The Identification of Race

One of the first recollections that I have about ethnicity and race was when I lived in West Detroit. Detroit, like most urban cities, is a manifestation of the plight of society blended with an upscale flair. The elementary school that I attended was in my neighborhood. It was one of the most interesting places that I had ever encountered - desks, books, and a cafeteria where we kids would sit and eat lunch. Little did I know that I would gain a significant understanding of who I was in a place that seemed so serene. I remember it as if it was yesterday.

The elementary school I went to had, a predominantly Black staff with a few other ethnicities sprinkled within. My school’s building was rundown and was badly in need of renovation. Every time I stepped inside I wondered what misdeed had been done that had made the superintendent so neglectful of ensuring that we kids could enter a quality school, and perpetuating the cycle of educational inequality. That is not to say the school was bad, but it just was substandard considering one could find a nicer school close by. It had me scratching my head at times the differences in how certain schools were neglected. It is quite possible that the experience I had here is what would make me have such contention my freshman year in high school. But I digress.

The ethnicities of the teachers other than Black were Italian, Latino and a nice, but somewhat ancient Caucasian principal named Mr. Taylor. He stood about 6’2’’ and always wore a suit. He talked with a southern accent and always reminded me of those movies that I had seen on cable about slavery in that he seemed to be a little on the racist side. This always baffled me because he was after all the principal. I wondered how a man that racist could get in a position of power especially on the West side of Detroit that was full of contradistinctions and contradictions both in landscape and the general population. Well, anyway, it happened. What I recall about Mr. Taylor was that he was mean and demeaning to the teachers that worked there and while they complained about his racial tendencies, it seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Katz and Stern acknowledge this gap between blacks and whites arguing that racism is something society must deal with. While some barriers to race have been removed, so to speak there are still remnants of it in operation (p.61). Anyway, the day that I recall was when Mr. Taylor talked down to a Black teacher, Mr. Stevens. I was passing in the hallway heading to my locker and heard him called Mr. Stevens out of name. The verbal abuse reverberated in my head and I was stunned, thinking this isn’t the olden days. Were we back in the late 1950s, where segregation and discrimination was still an operating factor in society?

It was the latter part of the 20th century and here racism was still in operation, and in full force no less. Mr. Stevens responded by saying “you have no right to talk to me that way Mr. Taylor, I am doing my job.” “Yeah, yeah, boy if you say so.” I was careful not to let them know that I was listening as they went back and forth for about ten minutes before Mr. Taylor’s secretary came back from lunch and Mr. Taylor got quiet. Mr. Stevens exited the office and I watched as he left and wondered why he didn’t fight back, why didn’t, he do anything to Mr. Taylor. It was wrong of Mr. Taylor to call him out of name and to refer to him as boy, which was even more demeaning.

Sue writes that racism has evolved. Racism has not faded into the woodwork but has become more subtle and less overt (Sue et al., 2007). This would definitely explain Mr. Taylor's change in attitude the minute his secretary came into the room. From that day forward, I understood that racism comes in all forms and that times haven't really changed as much as people would like to think they have. While the incident did not happen to me so to speak, it affected me because my mother had always taught me that everyone was on an even playing field despite the history of our nation with all of its ills. Yet, while my mother taught and encouraged me to treat everyone with respect and that skin color is just that – color, nothing more nothing less, she also encouraged me to embrace who I was – my gifts, talents, tastes. It was what she called – my essence.

I think when I examine my preferences and tastes in food, music, art, clothing, they are relatable to all ethnicities but I also acknowledge that certain beliefs and values were the result of my upbringing in West Detroit. I am a lover of chicken, always have enjoyed it in fact - baked, fried, even sweet and sour chicken...I say give it to me. I learned to love chicken from my grandmother who always found surprising ways to cook it - with dumplings, over rice. You name it, grandma incorporated her heritage into what she cooked and that translated to my tastes in other foods and spilled over into other expressions such as art and clothing and music. I am a lover of poetry - everything from Dickinson to 2PAC grabs me.

