable and help everyone better learn about ourselves and others.

To begin with, medically, color-blindness is a deficiency, i.e. the inability to perceive differences between some colors due either to genetics, disease or damage. Yet there are those, both Black and White, who will extol their “social” color-blindness as some sort of politically correct virtue. They say things like, “I don’t see color; I just see the person”, somehow not realizing that, particularly in America, one’s color or race is an intricate part of one’s personhood.

I suggest they read Ursula K. LeGuin’s Lathe of Heaven in which the character George Orr’s dream of a world without racism turns everyone the same shade of light grey with dystopian results.

Ever seen the movie Braveheart? Robert the Bruce, when discussing the state of affairs of Scotland with William Wallace says: “From top to bottom, this country has no sense of itself.”

Well, America, if the shoe fits, wear it.The benefit to this down economic time and all the blogging is that this nation is getting a chance to think and to look in the mirror. I hope to live to see a day when we are all just “American” and that EVERYONE feels like it his or her right to claim ownership of a shared nationality and where we no longer stimulate fear and paranoia in one another and where this conversation becomes moot and the subject of historical analysis.

Gandhi and MLK taught us that it is possible for regular people to summon the goodwill of a saint at a moment’s notice and to bend the “dark side” of human nature to the “light side”..

I used to be a corporate guy and have not not worked in a corporate environment in years. Went back to public school teaching. I teach in a school that is essentially a last stop for students who are violent offenders… yes like in Lean on Me or Stand and Deliver.

Let me tell you something: this conversation on race HURTS the children because they are SO focused on their race and their identities and not really focused on learning anything of practical value to themselves and their lives. For instance: how to read and how to balance a check book. You can call me a white imperialist swine or you can just call me what I am: a teacher who has common sense enough to call a spade a spade and realize that this life is too short to spend so focused on all the differences. We are 99% genetically identical and we share this piece of rock called the United States.

My brilliant friend taught me that lesson and I know when he completes his PhD, he will be the kind of teacher who any of us would be proud to send our children to for an education.

The day we stop learning from one another is the day we begin to die a little inside. Our identities, racial, sexual, and otherwise, are just the tip of the iceberg of who we are for one another on this planet. We are the human race and we are glorious.

Whether you believe in a God or a soul or not, we all have that little voice inside us that tells us right from wrong. Listen to that voice. Share openly with one another… black and white… about what being white and black means to you… ask more questions…. listen more and deeply….and maybe you will get to experience the joy I experience within the space of friendship with my black intellectual pal: he told me the other day while we were driving in the car that he no longer sees me as “just a white man”.

He sees me as a man. And that is the whole point, isn’t it? To see past our skin to our shared humanity. This does not mean that the wounds of the past are all cleared up and gone. That healing process is a long road that takes a measure of goodwill of which all women and men are capable of.

So, here is a homework assignment: when you go home tonight, look in the mirror and really look at yourself: black, white, asian, whatever…. and say, out loud: “I want the truth out of you.” Demand it of yourself. We were put on this earth by God or by Nature to live in peace with one another and to work in harmony and prosperity and thank the forces of the universe that we are here, in America.

I have been abroad often and in many places, there is not even the luxury of this conversation. We are down, but not out. The chips seem stacked against us, but we are the ones who get to say how the future looks. It is our time…. down here… where the circumstances seem so difficult and like the game has already been lost.

I say: Game on! The game is just beginning…. today is a new day, so go forth America…. go forth inspired…. go forth and be strong, be bright, be intelligent, be kind, be caring…. just BE.

You are a human being and whoever you are, you are glorious. No matter what our transgressions, we all get forgiven and we all have the power to forgive one another.

Great article, Diversity Inc. Thanks Luke and thanks to your whole staff.

Love, peace, and prosperity to you all.

A Teacher

Was the mix of minorities portrayed static, or did it vary? If varied, does varying the mix of minorities change the responses? I’m wondering if each minority culture feels isolated from all others, or if each one sees itself as a greater community of minority cultures, or if the view of other minorities varies per minority culture. My gut tells me the last is closest to truth, but… I’m not the one with the experimental data.

Regarding ‘valuing diversity’ versus ‘color-blindness’; did the policies vary at all, or were they static per title? My question is really whether the policy itself or the ‘catch phrase’ used as the title was the deciding factor. Again, my intuition leans toward the latter, but again, I’m not the one with the experimental data.

Great article, I’ll keep an eye out for the book next time I’m at the bookstore!