Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [138]
Refugees are the biggest believers in the American dream. They live in an irony-free zone. They want a house, a car, a stereo system, and a dishwasher. In our strange and difficult times, one reason the American dream stays alive is that new people keep showing up who believe in it. And, because they believe that America is the land of freedom and opportunity and because they act on that belief, they sometimes make it true. As Willa Cather once wrote, "The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman."
RACISM
Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in a letter to a refugee, "There are a lot of things that make me wonder whether we ever look ourselves straight in the face and really mean what we say when we are patting ourselves on the back."
We all have values about our own and other cultures. There is no such thing as cultural neutrality. Unfortunately, some people do not understand that they are cultural beings. They see their culture as The Culture and all other cultures as inferior, or at least peripheral. Or, they may remain blissfully unaware that other cultures even exist. They have not yet learned the concept of cultural relativity and that we all lead contextualized lives.
Albert Memmi defines racism as "all that produces an advantage or privilege through devaluation of the other." He writes that fear of the other is basic to human nature. He points out that the word allergy derives from the Greek word for "other." Difference is disquieting and can seem dangerous. However, to deny that differences exist is to deny reality.
To acknowledge difference is not to be a racist. It is only racism when all positive qualities are attributed to the oppressor group and all the negative ones to the subjugated group. Memmi believes racism has four elements—an insistence on difference, a negative valuation of that difference, the generalization of that difference to an entire group, and finally the use of that difference to justify hostility and aggression.
Ironically, even idealizing other cultures can be a form of racism. Placing people or a culture on a pedestal doesn't allow us to acknowledge people in all their complexity. Even compassion can be contemptuous if it causes us to ignore the great range of people within an ethnic group.
Racism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Discrimination leads to barriers and bad treatment of newcomers. This bad treatment in turn leads to poverty, bitterness, and social problems. On the other hand, respect and opportunities allow refugees to move quickly into mainstream culture. People will assimilate if they are welcomed; they'll cling to ethnic enclaves if they are not.
Soon we will all be together and more of us will be brown. The changes in our state are happening before our eyes. Our understanding of these changes must keep pace or there will be problems. Our social health requires us to fight the racism in ourselves, our communities, and our institutions. We will all benefit from a kinder, gender world.
The first step in fighting racism is becoming conscious of racism in ourselves. It's admitting our deepest fears and anxieties about people we see as "other." Step two involves developing empathy for others, "becoming intimate with what is foreign," as Alice Walker put it. One of the best ways to do this is to make friends with whoever seems "foreign." Then that person stops being a stereotype and becomes a complex human being like oneself. I know a university professor of Latin American studies who has his students each befriend a Latino immigrant for the semester. A high school teacher requires his students to mentor junior high refugees. Both teachers report that their students are transformed by the experience. Step three is to condemn racism. This means correcting people who use racist language, teaching our children that racism is wrong, and writing letters to the editor about racism in local issues and events. Step four requires us to fight the conditions that create racism. Decreasing anxiety and fear always helps. Just as we support diversity and difference,