Race matters. Love matters.

June 30, 2020

Race is a touchy subject. So perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that two readers of this blog wrote to me to express their disapproval of something I said in my last essay, “White privilege, Dad privilege,” dated Father’s Day, June 21 (scroll down to read that blog post).

In that essay, I said that I don’t feel privileged because of my white skin, but that I do feel fortunate to have had the father that I had. I added that “the biggest advantage that I’ve had and that anyone could have, other than good health, is having a loving family with two supportive parents. Being loved is way more important than being white.”

The two women who wrote to me are friends of mine, so their criticism was gentler than it might have been if they didn’t know me. Since their comments were essentially the same, I’ll let Sandy speak for the two of them:

“Your Father’s Day tribute to your father actually disturbed me. Not for the love of your father, but for a blatant comment that having a loving childhood was much more important than the color of (your) skin. I was literally gasping…George Floyd grew up with a great deal of love. He was killed for the color of his skin.”

Here’s part of my reply to Sandy:

“I agree that George Floyd was killed because of the color of his skin, and that love could not save him…But I still stand by my statement that ‘being loved is way more important than being white.’ Being loved may not protect a black person from the police, but it does greatly increase a person’s chances of having the self respect, confidence, financial, emotional, and educational support needed to live in this difficult world. It’s hard enough being black in this or any society, but without love a person has far less chance of survival or happiness. Yes, black skin color is a huge disadvantage, and yes white and Asian and Latino people need to reduce our fear of black men and open our hearts more to all black people. But Barack Obama became who he is thanks to a loving mother and grandparents who raised him when his father abandoned him. He and many other black folk have overcome racial barriers thanks to their hard work and their loving families. Obama himself has spoken about the need for black men to not abandon their women and children.

“Strong, loving, intact families, whether white or black or whatever, are a greater predictor of a person’s future than is their skin color. If you don’t believe that, read Hillbilly Elegy, the memoir of a white man who survived a family with generations of dysfunction. There are more poor white people in this country than people of any other ethnicity, and these white folk are the polar opposite of white privilege. Skin color has gotten them nothing. The best role models for white or black families are Barack and Michelle Obama, who are exactly the kind of parents that this country needs more of. If all parents were like them, our race problems would be solved much more quickly. Love is stronger than color.”

But color does matter. So does culture, and so do families.

I remember the assassinations of Malcolm X (by three black men of the Nation of Islam in 1965) and Martin Luther King (by a white man in 1968). In the summer of 1970 I volunteered in housing projects in San Francisco, helping to provide recreational opportunities for the black kids in those horrible urine-reeking mid-rise apartment buildings. In 1971 I was assaulted in Berkeley by a group of young black men who screamed their hatred of white people as they rained blows upon me. Yet even after that incident, I ended up having lots of black friends in the SGI Buddhist organization, as well as having a few more ugly racial incidents. I lived in two African American neighborhoods in Berkeley for four years, and I have occasionally worked in similar environs as a social science researcher for the last 25 years. So the subject of race relations has been and continues to be of great interest to me.

If you’re a white person like me, the subject of race can be sad, frustrating, and depressing. If you’re black, the subject is a daily reminder of pain, anger, injustice, humiliation, and danger. Liberals tend to blame black poverty on external factors such as housing segregation and job discrimination, whereas conservatives usually believe that internal considerations such as family values and personal choices are greater determinants of prosperity and happiness. I think that both perspectives are valid.

One impediment to racial progress is the high crime rate in the African American community. According to the U.S. Dept of Justice, African Americans, who comprise 13% of the U.S. population, committed 52.5% of all homicides between 1980 and 2008. That’s a shocking murder statistic. And according to the National Crime Victimization Survey in 2002, robberies with white victims and black offenders were more than 12 times more common than vice versa. So it is not irrational for whites, Asians, and Latinos to fear black men, and it’s not surprising that black men continue to attract police attention and have encounters with law enforcement that have negative consequences. But having said that, it’s also true that all too often it is innocent black men who are stopped by police because of the color of their skin. And while George Floyd may not have been innocent of a crime, he certainly did not deserve the brutal treatment he received at the hands of a cruel white cop.

But if you talk about police violence against African Americans, then you also have to acknowledge that 93% of black men are killed by other black men. If black lives really matter, then that slogan needs to start being honored in the African American community first. Respect starts at home.

And home is where, if we’re fortunate, we learn lessons of love, respect for self and others, the importance of education, and the necessity of strong families with two or more adults providing emotional and financial support. This is as true for the 15.7 million white Americans living in poverty as it is for the 10.5 million Hispanic Americans who are poor and the 8.9 million African Americans who are poor.

The truth is that all of us live to varying degrees in spiritual poverty and ignorance, and so all of us need to find a path of awakening that will enable us to get along with one another and to lead rich, meaningful lives. We shall overcome our ignorance and fears when we learn to stop oppressing each other and stop oppressing ourselves. Yes we can improve police training and pass new legislation. But the hardest changes of all are the changes each one of us needs to make in our own consciousness, in our own heart.

Race matters. And love matters more.