A Few Thoughts About the Myth of Race
Y'all bear with me while I rant a bit, okay?
This past summer, I was honored to be chosen out of a small group of Texas Chiefs of Police by LEMIT (The Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas based out of Sam Houston State University) to take part in an international policing program that was sent to train with the Polish national Police. One of the interesting topics that came up with the Poles was...what is a redneck? It got quite a varied response from our group, and it seems that we were not of the same mind on the definition. To some, the term redneck brings up the image of a tobacco chewing, gun toting, cowboy hat wearing racist who is uneducated, ignorant and violent towards anyone that is not white and right as he sees himself. To others he may be a guy who chews tobacco, carries a gun, wears a John Deer ball cap or a cowboy hat, comes from a rural area and may or may not be college educated....BUT...is a hard working, salt of the earth kind of guy who although may not be very culturally acclimated, doesn't hate anyone, and is a good hearted simple person who is patriotic and has good command sense. So to some, being called a redneck might be an insult....an insult that might be applied to those of us who might have a particularly noticeable southern accent. I find that particularly distasteful to be branded as a racist or ignorant simply because of the dialect of the English from Louisiana that I grew up in. But, there are many who judge southern white males in this fashion. To others, being called a redneck could be taken as a compliment...yeah, their neck is red because they've spent the day on a tractor out plowing up the lower forty acres to grow the food that you're family is eating tonight. Their neck is red because they have been out working the cattle that become the hamburgers your family will eat tonight as well. They might think it a badge of honor to be called a name that denotes hard work that is noble and simple at the same time. A name that to them co notates good horse sense and a non nonsense approach to life. So do you see how such a simple little term like redneck can bring about such a varied response from people? I suppose it all comes down to who is using it, about whom, and to whom it refers to in a particular context....man is the English language complicated or what?This brings me back to a thought that has been really on my heart a lot recently. I have spent the majority of my life in public service, in military service and in civil service as a police officer. I have worked in majority minority areas of Dallas/ Ft Worth where there was either an extremely large black population or large Hispanic population. Wherever I have worked I have tried to acclimate myself to the people and environment in which I was operating, so that I could effectively serve in those areas. I learned Spanish pretty well so that I could interact with my Spanish Speaking citizens, and I did my best to reach out to my black citizens and make myself vulnerable and approachable to them. Often times, I found myself automatically assumed that I was a white racist by members of the black community because of the sins of my fathers. What I mean is, the many white officers who had worked there before my time who really were racist or at least indifferent to the very real problems of the African-American community, for lack of a better term. The officers had done so much harm, that it sometimes made my job impossible to effectively accomplish since there was such a high wall built up between them and us...and very few willing to reach over that wall with an open hand, and more often with a closed fist. I hated that, but that was just the way it was...life in the big city. I would like to think all of that is changing with a better integrated police force and a newer generation coming about who doesn't take race as such a huge issue as others have in the past.
Nowadays, as a Chief of Police for a small East Texas city...I am still dealing with this issue, as now all police officers are required to take cultural diversity on an ongoing, continuing Ed basis. It seem that the sins of our fathers were so severe that the pendulum has swung 180 degrees in the opposite direction, at least in my profession, to where we are having to document the race of every person we stop and all of the details. I understand the reason behind folks wanting this kind of detailed accountability, but sometimes it seems oppressive, as if we didn't have enough mistrust to deal with already!
