LOVE AND LIGHT

Racism American Style

In one of the online groups I'm in, someone sent an article through the email list about the latest tragic school shooting. Well, to be honest, the article wasn't really about that school shooting, but about something that was missing in reference to our descriptions of the shooters: their race. Later in the day, responses began showing up to the article on the email list and one lady asked why white males don't have their own special day or month like other groups. That night, I was discussing the article and responses with my wife and we got into a very deep discussion about racism American style.

First, I'm a white woman. And in case you haven't alrady figured it out, I'm gay too. (There are those who wouldn't consider a bisexual to be gay, but I do and my opinion is the one that counts when it comes to my identity.) So I have two strikes against me in this society that's ruled by white heterosexual males. Three if you count my weight (heavier than it should be) in a society that seems to value emaciated women more than healthy women. I have faced some "minor" discrimination by getting my BS in civil engineering in 1981 (maybe 30 women in my graduating class of several hundred), being kicked out of the Boy Scouts for being gay, having a grandfather-looking guy stop his car in the middle of the road and scream out the window "You disgusting faggot!" as I marched in a one-woman protest. Having my kids picked on and taunted because I am gay. That kind of thing. I can honestly say that I don't think I was ever denied a job because I'm a woman or housing because I'm gay or anything like that. But discrimination of any sort leaves a nasty after-taste that one doesn't easily forget. It allows me to get just a small feel for what other minorities have to go through on a daily basis and makes me realize just how easy I have it— because I'm white.

Because I'm white, I can drive the fanciest car in any neighborhood and not get stopped by the police if I follow all the traffic laws. Because I'm white, I can walk through any upper class neighborhood at any time of the night and probably not get stopped by police. Because I'm white, when I walk down the street, most people won't notice me or feel they have anything to fear from me. Because I'm white, there are a lot of assumptions made about me that benefit me in the search for a job, a place to live, etc. Most whites don't realize just how much "freedom" they have because of their skin color. This is a form of racism: basing an opinion of someone on the color of their skin. It's a form of racism I'm sure I've benefitted from virtually every day of my life.

In the past 20 years or so, since affirmative action plans have been put in place, we've begun to see cases of "reverse discrimination"— another form of racism many argue. Let me give you my thoughts on the subject.

The business world in the US is still for the most part run by white male heterosexuals. And there is still a very pervasive "good ol' boys" mentality that results (for whatever reasons) in those white male heterosexual (hereafter abbreviated WMH) businesses doing business almost exclusively with other WMH businesses. Which leaves minority owned businesses out of the "mainstream" and keeps them on the sidelines of economic success. I'm personally very torn on the idea of affirmative action. I'm not one who feels that the ends justify the means and I also feel that two wrongs don't make a right. On top of that, how can discriminating against one group end discrimination as a whole? Yet, without some sort of "boost" or "advantage", the vast majority of minority owned businesses won't ever be able to break into the mainstrem of the business world. So how to resolve this dilemma?

I think the biggest drawback right now to acceptance of some sort of affirmative action plan is that it sometimes favors the less qualified over the more qualified. In some cases, this can be a very dangerous situation. I, for one, don't want a woman firefighter who only had to lift 150 pounds in a fireman's carry to pass the test to be the one to come to my window and have to carry me down a ladder to save my life. Nor do I want the lieutenant in charge of a police department to have no experience with running a department but is chosen simply because he is black. That doesn't make me racist or sexist. It makes me practical. I don't care what gender you are or what color your skin is or who you choose to fall in love with. What I'm concerned about is "Are you qualified to do the job you're hired to do?" Not only that, but lowering standards simply to allow the minorities to be qualified says more about them being "second class" than them not having the job to begin with! Any WHM who is serving under a black police captain who got the job because he is black will not have the requisite respect for his superior that is needed to make sure that the department runs smoothly. But none of this has yet to address the "what to do?" question.

There's no question in my mind that minority businesses need a "boost"— at least until the WHM business world decides to start dealing with minority businesses without a law to force them to do so. Yet at the same time, lowering standards just to use a minority business or to hire a member of a minority is counterproductive. A compromise can be reached— although admittedly it will cost a bit more to do so. But then anything worth having is worth paying for, and IMHO, an end to discrimination on all levels is well worth it. So here's a general idea of the sort of compromises I'm thinking about.

