Loved your article Sita. I am not sure how or whether we will move past the point we are at today in terms of the requirement by many to view everything through a racial lens. My pessimism stems in large part from my inability to understand what those who insist on racial lenses want, what they would like to see our society evolve to and frankly how they differentiate their values from the values that you and I cherish and seek to live each and every day. Our values obviously evolve too but many of our core values have absolutely nothing to do with race but rather are about things that we all share as humans and that come down to treating all people with respect and dignity as I imagine both you and I were taught by our parents.
Your article hit me right in the heart. As a white person, I have always felt that we could all celebrate everything together, that we could all be Americans, period. I refuse to put myself or anyone else in small, clustered boxes. We are bigger than any characteristic we may have. We are all human and should be focused on sharing and our commonalities. Thank you for sharing.
This opinion piece encapsulates my upbringing. I am a first generation American born to biracial parents. My parents assimilated because they believed in the American dream of equality, individual responsibility and hard work = success. We never lost our own culture. I am trilingual, I visit my mother's home country often but I love America for everything she has done to better my family's life. What I hate about America now is the cancer trying to destroy it.
Racial stereotyping falls apart on any kind of close look. Take me and my family. We look White, but in fact we're all part Native American, and that never had much effect on our personalities or educations or jobs or anything else. As for those "characteristics of Whiteness", they apply even better to Asians -- along with a respect for one's elders; in fact, they apply to anybody who wants to make a financial success of their lives. The Antifa/BLM/Woke crowd do Black kids no favor by teaching them to avoid the characteristics of successful people just because that might be "White".
Thanks for your common sense take on these issues. I suspect that once one moves away from elite circles, your views are those of most people, immigrant or not. One should make the distinction between the public and private spheres. In a (classical) liberal society, the private sphere dominates the public one. Questions of identity (should) fall into the private sphere, where the basic rule is to exercise tolerance. Once we demand more from the public sphere, thereby fueling its growth, the rule of tolerance is no longer in force, precisely because the public sphere is ultimately grounded in the use of (legally sanctioned) coercion. It's the public's way or the highway. Where then is the room for tolerance? In the mad grab for the power to control the public sphere and its organs, principally the (Federal) government, mobilizing your side becomes the principal goal, and what better way to do that than to force people into coalitions built around hardwired features like skin color. Fortunately, your views are those of the majority in this country and can form a basis for a new coalition built around enlarging the private sphere and the principle of tolerance.
I "came of age" in the 90s in the suburbs of Boston. In my mid-twenties I worked at a grocery store in Cambridge, MA. I became friends with two females who were mixed race (black fathers and white mothers). At one point I asked them both how they identified because I never heard them refer to themselves as black. Both of them had the same response, which was, "I never really thought about it.". I look back on this today and wonder, how is it that two young mixed race females in their early twenties would have such a response and why, in today's climate, they would most certainly identify as black. I think the best answer is the social and cultural climate was much different in the early 90s than it is today.
This may well be the best commentary on issues of race I've ever read. It's simple, clear, eloquent an honest. I grew up in a suburb of Boston in the 1970s-80s, my family was Jewish although not particularly religious. As Sita has described in her upbringing, while there were occasional expressions of anti-Semitism and bigotry, for the most part, I was treated as an American, like everyone else. My parents taught us to follow the words of MLK, treat people people as individuals, judge them not by race, skin color, how much money they had, or other external things, but rather by the kind of human being they were and how they treated others - 'the content of their character'. I am saddened and frankly puzzled and confused that this no longer seems to be a universal goal and that some people on the political left regard this approach in a negative light. I recognize full well there remain real issues with Racism and inequality, and that Black people in particular still in many areas get the short end of the stick. By no means do I think America is a perfect society in any respect, but I don't see how basic American values have become "White" values. Is aspiring to a good education a 'White' thing, really!? (respectfully) wearing traditional clothing or eating traditional food from another culture is 'cultural appropriation'? So nobody except Jewish people should eat Bagels, and nobody except Italian people should eat Pizza!? Please spare me the P.C bullshit, let's go back to a goal of creating a society where all people are respected, valued, and treated equally.
Very thoughtful & insightful article engaging virtually every perspective possible regarding racial obsessions & why a colorblind model should always be the objective for any multi-cultural society. Unfortunately, the post-modernist ideology has done great damage in brainwashing the young & exploiting the infantile Modern Liberal ideology that rejects reason, projects hatred, & stunts the emotional growth & maturity required to use it. See Evan Sayet's powerful interpretation of Allan Bloom's seminal work "The Closing of the American Mind" in his series of talks at his website: https://evansayet.com/. Some comedians can have extremely penetrating insights on culture & how ideological mischief can wreak havoc on those most blind to it's influences.