I'd like to take a few minutes here and lay out some personal effects that this whole race issue has had in my family, and "bare my neck" as it were to this issue.I married Lucia Isabel De La Garza in 94, who I met in college in Tennessee after I got out of the service. I fell in love with Lucia within days of meeting her and knew that I wanted to make a life with her. Her family had emigrated from Mexico, and her dad was a Pentecostal minister, as well as the majority of her family members. My parents didn't take it so well. Now don't get me wrong here, I love my parents more than anything, but let's just say that they are a product of their times and the racism that was the norm in those times...now does that excuse racism, of course not, but that is simply how I have to view them, through the prism of the their worlds view. We have to love our families the way they are, and while we don't have to buy into their worldview, we are called to love them in a Christ like way, and leave the doors open for communication. My folks never quite accepted Lucia because she was "A Mexican", even after my son Santiago was born. They did their best to tolerate here, and tried to treat her well for my sake, but I could always tell that it was just under the surface. In my house N word was as common as any other word, but I observed a dichotomy in how my folks lived around and treated the black folks that we came in contact with. My dad would use the N-word, but then when I saw him talk with black folks, and interact with black police officers that he worked with, he was always kind, and professional. I couldn't quite figure that out. He was one of that generation who used that N-word, but didn't always mean it in a derogatory way, it all depended on the context in how he used it, kinda like the whole "redneck" deal previously discussed. Of course no one can ever sanction the use of a word that has caused so much hurt over the years, and I am not trying to justify it, I am simply trying to apply a context to his use of the word. At the end of the day though, the whole idea of separate but equal, Jim Crowe society was absolutely in line with their thoughts and feelings about race. I grew up understanding this, and although my life experiences caused my views to differ from my parents, I learned that if I were going to keep a relationship with them, I was going to have to accept them the way they were.My brother Darl's daughter, my niece, Denise, got pregnant a few years ago out of wedlock with a black boyfriend of hers. This totally shocked the whole family. The truth is, that Denise had grown up in a side of town that was pretty ethnically diverse, with a racially diverse group of friends. It turn out, that she seems to be particularly attracted to black guys. My major concern for Denise was for the boyfriend to be responsible and help her with raising the baby, and I wanted whoever it was to have a job and be a guy who would take care of my niece and treat her right. The fact that the guy was black.....wellllll, I knew that there was going to be a defecation storm in my family over that one. Inter-racial relationships are never easy, it doesn't really seem to matter where.....it just seems to be one of those facts of life. I did wish her the best, and I felt kind of bad that I had not been in Denise's life more, but I had been out of state in college, or working in Texas....so I had just been out of the area for so long it was difficult to keep in touch. Turns out that the boyfriend beat my niece up, had no job, and was in and out of jail quite a bit.....these things did not endear him to me, but they had nothing to do with the color of his skin. Since then, Denise has moved on, she's a single mom and is pregnant again with another guy...who happens to be black....but she says that this guy has a job and treats her right. I hope that is true, and I love my niece and only want her to be happy and healthy. I also want her children to be a part of our family, to be loved and accepted...and I fear that might not happen. Her choice in men has made her name anathema in my parents' home, and I hate that. They simply can not countenance the fact that she has chosen to date black men....and have kids with them as well. it is simply too much to digest and they feel like somehow she has betrayed them...geeeeesh, it was bad enough that their son married a Mexican, now this? !Oh well...what are ya gonna do? I pretty mush drug my brother and my mom kicking and screaming to the hospital when Denise gave birth to little Jayden...I highly doubt they will make this next delivery.
