Today's Devotional
July 27, 2009
Subject: Race In America - Day 1
Because this is a blog with race as one of the major themes, we will spend the entire week discussing the issue of race in America, using the recent Professor Gates/Sgt Crowley episode as a platform for the discussion. I will include two commentaries on the incident from opposing viewpoints. You may read them and respond with your comments or you may use your own viewpoints. Hopefully, by the time the week is over, we will all have a better understanding of where we are concerning race in America.
This link is what they would call the liberal's view:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/24/wright.police.gates/index.html
This link is what they would call the conservative's view: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/24/haberfeld.police/index.html
Both articles make some valid points, but I will now offer my own commentary on the issue.
My view on race comes from spending many years in my life deeply immersed in all-black and all-white subcultures in our society. I grew up in Prairie View, Texas, an all-black town with, as I grew up, an all-black college and black public schools until integration in the early 70's. My college education was at a majority white college, University of North Texas, where blacks represented about 10% of the population, which represents about the same percentage for our country. I spent 20 years in the Marine Corps, specifically as an officer and being black offered some unique perspectives on race. I've spent the last 4 years teaching at a Title 1 high school in Houston, Texas, which is 100% minority.
I believe that there are three main reasons why many years after slavery, the civil rights movements of the 60's and other initiatives that we have come to a stand still on the issue of race in this country. I outline them shortly for your comments:
1) The man in the mirror - We can't seem to get away from demanding change from others, but not so much from ourselves. I've had this discussion four or five times since the incident between Gates and Crowley and each time I've had people start the conversation by defending why Professor Gates was upset and understanding why he may have used the language that he used with the officer.
To me the question is, "how wrong do others have to be to you, before you justify being wrong yourself?" Really. Is it okay for me to mouth off to a police officer because he may have violated procedure? If you feel that way, then you will inevitably end up in court, in jail, or just in the media arguing about what the other person did while they argue about what you did. It sounds like my daughters arguing over who started it and I guess that's okay if you want to argue on that basis, but for me, I want to argue from the moral high ground. I want to be right in life, when others have wronged me. I don't want to base my condition of being right, on the wrong that others have done to me. If Professor Gates was wronged, surely he could've been wrong without wronging the officer, which is what I say he did by name-calling and making rude comments about the officer's mom. He's a Harvard Professor? That's why I teach character to my kids. And that brings up my second point:
2) Respect for authority - To most people this is just something we say to our kids, but this is clearly a case where our "rights" conflict with our "authority" principle. Many have argued, "he has a right to yell or say whatever he wants in his own house." Does the right to do something mean that we should adopt it as okay behavior if it violates principles of decency and our character? I don't think so.
A police officer acting in the line of duty is the authority. It doesn't matter how much position I have and how rich I am, the police officer is the authority figure and if we, as adults, break down the respect that he/she receives in that authority, then why should kids respect them? Why should they respect you as parents, or teachers and on and on it goes. Which I guess you could say is one of the problems in our society today.
Okay I'm sure we will talk more. This is only day 1.
Carlen