• In a situation where bids from business are solicited, if the second lowest bidder is a minority owned company and their bid price is within 5% of that of the lowest bidder, split the bid up: half goes to the minority-owned business and half goes to the low bidder. That's only a 2.5% increase in the cost of the materials/services. (No arguments about how 2.5% of a billion dollars is a lot of money. Contracts that big are rarely, if ever, given to only one company anyway. Having worked in the construction business for many years, I'm aware of how many other businesses are involved in the construction process and how many bidding processes are actually held. Additionally, if it's a speciality part that's extremely expensive to begin with, chances are that a minority-owned business won't even be bidding on it. Again, that's not a racist/sexist statement or meant to imply that minorities aren't capable of running such businesses: it's based on statistics— most such businesses are owned by WHM.)
• In a situation where a minimum standard of physical endurance is required, such as in the military or when applying to be a fireman or policeman, set ONE minimum set of standards that everyone— regardless of gender— must meet. Such standards should be reasonable: ie, how many times does a fireman have to run up 15 flights of stairs dragging a hose behind him/her? Set different levels for firefighters— those who can't pass the strenuous physical exams can still drive the trucks or work the hoses from outside or go to fires that aren't in multi-story buildings or where no people are involved. It's no different really than specializing that occurs in police departments and the military. No one would advocate sending a grunt to drive a tank or sending the desk sergeant at the police department out with a K-9 unit.
• In a situation where minimum educational skills are required, as long as the person has the required degree, class ranking, school attended and similar standards should not even be considered. The test to get one's PE license, for example, isn't dependent on what school one graduated from. If one has the license, one has passed the minimum required skills tests.
• In a situation where two candidates for the job have equal qualifications, the job goes to the "biggest" minority: ie, a black man would get the job ahead of a white woman, a black woman ahead of a white woman, a heavyset white woman ahead of a slender white woman, etc. And yes, all of them ahead of a WHM.

I realize this would still result in a bit of "reverse" discrimination. But truth be told, if we take away affirmative action programs, there will be far more discrimination against minorities. AA programs are the lesser of two evils, and until we get something better, we have to stick with them, no matter how bad of a taste they may leave in our mouths.

I have a hard time when I see these talk shows where white males are crying "foul" for having been discriminated against when going for a job. White males, as a whole, still have the vast majority of financial and policy-making power in this country. And it's only been, what, 40 years since the civil rights acts were passed? Less than that since the women's movement of the 70's got underway. And already, white males are "whining" about discrimination. Rather than using this as a learning experience— to gain some knowledge of how it feels to be discrminiated against and to gain some empathy and understanding and to seek changes in how the business world does business— they choose instead to do nothing but cry how unfair it is.

And finally, my wife, playing devil's advocate again, brought up the issue of white pride. How it's okay for a black to be proud of their African-American heritage. Or a Native American to be proud of their heritage. Yet it's not okay for a white to be proud of his heritage. The only problem I have with that is that I'm not sure that we could classify anything (short of oppressing anyone that's not white) as being "white culture". Where as blacks are often called African-Americans, Hispanics are often called "Latinos" (from Latin America— also known as Central America), Orientals are called "Asians-Americans", whites classify themselves from a specific country, not a continent or group of countries. We're not European-Americans, we're Italian-Americans, or German-Americans, or Greek-Americans. When I think of Oriental culture, for example, I think of the respect for the elderly, the respect for superiors, the work ethic: maybe it is all sterotypical, but then culture, by definition, is an attempt to define a great number of individuals by very few characteristics. But when I try to think of "white culture", the only thing that pops into my mind is white supremacist groups. I can't think of one thing that I can point to and say "Yes, that's definitely "white culture". I wonder how much of that is due to the fact that I am white. I wonder what other cultures would say as being definitive of "white culture". Maybe the reason I can't think of anything that stands out is because we're LIVING white culture now: capitalism, me-first, take care of numberone, keep up with the Joneses....I sure hope not. That's a sad legacy to have as one's culture, IMHO.

There is one other issue still to be tackled. As my wife pointed out, to young white children, especially boys, it seems as if everyone else is receiving special treatment with "Black History month" and "Bring your daughter to work" day and "Cinqo de Maio" for NOT being white, which makes white children wonder what's wrong with being white....And she has a point. Yet at the same time, I can't help but remember that American history classes are still, for the most part, the history of American WMHs. We memorize the names of the presidents, but what about the first ladies? Some of them did some amazing things that are rarely, if ever, mentioned in history classes in schools. In a sense, every day is the WHM's day. And the very purpose of these sorts of specially designated days/weeks/months was to foster pride in minority groups that have been dominated by the WHM. To counter the negativity that was being perpetuated by the media, by stereotypes, by elected officials, by preachers, etc. And yet, the young boys growing up now didn't do any of that. Is it fair to them to not and celebrate young white boys?