Like I said, I love my family, but this is the reality that I must deal with.I see race from an anthropological perspective, call me naive, and call me what you like, but this is my view. Recently, National Geographic conducted a DNA trace on the origins of man, and was able to actually map out the migration of human being all across the earth since the last ice age. What they discovered, is that we all started out with the oldest DNA traceable, with the Massai peoples in Africa. These are the Bushmen that speak in clicks and pops, and still live this way today. So about 15,000 years ago today, all of what we call "races" were living inside this one group of people that migrated over the earth. As the years and climates where these folk lived changed, they adapted and dare I say, "Evolved" to develop characteristics which would help them survive in their new environments. As a Christian, I believe that an all-knowing, all-loving, benevolent God gave human beings DNA that could change to suite the environment in which His children found themselves...and this ability to adapt is a wonderful example of his own diversity and mercy. So...when one looks at the DNA of human beings, forget all that you've ever heard about race and culture, you have to come down to the single, undeniable fact that all people sprang from these small golden colored peoples in Africa, many, many generations ago. That would make our modern understanding of race and ethnicity a totally concocted myth. Race is as men define it, and it changes all of the time. Being Aryan is what the Nazis said it was, being African -American can mean totally different things to different people. My doctor, who is a native of Nigeria, and now a Naturalized American citizen, considers himself and African American...but then again, so does Teresa Heinz Kerry, since she was born in Africa...but is as cracker as they come, he, he. How about the majority of black Americans...what are they? DNA studies show them to have as much or more than 40% European ancestry. So who knows, race is what we say it is, it is subjective and changes all the time. It can not be counted on to be a fixed, objective term. It is quite simply a myth. I say we determine it by behavior. As one of my favorite media commentators, Dennis Pager likes to say, there are two races, the human beings and the non-human beings, and you can tell them apart by how they treat their fellow man. I think I'll be sticking to this view...it squares up with everything that my faith informs my conscience...
Race is exactly what you make of it, and like it or not, we all have a grandmother back in Africa that clicks when she talks and probably knew how to field dress a wildebeest.I wish we could all lighten up about this whole race thing, wouldn't it be nice if the whole world could just get past the superficial and recognize that these differences are more of a cultural nature, not a racial one.The way the world operates today with all of the false hyper-sensitivity, it seems it might turn a totally non-biased person into one because of the environment in which we live.My hope is that we can all be proud of our genetic (racial) heritage, and marvel at the hand of God and His workmanship. We can be proud of our ancestors who endured so much in their perilous struggle to survive after the last ice age, and how unlikely it was that they made the circuitous trek around the globe and spread humanity over every continent, despite all odds being against their survival. Now there's a race to be proud of, the Human one, this rises about our darkest inclinations, and points back to the Creator reflecting His diversity, creativity and hope for the unity of man.
Just My 2cents......Ken
Y'all bear with me while I rant a bit, okay?
This past summer, I was honored to be chosen out of a small group of Texas Chiefs of Police by LEMIT (The Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas based out of Sam Houston State University) to take part in an international policing program that was sent to train with the Polish national Police. One of the interesting topics that came up with the Poles was...what is a redneck? It got quite a varied response from our group, and it seems that we were not of the same mind on the definition. To some, the term redneck brings up the image of a tobacco chewing, gun toting, cowboy hat wearing racist who is uneducated, ignorant and violent towards anyone that is not white and right as he sees himself. To others he may be a guy who chews tobacco, carries a gun, wears a John Deer ball cap or a cowboy hat, comes from a rural area and may or may not be college educated....BUT...is a hard working, salt of the earth kind of guy who although may not be very culturally acclimated, doesn't hate anyone, and is a good hearted simple person who is patriotic and has good command sense. So to some, being called a redneck might be an insult....an insult that might be applied to those of us who might have a particularly noticeable southern accent. I find that particularly distasteful to be branded as a racist or ignorant simply because of the dialect of the English from Louisiana that I grew up in. But, there are many who judge southern white males in this fashion. To others, being called a redneck could be taken as a compliment...yeah, their neck is red because they've spent the day on a tractor out plowing up the lower forty acres to grow the food that you're family is eating tonight. Their neck is red because they have been out working the cattle that become the hamburgers your family will eat tonight as well. They might think it a badge of honor to be called a name that denotes hard work that is noble and simple at the same time. A name that to them co notates good horse sense and a non nonsense approach to life. So do you see how such a simple little term like redneck can bring about such a varied response from people? I suppose it all comes down to who is using it, about whom, and to whom it refers to in a particular context....man is the English language complicated or what?This brings me back to a thought that has been really on my heart a lot recently. I have spent the majority of my life in public service, in military service and in civil service as a police officer. I have worked in majority minority areas of Dallas/ Ft Worth where there was either an extremely large black population or large Hispanic population. Wherever I have worked I have tried to acclimate myself to the people and environment in which I was operating, so that I could effectively serve in those areas. I learned Spanish pretty well so that I could interact with my Spanish Speaking citizens, and I did my best to reach out to my black citizens and make myself vulnerable and approachable to them. Often times, I found myself automatically assumed that I was a white racist by members of the black community because of the sins of my fathers. What I mean is, the many white officers who had worked there before my time who really were racist or at least indifferent to the very real problems of the African-American community, for lack of a better term. The officers had done so much harm, that it sometimes made my job impossible to effectively accomplish since there was such a high wall built up between them and us...and very few willing to reach over that wall with an open hand, and more often with a closed fist. I hated that, but that was just the way it was...life in the big city. I would like to think all of that is changing with a better integrated police force and a newer generation coming about who doesn't take race as such a huge issue as others have in the past.