This article is a good exposition of why I haven't joined FAIR. I don't think that opponents of assimilation or of a color-blind society have anything worthwhile to teach humanity. They're just spreading malicious Big Lies and they do not deserve a hearing.
Thank you, Sita. A wise scholar in Britain has remarked that "common sense" is seldom common. We are fortunate to have you among us. "Black Like Me" was a daring sensation when it appeared in the '50s, an account of a white writer passing as black in the pre-civil rights South. The old Confederacy maintained and nurtured an unmentionable racial category beyond the current Federal ones: what I call "white like me." When Andy Jackson disposed the Cherokee Tribes in the 1820s they were exiled to the Oklahoma Territory. Some Tribal members refused to move and merged into accepted members of Southern society. Demographers had been long puzzled by a seeming disappearance of approximately 20% of run-away slaves. It seems many became tribal members. Like my own great-grandfather, who stayed in place, intermarried, and left me to carry his genes into the 21st Century.
A colorblind state is not the only notion to get to our promissory note. It is the easier way. Allowing people to express and describe and have other people see how they look without inferring that it has anything to do with their character is true freedom. "Don't judge a book by its cover but don't be afraid to say it has a blue cover.
That would be great if everyone was on the same page but if not then what suggestions for the person of color that has to navigate that landscape. That’s why full education and reconciliation is needed. Only until we face our truthful past can we help to get to a healthy future.
I appreciate your perspective however this country has a long and storied past with race and racism. It is a problem and like most problems will not be solved by ignoring it. We must discuss it and understand how it impacts all of our citizenry and only then will we truly be on the road to everyone being able to pursue their happiness and celebrate their inalienable rights. The first lesson to be learned is that all racial groups are heterogeneous with many different experiences but skin color has an impact with those experiences in this country. Not judging me by the color of my skin, but by my character does not mean you are color blind, it means you can see me and my color but at the same time don't use that to weigh in on who I am. When we can acknowledge that, then we will have moved closer to a society we can celebrate.
Thank you for your article! I resonate with your frustration of trying to have the expectations of others not be your own. I, too, am mystified about this whole “white privilege” thing. Maybe because in the 1950’s and 60’s in Milwaukee, Wisconsin being Polish placed you at the bottom of the culture….the butt of every joke at how dumb we are. Growing up I thought I was at the bottom of any “privilege scheme”….I couldn’t define that during that time for sure. Only when I discovered people of African descent did I learn that there were people in America who were treated worse than people of Polish descent. Those most distrusted by us were those of German descent…..they were the Nazi’s after all, and there were millions of Poles killed along side Jews in that terrible Reich….or so I was told….how exhausting.
Imagine my complete discombobulation at entering the US Air Force and finding others who believed the reality of the “melting pot” creating a culture of becoming molded into, in my case, a culture of military medicine prepared to support our country during time of war. Why were all of the “black” airmen, with their flamboyant language and manners only associating with those who looked like them….long story short, I discovered racism and was having nothing of it! I refused to play the race game. I was determined to learn as much emergency medicine as I could and so bring healing to anyone who needed it. I did it in and outside of the military. I taught at a community college in Tucson starting in 1973 and stayed 30 years teaching, getting my own credentials. I worked along side people who were externally very different than me, but I refused to see it. When I encountered racism from either of many sides I simply rejected it.
Eventually I learned about all of this race stuff. I heard the term “privilege” somewhere in the late 80’s and rejected it…hey, I knew I didn’t have any advantage being “white” where I grew up. I was the wrong kind of white. My dad even changed our surname to hide our ethnicity. Why? Nobody could spell Podkomorski, much less pronounce it I was told.
OK, enough of that. I have been a Lutheran Pastor for over 30 years, yep, in a German Lutheran based Synod! Go figure. I married an amazing woman who grew up in a small farming town in Illinois and she is a nurse. What a team we have become! Bringing the love of Jesus to anyone who needed it…even to the point of making my ethnic journey by teaching English Bible Camps to kids in Lutheran Churches in Poland. HA!
We now live in Arizona where everyone comes to start over and get out of the snow. We have a wonderful life. Why did I write this? I am not sure, but maybe someone will resonate with my frustration of having my “melting pot” nation turned into so many individual categories…anything but human. That is why I want to help with the whole FAIR movement. Amen?