It's clear that there needs to be a lot of thinking done and a lot of changes made in our society before we grow up with an entire generation of young white boys who feel as disenfranchised by society as young black boys did 20 years ago (and who may still feel that way today.) We need to teach our children to appreciate ALL cultures, but not to define a person by their culture. To respect the differences, celebrate them, yet realize that we're all human beings. That we're all inhabitants of the same planet and our very survival as a species depends on learning to cooperate instead of compete.

Separation of Church and State

Before I start this, you have to understand something. My wife and I are about as far apart in religious/spiritual thinking as any two people can get without one of them being an atheist or agnostic. We both respect the others point of view in the sense that we don't try to convert the other. (I wouldn't do so because of my spiritual beliefs...I think she just feels she'd be beating her head against a brick wall. LOL) With that said, here's the story.

I was telling her about an email to Senator Specter I'd written regarding gay marriage and my disgust that it was made illegal in Pennsylvania. She was playing devil's advocate and questioning my logic and reasoning and finally told me that I was trying to mix matters of church and state that I so vehemently want to keep separate because by saying that I wanted the government to allow gay marriages, I was forcing those who DIDN'T believe in that to live by my beliefs. Now while on the surface that may appear to be true, if you dig deeper, it's not.

First, morality is, for each individual, what we consider right and wrong. How we define "wrong" is based on what people of faith believe is allowed by their deity or forbidden by the same. (This does NOT mean that I believe atheists/agnostics to be amoral people. They do have their beliefs about what is right and wrong, but their "deity" (by that I mean "final authority") is themselves...which isn't really that far from what I believe, but that's not what this is all about.) The Bill of Rights guarantees us all the right to pursue our happiness and to believe what we want regarding a deity, and even to peacably overthrow our own government if we so desire. The added amendments to the Bill of Rights also provide that the states will not make laws that abridge the rights granted by the Constitution and Bill of Rights and that all US citizens are granted equal protection under the law, regardless of financial status, race, creed, etc. (Unless you happen to be gay, and then you're a second class citizen. But I'm hopeful since women and blacks were once denied basic rights and interracial marriages were once illegal too.) So what does this have to do with my point? Only that morality, because it is based on someone's belief system (ie, faith) is NOT something that the government has any right legislating.

We are all guaranteed the right to pursue happiness— we're not guaranteed that happiness. But the guarantee to pursue happiness has within it an innate guarantee that the government will not enact any laws to PREVENT that pursuit AS LONG AS OUR PURSUIT DOES NOT PREVENT ANYONE ELSE FROM PURSUING THEIR HAPPINESS. So let's say it makes me happy to murder people. I can't just go out and murder someone because my pursuit of happiness is preventing someone else from pursuing happiness by taking away their life. Therefore, the government has the right to say "You cannot murder another human being". Now, let's take that to a topic that is not so "cut and dry"...abortion.

The argument that I don't want my tax dollars supporting something I find so reprehensible is a moot one. I'm sure ALL of us disagree with something the government is doing. For me, it's the military spending and the drug war. It's a waste of time as far as I'm concerned and it also goes against my spiritual beliefs. But it's legal so my tax dollars support it and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. Abortion is the same way: you don't like your tax dollars supporting something you don't believe in, tough. It's legal and there's nothing you can do about it. Should it be legal? Of course! The argument that life begins at conception or the soul enters the body at conception is one that is based on one's beliefs/faith. To say that we cannot have abortions is to deny those women who DON'T believe that life begins at conception the right to do with their body what they want. What about the fetus' rights? They have none until birth (except in Pennsylvania and a few other states that now consider fetus' to have the same rights as newborns. Although I'm sure that's not the original intent of the law, that's going to be the end result.) There is no way to prove that life begins at conception: the potential for life certainly does. But one in three women has a miscarriage— how do we know it wasn't something they ate or drank or ingested or snorted or shot up....Or perhaps they were just too stressed out. If we hold drivers of vehicles liable for "killing" a fetus in an accident, we MUST investigate any woman who has a miscarriage and see if she contributed the the fetus' death. See the implications here?? So until a child is born or that first breath is drawn (whichever comes first), when we KNOW there is life and that cannot be denied by anyone, the unborn should have no rights. Cannot have any rights without violating the separation of church and state. To disallow abortions is to prevent those women who don't believe life begins at conception from following their beliefs. But to allow abortion does NOT prevent women who believe that life DOES begin at conception to follow theirs. It DOES prevent them from imposing their beliefs on others though. But that's what the law is supposed to do: prevent any one individual or group of individuals from preventing another from living according to their beliefs.