Nowadays, as a Chief of Police for a small East Texas city...I am still dealing with this issue, as now all police officers are required to take cultural diversity on an ongoing, continuing Ed basis. It seem that the sins of our fathers were so severe that the pendulum has swung 180 degrees in the opposite direction, at least in my profession, to where we are having to document the race of every person we stop and all of the details. I understand the reason behind folks wanting this kind of detailed accountability, but sometimes it seems oppressive, as if we didn't have enough mistrust to deal with already!
I'd like to take a few minutes here and lay out some personal effects that this whole race issue has had in my family, and "bare my neck" as it were to this issue.I married Lucia Isabel De La Garza in 94, who I met in college in Tennessee after I got out of the service. I fell in love with Lucia within days of meeting her and knew that I wanted to make a life with her. Her family had emigrated from Mexico, and her dad was a Pentecostal minister, as well as the majority of her family members. My parents didn't take it so well. Now don't get me wrong here, I love my parents more than anything, but let's just say that they are a product of their times and the racism that was the norm in those times...now does that excuse racism, of course not, but that is simply how I have to view them, through the prism of the their worlds view. We have to love our families the way they are, and while we don't have to buy into their worldview, we are called to love them in a Christ like way, and leave the doors open for communication. My folks never quite accepted Lucia because she was "A Mexican", even after my son Santiago was born. They did their best to tolerate here, and tried to treat her well for my sake, but I could always tell that it was just under the surface. In my house N word was as common as any other word, but I observed a dichotomy in how my folks lived around and treated the black folks that we came in contact with. My dad would use the N-word, but then when I saw him talk with black folks, and interact with black police officers that he worked with, he was always kind, and professional. I couldn't quite figure that out. He was one of that generation who used that N-word, but didn't always mean it in a derogatory way, it all depended on the context in how he used it, kinda like the whole "redneck" deal previously discussed. Of course no one can ever sanction the use of a word that has caused so much hurt over the years, and I am not trying to justify it, I am simply trying to apply a context to his use of the word. At the end of the day though, the whole idea of separate but equal, Jim Crowe society was absolutely in line with their thoughts and feelings about race. I grew up understanding this, and although my life experiences caused my views to differ from my parents, I learned that if I were going to keep a relationship with them, I was going to have to accept them the way they were.My brother Darl's daughter, my niece, Denise, got pregnant a few years ago out of wedlock with a black boyfriend of hers. This totally shocked the whole family. The truth is, that Denise had grown up in a side of town that was pretty ethnically diverse, with a racially diverse group of friends. It turn out, that she seems to be particularly attracted to black guys. My major concern for Denise was for the boyfriend to be responsible and help her with raising the baby, and I wanted whoever it was to have a job and be a guy who would take care of my niece and treat her right. The fact that the guy was black.....wellllll, I knew that there was going to be a defecation storm in my family over that one. Inter-racial relationships are never easy, it doesn't really seem to matter where.....it just seems to be one of those facts of life. I did wish her the best, and I felt kind of bad that I had not been in Denise's life more, but I had been out of state in college, or working in Texas....so I had just been out of the area for so long it was difficult to keep in touch. Turns out that the boyfriend beat my niece up, had no job, and was in and out of jail quite a bit.....these things did not endear him to me, but they had nothing to do with the color of his skin. Since then, Denise has moved on, she's a single mom and is pregnant again with another guy...who happens to be black....but she says that this guy has a job and treats her right. I hope that is true, and I love my niece and only want her to be happy and healthy. I also want her children to be a part of our family, to be loved and accepted...and I fear that might not happen. Her choice in men has made her name anathema in my parents' home, and I hate that. They simply can not countenance the fact that she has chosen to date black men....and have kids with them as well. it is simply too much to digest and they feel like somehow she has betrayed them...geeeeesh, it was bad enough that their son married a Mexican, now this? !Oh well...what are ya gonna do? I pretty mush drug my brother and my mom kicking and screaming to the hospital when Denise gave birth to little Jayden...I highly doubt they will make this next delivery.
