Race: Are We So Different?

From June 18, 2011, through January 1, 2012, the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, will be hosting an exhibit called “Race: Are We So Different?”

The exhibition RACE: Are we so different? brings together the everyday experience of living with race, its history as an idea, the role of science in that history, and the findings of contemporary science that are challenging its foundations.

Interactive exhibit components, historical artifacts, iconic objects, compelling photographs, multimedia presentations, and attractive graphic displays offer visitors to RACE an eye-opening look at its important subject matter.

Developed by the American Anthropological Association in collaboration with the Science Museum of Minnesota, RACE is the first nationally traveling exhibition to tell the stories of race from the biological, cultural, and historical points of view. Combining these perspectives offers an unprecedented look at race and racism in the United States.

Other museums have been and will be hosting this exhibit as well. Current and upcoming locations include Boston, Charlotte, Santa Barbara, New Orleans, Houston, and Durham. Please visit the official website for a virtual tour and the tour schedule.

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A Long History of Racial Preferences… For Whites

Larry Adelman writes:

Many middle-class white people, especially those of us who grew up in the suburbs, like to think that we got to where we are today by virtue of our merit– hard work, intelligence, pluck, and maybe a little luck. And while we may be sympathetic to the plight of others, we close down when we hear the words “affirmative action” or “racial preferences.” We worked hard, we made it on our own, the thinking goes, why don’t “they”? After all, it’s been almost 40 years now since the Civil Rights Act was passed.

What we don’t readily acknowledge is that racial preferences have a long, institutional history in this country– a white history.

Read more.

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Uncle Sam’s Shameful Treatment of Today’s American Indians

Last year for Columbus Day I looked back into history. This year I would like to draw your attention to the present by recommending Walt Rodgers’ recent article “Uncle Sam’s Shameful Treatment of Today’s American Indians.”

Here’s an excerpt:

Jim Adams, a historian and former editor of the national weekly newspaper Indian Country Today, says the maltreatment of the Indians in the Trans-Mississippi West “is directly proportional to their resistance to migrating whites in the 19th century. Those who took arms and gave the US Cavalry its greatest thrashings have been treated most harshly from the 1876 Custer massacre until today.”

Americans fancy themselves a fair and forgiving people. Today, we are one of Vietnam’s largest trading partners. The US and Vietnamese navies recently conducted joint naval maneuvers. But our discrimination against the victorious tribes at Little Bighorn is unconscionable. We treat Iraqis and Afghans better than native Americans.

If you associate reservations with shiny casinos, go look up tribal health and poverty statistics. From unemployment to disease and suicide, they paint a picture of third-world conditions.

The Oglala Sioux who spearheaded resistance in the 1860s and ’70s may feel the punishment worst. Some still live in tar-paper shacks. The White Man’s vengeance is often subtle. We took proud, self-sufficient people and condemned them to a dependent reservation culture. Then we arrogantly ask “Why are they lazy? Why do they drink?”

A white woman who works at a Sioux school said, “There’s a part of me that asks, ‘How long is this going to go on?’”

Read the rest of the article.

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Take a Picture With a Real Indian

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Taking it home for the holidays

I’ve often struggled personally with how to reconcile my education as a budding anti-racist with the realities of my family life.  Inevitably at this time of year, when prayers of thanksgiving are offered in my church and in the homes of various family members, we tend to gloss over or flat out ignore the significance of this day in our nation’s history.

As kids, we’re taught all kinds of wrong things about the first Thanksgiving.  Fortunately, things are improving from the time when I was a child parading around in a paper-feathered headdress in a school play.  Scholastic even has some advice for educators who still haven’t gotten the story right.  As Resist Racism points out, this is often the only time of year that non-native people even think about Native Americans, and sadly, our thinking is usually caricature.

While in my own little piece of the world, I’m reading and blogging about racial injustice, white privilege, and the life, what happens when I go home with my head full of this stuff and encounter challenges at the dinner table?  How can I present what I’ve learned in a gracious way but still remain committed to my ideals?

Love Isn’t Enough has a great guide for alternative activities that would be helpful if I were teaching elementary school, but inviting my family over for a day of mourning in solidarity with my native brothers and sisters wouldn’t exactly fly at Thanksgiving with the in-laws.  The mere mental image of that scene reminds me of the passage that says,

And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.’ -Matthew 13:57

I’m not looking to get run out of town, or stoned, but I know that often times those are the breaks for doing the right thing. I’ve taken my fair-share of attempts at insult, bearing up under the labels of “bleeding-heart” (which doesn’t really hurt my feelings) or hearing, “lighten up, you’re so sensitive.”

For me, it’s not just limited to participating in activities where people will remember to thank God for the bounty of America, while ignoring the past and present pain our riches have cost others.  We never neglect to give thanks for the troops, but often forget all those civilians killed in the crossfighting.

It’s also the fact that in many of these family gatherings, there will be open use of racial slurs, or stereotypes.  Because ours is a white family, we are a meeting of “us” that can launch into conversations about “them.”  Do I confront these things?  Make passive-aggressive sarcastic comments (as I’m prone to do)?  Should I make a scene or let these things pass knowing that this will be my children’s only exposure to most of the folks for a whole year, and my husband and I can clean up the mess later?

I’ve done it all, and rarely gotten any of it right.  Anyone out there have similar experiences?  How (if at all) do you handle it when you go home with this for the holidays?

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