So let's take this to gay marriage. By prohibiting gay marriages, you are also prohibiting some gay Christians, for example, from living according to their beliefs that sex must wait until after marriage. If they cannot legally marry, then the state is interfering in their right to worship freely. But is allowing gay marriages preventing anyone else from worshipping freely? Not at all. If someone's faith says gay marriages are wrong, then that someone won't marry someone of the same gender. It will prevent that person from being able to force the rest of the country to live according to his beliefs. What about those whose faith dictates that they disobey man's law when it is in violation of God's law? Here's where the tricky part comes in: in this country, you are free to believe and follow your beliefs as long as they don't interfere with another's beliefs. (Or at least that's the way it's supposed to work ideally. It's obviously not since gays are not allowed to legally marry.) It is ONLY the interpretation of those who believe that a particular human law is in violation of THEIR god's law. Their god may not be the same god as the guy/lady standing next to them. Therefore, that guy/lady's feelings on whether the human law is in violation of God's law may be different. To protect everyone, NO ONE must be allowed to engage in an activity that will prevent another from following his beliefs. Allowing gay marriages will NOT prevent those who believe it's wrong from living those beliefs: they will STILL believe it's wrong and they won't marry someone of the same gender. But the law that DOES prohibit gay marriages is most definitely violating at least MY right to live according to my beliefs. And if ANY law violates even one persons civil rights, the US Supreme Court has an obligation to throw it out and declare it unconstitutional. Even if 99.9999% of the people in this country agree with the law, it makes no difference. If majority opinion mattered in matters of civil rights, then all it would take would be 51% of the people to say they wanted slavery back and there's nothing people of color could do about it. Which is why we have the safeguards built into our government wherein the judicial branch can toss out laws made by the legislative branch that are in violation of the US Constitution or any state Constitution.

The ultimate test of whether a law is constitutional is "Is anyone's civil rights being violated?" If yes, then toss the law out. Is society going to collapes if gays are allowed to marry? Hell no. There have been gays living in committed relationships as long as humans have been alive. And they're continue to do so with or without the legal benefits of marriage. They'll take the extra steps to legally change their name, to give "next of kin" rights to their partner, to make them the beneficiary of any life insurance, etc. But these are steps that most people don't have to take and gays should not have to take. We're not asking for special rights, just the same rights that heterosexual people have: the right to keep a job regardless of who we love, the right to live in an apartment/house regardless of who we love, the right to not have to live in fear that we're going to be beaten or even killed because of who we love, the right to marry who we love.

And finally, there is the argument that gays are seeking to "advance the gay agenda" by seeking the right to marry. I hate to disappoint you folks, but there is no "gay agenda". We don't want special privilges, we just want the same ones the government gives to "straight" folk. We're not asking for you (the straight folk who want to leave things as they are) to agree with, approve of, feel comfortable with, participate in or condone how we live our life, just to stop penalizing us for living it the way we see fit. (I just love the argument that gays are living in sin because they're not married. It makes so much sense. [Did anyone notice the sarcasm in those statements?])We're not hurting you. We're not stopping you from living your straight life. We're not interfering in your religious beliefs. Can you even imagine the uproar if a law was passed saying that you could only marry someone born in a different year than you were? Or that you could only marry someone who had different color hair or eyes than you had? Or who had a different heritage than you? Saying you can only marry someone who is of a different gender is no different!! It is simply a physical, inherited factor, no different than age, eye color, hair color, race, ethnicity, etc. For all those straight people out there who are reading this and feel that gays are "pushing an agenda", ask yourself a few of the following questions. Would you want to change your name to that of your spouse or have your spouse change his/her name to yours? Would you want to be automatically notified if your spouse was in an accident and maybe even dying? Would you want to be able to be at their side during their recovery? Would you want your spouse to be able to pick up your sick child from school if you were unable to? Would you want to be able to add your spouse to your employer supplied health insurance? Would you want to get a multiple car discount by insuring both cars with the same company? Would you want to take the larger deductible given to married people by the IRS? Would you want to have the right to make decisions regarding your child's future if your spouse dies? Would you want to have visitation rights if your marriage breaks up? All married heterosexual couples can do this automatically, without the expense of legal fees for special contracts, without supplying the school with a written authorization, without your spouse having to carry a special card saying "In case of emergency notify...". Some of these things, even with contracts, are still unavailable to gay couples. Do you really think that's right? In the country where freedom and equality for all is so touted, why are laws that single out gays still allowed on the books?

The Rainbow's End Library