The True Story of Race

I get it. I really do. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, separate water fountains etc. I can see why people get really upset at the slightest hint of racial discrimination against blacks these days. It certainly still exists, and it's wrong. Permeating our country, however, are a major double standard and a complete misunderstanding of racial issues. If something race-related or discriminatory happens to a black person it becomes national front page news. If something similar happens to a white person it goes largely unnoticed and gets buried by the media. Don't believe me? Read this story and this story. Both articles ran yesterday. The former, a case of whites discriminating against blacks reported by CNN, was the front page lead headline on CNN.com for part of the day yesterday. The latter, a case of as many as fifty black teens attacking a white family reported by Ohio.com (only reason I found it was through Drudge), is completely ignored by the national media. Both stories deal with the exact same topic, so why don't they put them side by side? There's no doubt CNN knew about it. If it's on Drudge then surely someone in the newsroom noticed it but chose to ignore it.

I often struggle with the issue of race. It was a horrible thing that blacks were systematically discriminated against by the government and the general population for so long. I can see how people might think the mentality of "okay, we discriminated against one group for so long that now we have to switch and help them at all costs" might help, but the truth is that it does not. The reason is that the issue does not have anything to do with race. It's culture that we need to be focused on.

Regardless of your skin color, if you're lazy, messy, not well spoken, poorly dressed and you have an "I don't care" attitude then you're going to be making minimum wage for the rest of your life. The only reason skin color enters the arena is because you cannot hide it. The defining characteristics of most cultures that get negatively stereotyped can be covered up with clothing or masked by other means. If you're a white tattooed drug dealer you can still walk into the office on a Monday with a suit on, and no one knows the difference, because you work your butt off during the week, and you're well respected among your peers who have no idea you peddle crack. On the other hand, if you're a hard working, motivated, well spoken, impeccably dressed black person you can't hide the fact that you're black. If people see a tattooed black guy getting arrested on the morning news, and they see you in the office later then you might get grouped with the criminal since you share one visible consistent trait in common. The white tattooed drug dealer can hide his tattoos, but a black man cannot hide his skin color.

When a certain group only makes up around 13% of the population but accounts for 50% of the homicides in the United States, that group gets labeled. The one common visual factor that everyone sees is skin color. Stereotypes exist for a reason. To a certain extent all of them are true. Nonetheless, that does not mean they apply to everyone. The reality is that the common factor linking the homicides isn't skin color at all. It's behavior. Those folks on the news are all behaving in a certain way. Culture is defined as "the integrated pattern of...... behavior." Behavior is not always visible. The tattooed white drug dealer might behave one way outside of the office and an entirely different way at the office. His co-workers cannot see a link at all. When black violence and crime dominate the news as they so often do, the behavior certainly doesn't carry itself into the office of other blacks, but their skin color does. Most people look through the lens of skin color, however, and not through one of behavior. On the same token, if a hard working, well spoken black person with good grades applies to a college then they might receive favorable treatment in the admissions process for the purpose of maintaining "diversity" on campus. In effect they are told "Your behavior does not matter. You are going to gain admission simply because you're black." Many blacks are justifiably upset about this. Just ask Clarence Thomas. He keeps his Yale law degree in his basement with a $.15 sticker attached to it, because the school's affirmative action program completely undermined his achievements.

If we really want to fix this whole race issue then people need to realize that more often than not the issue doesn't even concern race. It's a culture thing. By focusing on race the achievements (behavior) of successful people are completely undermined while simultaneously giving negative incentives to those who achieve less. Telling a black kid "If you want to get into X college you only have to have a B average, because you're black. If you were white then you would have to have A's" makes the black kid strive for less. His goal is to get into college, not to make A's, and to achieve this goal he knows he only has to make B's. Upon arrival at the university, however, he's surrounded by white students that have made A's. It breeds inferiority not on the basis of race or ability but by assigning lower standards to one group.

If people want equal treatment then we need to treat everyone equally based on actions and culture rather than skin color. If skin color becomes an asset for getting into college (which it has for that and many other things as well) then you're telling minorities that their skin color is a tangible advantage while simultaneously they are being told that everyone is equal regardless of race. You can't have it both ways. If your actions and your actions alone produce a college degree and a well paying job then you should be respected, not as a black person who achieved it but simply as a person. Stereotypes are earned, and they can ruin opportunities and undermine respect for those who are mistakenly included in the stereotyped group. A group of black teenagers assaulting a white family while yelling "this is a black world" deservedly earns a negative stereotype based on their actions. For the hard working successful people in college whose skin happens to be black, those same teenagers destroy everything that the college students have earned through their behavior.

We need to start running the CNN and Ohio.com stories side by side. The white people are not to be condemned for being white. Their behavior is the focus. The same goes for the black teens in Ohio. It is not until we throw aside our lens of race and start using one of behavior and culture will we ever begin to progress towards true equality.