I think that my love of poetry arose out of the various racial tensions that I observed growing up between races. I always have seen poetry as an expression of class, heritage, perceptions, etc. It is the manifestation of that individual's thoughts on paper. I believe as Tatum wrote, that the attitudes of society can change with intervention and that we have a responsibility to try to identify and interrupt the various prejudices and assumptions that exist surrounding ethnicity (Tatum, 1992). Her argument has a lot of validity to it because people were surprised when I told them I listened to both hip-hop and classical music. Their assumption was that someone of my ethnicity wouldn't enjoy the likes of Bach and Mozart. But I chalk that up to their stereotypes of my race and the continuing resistance to dealing with the problem of racism in this country.

I learned to love all people and creative expressions because it was just my mother and I. I must admit that there are a few expressions that I have chosen to omit not so much because I am shunning who I am as an individual, but because I believe that in order for attitudes about race to shift in society (on a serious level), the conventional dynamics must also change. As Bonilla-Silva wrote, ethnicity is a "sociocultural foundation that has exhibited tremendous malleability" (p.469). In other words, certain races have adopted or have been willing to adopt cultural aspects and elements of other races to the point where despite the continuing racial attitudes in society, we are more alike than we would like to admit.

As previously stated, that is not to say that I have forgotten who I am as an individual, but my taste in certain components of society that are not of my heritage is the result of the malleability that each of us as individuals has. I recall an incident when I bought a jazz recording from Sam Goody. The clerk looked at me oddly as if to say – you want this? Shouldn’t you be buying a different kind of music? The look on his face was priceless and very memorable. I remember telling him that it was for a friend as if there was something horrible about the purchase of a jazz recording or for me to be purchasing it.

On my way home that I day, I remember thinking why did I lie? What was it about the purchase of a jazz recording that bothered him and why did I feel the urge to lie especially given the values that my mother had taught me and what I had learned about embracing all cultures and not being afraid of who I am as an individual as well as my preferences and tastes. That night there was continual thinking that went on inside me. The question I asked myself was are we truly as a society ready to conquer the gulf between the races? The perception that I had that I felt the need to lie to the clerk at Sam Goody speaks to the problems among ethnicities. That I felt the need to lie was an even more revealing issue.

To this day, I still wonder what provoked me to lie. After all, throughout both elementary school and before Mr. Barch got me expelled as he promised, I had journeyed outside of my race because it was what I had been taught. My mother and grandmother had gone through the muck and mire of society and wanted me to know where I came from but to also explore what other ethnicities could provide as far as shaping who I would ultimately become.

They helped me understand as Omi and Winant stated that acknowledging that there are racial dimensions gives meaning to the various cultural representations of race (p.56). To a certain degree, their argument was more or less what my mother and grandmother taught me that race has many dimensions and there is room for equality but because the attitudes and perceptions are so engrained in society, differences are viewed as negative rather than something to be cherished.

Race is noticeable because society makes it noticeable. This is the issue that Mr. Taylor had with Mr. Stevens, and it was also the same issue that caused me to lie to the clerk about why I was purchasing a jazz record. While those were two different instances of racial tension, they unveil the startling fact that most of the perceptions and attitudes surrounding race are the result of stereotypes and upbringings that each individual race has. Race is a mechanism for survival. It is how each one of us gets through our day. It is how we live, breathe and make up a predominant part of the choices and decisions that we make. The discussion of race is never-ending. It is as much a part of society as religion, socioeconomic class, gender. Race is co-mingled with the values and belief systems each one of us holds near and dear to our inner spaces. Race is society’s identity formation as Omi and Winant (1994) put it and played a significant part in my identity formation as well.

References

Bonilla-Silva, E. (1996, June). Rethinking Racism: Toward A Structural Interpretation. American Sociological Review, 62, 465-480.

Katz, M. B., & Stern, M. J. (2008, Winter). Beyond Discrimination: Understanding African American Inequality in the Twenty-First Century. DISSENT, 61-65.

Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial Formation. (Reprinted from Racial Formation in the United States, 2nd ed., pp. 53-76, New York, NY: Routledge)

Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A. M., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (2007, May). Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life. American Psychologist, 62(4), 271-286.

Tatum, B. D. (1992, Spring). Talking about Race, Learning about Racism: The Application of Racial Identity Development Theory in the Classroom. Harvard Educational Review, 62(1), 1-12.