It’s the end of a long day, but a good day. My eldest son turned five, did pretty well in his Zoom call for kindergarten, which is a ridiculous ask of a kid that age (or, perhaps, any age), and we went to the beach and had dinner with my parents and my wife’s to celebrate. It was a day that felt almost normal in some ways, even though we know that we still live in highly uncertain, often unsettling times. Some good news came at work, too, giving me confidence that the work I am doing is meaningful, at least to some. But I can’t shake the feeling that we all have a long way to go. Racial justice is something my parents fought for, something I read about and mistakenly assumed was a destination we were quickly approaching. I never thought we “were there”, but I won’t lie and say that I understood the magnitude of the situation then as well as I do now. For the last few years, as I have taught more undergraduates courses related to racism, I have seen two ships sailing in different directions. On the one hand, many of my students give me great hope. They understand the history of racism and the pain it has caused, and they understand what needs to be done. On the other is the willfully blind ignorance that continues to pervade – and thus threaten – our great country. It grips some of my students, too, unfortunately. I do my best, and I do reach a few, but too many are too far gone. The only way to make America great again is to end racism, not only in practice but also as an idea. As I teach in my classes, “race is not real, but racism is.” Race is an idea that was constructed to demean, divide, and conquer. Look it up. Email me for sources. The so-called biology behind it simply does not hold up under scientific scrutiny. But the racism that exists because of the widespread ignorance to this fact, it is very real, and “realer” for some than others. If you’ve ever been judged for how you “look”, then you may get what I mean. The “perceived hierarchy of peoples” simply will not die, no matter how unfounded it may be. At the end of the day, Dr Martin Luther King Jr. still put it best: “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.” I share that dream for my now five year old son, and his little brother too. Today it feels like we need to say it again and again.