Like I said, I love my family, but this is the reality that I must deal with.I see race from an anthropological perspective, call me naive, and call me what you like, but this is my view. Recently, National Geographic conducted a DNA trace on the origins of man, and was able to actually map out the migration of human being all across the earth since the last ice age. What they discovered, is that we all started out with the oldest DNA traceable, with the Massai peoples in Africa. These are the Bushmen that speak in clicks and pops, and still live this way today. So about 15,000 years ago today, all of what we call "races" were living inside this one group of people that migrated over the earth. As the years and climates where these folk lived changed, they adapted and dare I say, "Evolved" to develop characteristics which would help them survive in their new environments. As a Christian, I believe that an all-knowing, all-loving, benevolent God gave human beings DNA that could change to suite the environment in which His children found themselves...and this ability to adapt is a wonderful example of his own diversity and mercy. So...when one looks at the DNA of human beings, forget all that you've ever heard about race and culture, you have to come down to the single, undeniable fact that all people sprang from these small golden colored peoples in Africa, many, many generations ago. That would make our modern understanding of race and ethnicity a totally concocted myth. Race is as men define it, and it changes all of the time. Being Aryan is what the Nazis said it was, being African -American can mean totally different things to different people. My doctor, who is a native of Nigeria, and now a Naturalized American citizen, considers himself and African American...but then again, so does Teresa Heinz Kerry, since she was born in Africa...but is as cracker as they come, he, he. How about the majority of black Americans...what are they? DNA studies show them to have as much or more than 40% European ancestry. So who knows, race is what we say it is, it is subjective and changes all the time. It can not be counted on to be a fixed, objective term. It is quite simply a myth. I say we determine it by behavior. As one of my favorite media commentators, Dennis Pager likes to say, there are two races, the human beings and the non-human beings, and you can tell them apart by how they treat their fellow man. I think I'll be sticking to this view...it squares up with everything that my faith informs my conscience...
Race is exactly what you make of it, and like it or not, we all have a grandmother back in Africa that clicks when she talks and probably knew how to field dress a wildebeest.I wish we could all lighten up about this whole race thing, wouldn't it be nice if the whole world could just get past the superficial and recognize that these differences are more of a cultural nature, not a racial one.The way the world operates today with all of the false hyper-sensitivity, it seems it might turn a totally non-biased person into one because of the environment in which we live.My hope is that we can all be proud of our genetic (racial) heritage, and marvel at the hand of God and His workmanship. We can be proud of our ancestors who endured so much in their perilous struggle to survive after the last ice age, and how unlikely it was that they made the circuitous trek around the globe and spread humanity over every continent, despite all odds being against their survival. Now there's a race to be proud of, the Human one, this rises about our darkest inclinations, and points back to the Creator reflecting His diversity, creativity and hope for the unity of man.
Just My 2cents......Ken
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