Loved your article Sita. I am not sure how or whether we will move past the point we are at today in terms of the requirement by many to view everything through a racial lens. My pessimism stems in large part from my inability to understand what those who insist on racial lenses want, what they would like to see our society evolve to and frankly how they differentiate their values from the values that you and I cherish and seek to live each and every day. Our values obviously evolve too but many of our core values have absolutely nothing to do with race but rather are about things that we all share as humans and that come down to treating all people with respect and dignity as I imagine both you and I were taught by our parents.
Your article hit me right in the heart. As a white person, I have always felt that we could all celebrate everything together, that we could all be Americans, period. I refuse to put myself or anyone else in small, clustered boxes. We are bigger than any characteristic we may have. We are all human and should be focused on sharing and our commonalities. Thank you for sharing.
This opinion piece encapsulates my upbringing. I am a first generation American born to biracial parents. My parents assimilated because they believed in the American dream of equality, individual responsibility and hard work = success. We never lost our own culture. I am trilingual, I visit my mother's home country often but I love America for everything she has done to better my family's life. What I hate about America now is the cancer trying to destroy it.
Racial stereotyping falls apart on any kind of close look. Take me and my family. We look White, but in fact we're all part Native American, and that never had much effect on our personalities or educations or jobs or anything else. As for those "characteristics of Whiteness", they apply even better to Asians -- along with a respect for one's elders; in fact, they apply to anybody who wants to make a financial success of their lives. The Antifa/BLM/Woke crowd do Black kids no favor by teaching them to avoid the characteristics of successful people just because that might be "White".
Thanks for your common sense take on these issues. I suspect that once one moves away from elite circles, your views are those of most people, immigrant or not. One should make the distinction between the public and private spheres. In a (classical) liberal society, the private sphere dominates the public one. Questions of identity (should) fall into the private sphere, where the basic rule is to exercise tolerance. Once we demand more from the public sphere, thereby fueling its growth, the rule of tolerance is no longer in force, precisely because the public sphere is ultimately grounded in the use of (legally sanctioned) coercion. It's the public's way or the highway. Where then is the room for tolerance? In the mad grab for the power to control the public sphere and its organs, principally the (Federal) government, mobilizing your side becomes the principal goal, and what better way to do that than to force people into coalitions built around hardwired features like skin color. Fortunately, your views are those of the majority in this country and can form a basis for a new coalition built around enlarging the private sphere and the principle of tolerance.
I "came of age" in the 90s in the suburbs of Boston. In my mid-twenties I worked at a grocery store in Cambridge, MA. I became friends with two females who were mixed race (black fathers and white mothers). At one point I asked them both how they identified because I never heard them refer to themselves as black. Both of them had the same response, which was, "I never really thought about it.". I look back on this today and wonder, how is it that two young mixed race females in their early twenties would have such a response and why, in today's climate, they would most certainly identify as black. I think the best answer is the social and cultural climate was much different in the early 90s than it is today.
This may well be the best commentary on issues of race I've ever read. It's simple, clear, eloquent an honest. I grew up in a suburb of Boston in the 1970s-80s, my family was Jewish although not particularly religious. As Sita has described in her upbringing, while there were occasional expressions of anti-Semitism and bigotry, for the most part, I was treated as an American, like everyone else. My parents taught us to follow the words of MLK, treat people people as individuals, judge them not by race, skin color, how much money they had, or other external things, but rather by the kind of human being they were and how they treated others - 'the content of their character'. I am saddened and frankly puzzled and confused that this no longer seems to be a universal goal and that some people on the political left regard this approach in a negative light. I recognize full well there remain real issues with Racism and inequality, and that Black people in particular still in many areas get the short end of the stick. By no means do I think America is a perfect society in any respect, but I don't see how basic American values have become "White" values. Is aspiring to a good education a 'White' thing, really!? (respectfully) wearing traditional clothing or eating traditional food from another culture is 'cultural appropriation'? So nobody except Jewish people should eat Bagels, and nobody except Italian people should eat Pizza!? Please spare me the P.C bullshit, let's go back to a goal of creating a society where all people are respected, valued, and treated equally.
Very thoughtful & insightful article engaging virtually every perspective possible regarding racial obsessions & why a colorblind model should always be the objective for any multi-cultural society. Unfortunately, the post-modernist ideology has done great damage in brainwashing the young & exploiting the infantile Modern Liberal ideology that rejects reason, projects hatred, & stunts the emotional growth & maturity required to use it. See Evan Sayet's powerful interpretation of Allan Bloom's seminal work "The Closing of the American Mind" in his series of talks at his website: https://evansayet.com/. Some comedians can have extremely penetrating insights on culture & how ideological mischief can wreak havoc on those most blind to it's influences.
