"Ignorance is Not a Virtue" and Other Thoughts on MLK Day

 Martin Luther King Jr. Day is here again. I was almost 9 years old on the day King was assassinated, so I remember it well. The next day, my teacher talked about "civil rights" all day long. I'm pretty sure that's the first time I ever heard the phrase. We lived in Boulder, Colorado, and it was a progressive town. That year, for Christmas, I picked out an African American baby doll from the pages of the Sears catalog. My parents had a good laugh at that -- I did not get the joke -- and I was told I was too old for dolls. There were no African Americans in our school back then; Boulder, outside the university, was a largely white town.

When I moved to Texas at the age of 19, I wasn't aware that I had any prejudices. I did have, of course, they just hadn't been unearthed at that time. I had friends of every kind and it honestly never occurred to me that a person of a different faith or skin color or economic circumstance was different from me in more than cosmetic ways. This was flawed thinking, of course, borne of the same naivete most of my assumptions give birth to. In looking at the "me" of those days, it's fair to say I was race ignorant. And because, until my early 30s, I did not surround myself with people who would dig at those buried biases (Thank you More to Life) and challenge my lack of consciousness, I stayed that way.  I don't like it, but I will admit it now, I'd adopted "color" blindness. 

I got some insight to this when I accepted a first date from an African American man. He took me to an Indian restaurant for that date which made me extremely nervous. Despite an experienced palate, I'd always been afraid of Indian food. He looked at me quaking across the table and said, point blank, "If you're so nervous, why'd you accept a date with a black man?" The question shocked the nerves away. I quickly explained that I was nervous about the food and had not given a thought to him being black.  Sadly, that was true. He provided me a good education over the next couple of years through telling me his experiences of being black, male and American. I did not absorb it all then, but the words have echoed through the years. Side note - I now love Indian food.

Fast forward a few years until dear hubby and I are married and faced with the unsurprising and incontrovertible proof of my infertility. We eventually decided to adopt. At our first group meeting, as the very first step in our adoption process, letters from prospective adopters were passed around. I finally asked what the codes meant in the corner. They referred to the ethnicity of child the parents would accept. My husband and I locked eyes over the table and practically ran out the door when we adjourned for lunch. We were so shocked people would consider one group of children over another. Long story short, we talked it over at lunch, went back in, told them we'd take ANY child, then hit the fast track. At that time, there were 69 parents in the program and only 2 who would accept a child that was any part African American.

We read all the books, I learned how to do hair, we prepared our families. I took classes in "Culture of the South," "African American Literature" and the "History of Jazz."  Here's what we didn't know: we didn't know ANYTHING. (And before you write me a note saying how great we were to do this, please know, it isn't true. People adopt to become parents, it's a selfish act. They have blessed us, not the other way round.)

We had no idea how the pain of being adopted is compounded by being adopted across racial lines. (The research says the opposite but in anecdotal experience, 5/5 kids say it makes it worse.) We did not have a clue about how hard it would be for them to form their own identities and try to fit into any of their cultures. Little decisions were unknowingly wrong turns - the oldest loved baseball so the second loved baseball so the Littles loved baseball. They were usually the only black kid on their teams. We did a frankly terrible job of helping them. We did not know what to do and with the oldest two, we didn't have the good sense to TELL them we didn't know what to do. Sorry girls. Kids are resilient and they found their own way. But I want to have helped them more. The youngest two have had the most exposure to their Mexican American and African American heritages. However, it is still not enough. All of them have been bullied or picked on for not fitting in. It's hard to know what you don't know. 

In the last dozen or so years, I've been on a journey to turn my "color" blindness to race consciousness. There are a lot of excellent books and essays on the topic. If you'd like to read one, try a concise one by Gus Castro: Race-Conscious: Ignorance is Not A Virtue and the others in this compilation that engage in the debate. Have I overcome my do-gooder color blindness? Not yet, but I will not let myself off the hook, and here is why: I HATE hate hate having to tell my kids over and over to not draw attention to themselves in stores, to keep their hoods off and the hands out of their pockets. If you are pulled over for ANY reason, you say "Yes, sir, yes ma'am"  and you do everything they tell you because we can help you if you are in jail . . . we cannot help you if you are dead." And unfortunately, they've had to use this advice, a LOT.  

When I look back now on that little girl who cried when I was told about those four schoolgirls who died in the Birmingham Church Bombing, or the mother who cried when we took the big girls to Central High School National Historical Monument, I see a slow evolution. When I teach my children and my students about the "I have a Dream" speech, I can hear that as a country, we've made some progress. However, on this particular day, I admit, I am disheartened. Once again, our country is trying to suppress voter rights (read: disenfranchise voter rights, particularly to minorities), and it kills me. I had hope following George Floyd's horrific death, but the hope was short lived. In the end, the dollar wins out. When we will stop putting our personal finances into our political views and deciding right and wrong based on what benefits my bank account? When will we stop FEARING the unknown and decide to know what we don't know. How many of us will read a 400 Souls, A Community History of African America, 1619-2019? It's my new pick for my first non-fiction of the year. I challenge you to read it with me, but be warned: Since it is written in 5 year increments, that is going to be a lot of slavery to understand. Do the math. The blind, enduring criminality of slavery just boggles my mind.

I'm almost off my soapbox. As long as I/we are allowing the work of equity to be someone else's work, we are harming Americans. I am harming Americans. We have to keep fighting for progress, bit by bit. And the good/bad news is: it starts with us, with me. . . with you.