This article is a good exposition of why I haven't joined FAIR. I don't think that opponents of assimilation or of a color-blind society have anything worthwhile to teach humanity. They're just spreading malicious Big Lies and they do not deserve a hearing.
Thank you, Sita. A wise scholar in Britain has remarked that "common sense" is seldom common. We are fortunate to have you among us. "Black Like Me" was a daring sensation when it appeared in the '50s, an account of a white writer passing as black in the pre-civil rights South. The old Confederacy maintained and nurtured an unmentionable racial category beyond the current Federal ones: what I call "white like me." When Andy Jackson disposed the Cherokee Tribes in the 1820s they were exiled to the Oklahoma Territory. Some Tribal members refused to move and merged into accepted members of Southern society. Demographers had been long puzzled by a seeming disappearance of approximately 20% of run-away slaves. It seems many became tribal members. Like my own great-grandfather, who stayed in place, intermarried, and left me to carry his genes into the 21st Century.
A colorblind state is not the only notion to get to our promissory note. It is the easier way. Allowing people to express and describe and have other people see how they look without inferring that it has anything to do with their character is true freedom. "Don't judge a book by its cover but don't be afraid to say it has a blue cover.
I loved this--exactly how I feel.
That would be great if everyone was on the same page but if not then what suggestions for the person of color that has to navigate that landscape. That’s why full education and reconciliation is needed. Only until we face our truthful past can we help to get to a healthy future.
I appreciate your perspective however this country has a long and storied past with race and racism. It is a problem and like most problems will not be solved by ignoring it. We must discuss it and understand how it impacts all of our citizenry and only then will we truly be on the road to everyone being able to pursue their happiness and celebrate their inalienable rights. The first lesson to be learned is that all racial groups are heterogeneous with many different experiences but skin color has an impact with those experiences in this country. Not judging me by the color of my skin, but by my character does not mean you are color blind, it means you can see me and my color but at the same time don't use that to weigh in on who I am. When we can acknowledge that, then we will have moved closer to a society we can celebrate.
Sita, I really appreciate you speaking up. You did so brilliantly. Thank you!
Thank you for your article! I resonate with your frustration of trying to have the expectations of others not be your own. I, too, am mystified about this whole “white privilege” thing. Maybe because in the 1950’s and 60’s in Milwaukee, Wisconsin being Polish placed you at the bottom of the culture….the butt of every joke at how dumb we are. Growing up I thought I was at the bottom of any “privilege scheme”….I couldn’t define that during that time for sure. Only when I discovered people of African descent did I learn that there were people in America who were treated worse than people of Polish descent. Those most distrusted by us were those of German descent…..they were the Nazi’s after all, and there were millions of Poles killed along side Jews in that terrible Reich….or so I was told….how exhausting.
Imagine my complete discombobulation at entering the US Air Force and finding others who believed the reality of the “melting pot” creating a culture of becoming molded into, in my case, a culture of military medicine prepared to support our country during time of war. Why were all of the “black” airmen, with their flamboyant language and manners only associating with those who looked like them….long story short, I discovered racism and was having nothing of it! I refused to play the race game. I was determined to learn as much emergency medicine as I could and so bring healing to anyone who needed it. I did it in and outside of the military. I taught at a community college in Tucson starting in 1973 and stayed 30 years teaching, getting my own credentials. I worked along side people who were externally very different than me, but I refused to see it. When I encountered racism from either of many sides I simply rejected it.
Eventually I learned about all of this race stuff. I heard the term “privilege” somewhere in the late 80’s and rejected it…hey, I knew I didn’t have any advantage being “white” where I grew up. I was the wrong kind of white. My dad even changed our surname to hide our ethnicity. Why? Nobody could spell Podkomorski, much less pronounce it I was told.
OK, enough of that. I have been a Lutheran Pastor for over 30 years, yep, in a German Lutheran based Synod! Go figure. I married an amazing woman who grew up in a small farming town in Illinois and she is a nurse. What a team we have become! Bringing the love of Jesus to anyone who needed it…even to the point of making my ethnic journey by teaching English Bible Camps to kids in Lutheran Churches in Poland. HA!
We now live in Arizona where everyone comes to start over and get out of the snow. We have a wonderful life. Why did I write this? I am not sure, but maybe someone will resonate with my frustration of having my “melting pot” nation turned into so many individual categories…anything but human. That is why I want to help with the whole FAIR movement. Amen?
Great! Where can I help?