The Wealth of Our Nation

Today was going to be a post about talking with my grandmother, but a timely post relating to it being the observed anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth seemed appropriate. Prompting this topic change, a friend of mine from high school, whom I believe is a German currently living abroad in London, posted this article reflecting on the state of the races in public education. To sum it up, we are more segregated today than we were at the time of King's assassination, we are not doing enough to reverse this trend, and there is evidence that this is quite harmful to our education system.

Fortunately for you, my dear reader, I abhor doom and gloom calls to action. If forced to confront something horrible, say in an ad on Hulu, I am quite likely to make an internal joke about it in order to maintain my sense of self worth, such as it is, in the face of tragedy that I feel I can do nothing meaningful to ameliorate. So, rather than lament about racism in modern America, let us look at the richness that we have available to us.

It should not be news to you that the US has a long and sordid history of inter-racial interaction. To hit some lowlights, there was the acquisition of our geographical location from people who happened to already be living here, the enslavement and subsequent suppression of a rather large people group, concentration (I mean internment) camps, eugenics, and human experimentation, to list the worst ones to come to mind. However, keep in mind that our nations particularly vile history is, in big part, due to our rich diversity in people groups.

There is a correlation between how uniform a nation's population is and how much unrest it experiences. From this fact one can draw one of two conclusions, segregationists are justified and we ought try to keep races separate, or we here in the United States have a great opportunity to learn to coexist, a skill critically important as the world's far flung regions become more closely intertwined. Since I am not so much for segregation, I favor the latter.

How unique is our situation? I didn't look through the entire CIA world fact book, but here are some highlights. The UK, which appears to have a much more urbane view on racial equality, about 90% European. The data for France is less clear, since they have laws forbidding racial identification in census data, but working it out from a Wikipedia article, I estimate their European population to be at least 90% of the total. Germany is also at about 90%, as is Russia. In Sweden, that Western European socialist paradise, Swedes and Finns already make up 90% of the population between them. Consider the US, which is only 80% white, and here even the white population is more diverse than in a typical Western European nation. It is only natural that we have rockier racial relations, although this does not absolve us the responsibility to work through them.

The only other country with an 80-20 split that I found, South Africa. There was one nation that had an even smaller majority population, which was Canada. While we all no Canada is pretty much a Utopian dream state, another factor in their rather low atrocity to racial diversity ratio is their cultural view on race. Consider that, of the 34% of their population that is non-European, 26% is listed as mixed background. In the US only about 1.5% is listed as mixed background, and I seriously doubt these two numbers are measuring the same population.

In the US there has been a strong push to fit into neat categories, much to the detriment of inter-racial families, not that there weren't other factors mitigating against them. Consider our president, often called the first black president of the US. Calling him the first interracial president of the US somehow lacks the same kick in our society. Furthermore, the US census does not have a separate neat category for Latina/Latino peoples, so they tend to be in that 80% white. If one considers them to be, in some way, separate from white Americans, then it is projected that by the year 2050 whites will be a minority in the US, albeit the largest one at slightly less than 50%, but a minority nonetheless.

But wait, which nation has the low atrocity to racial diversity ratio, that's right, Canada. I think that there is much to be copied from their approach. Continuing the move away from a dichotomous classification of one's racial identity is an important step. If we cannot acknowledge that two races can equitably coexist inside one person, it seems a grim potent for their peaceful cohabitation of our nation. To take this a step further, I think that it is important to deprioritize racial affiliation. This does not mean ignoring unpleasant facts like the disproportional poverty levels in one people group over another, but rather examining if confounding factors like economic class of one's parents are better indicators than race. In short, I worry about our future if we continue to wrestle with the problem of inter-racial relations, but if we reframe the question as one of intra-humanitarian relations, keeping in mind the historic context which includes race without giving it undue significance, then I think we can forge ahead to a better future.

Travelogue II: Fear and Hope

There have been two main emotions evoked thus far in my travelings, assuming exhaustion is not an emotion, and they are fear and hope. Let us start with the fear, for it came first.

Aside from the mundane fears of missing flights, connections, or getting stabbed to death in the gritty streets of Portland, I experienced some more interesting fears this trip. As I mentioned yesterday, I started out at the wrong terminal, which definitely contributed to my fear of missing my flight; however, on the bus I experienced a different type of fear. I took a shuttle to the other terminal and, in the course of that interminable seeming journey, two men of vaguely Persian appearance got on board. And let me stress here that it was very much of vague appearance; logically I realize that their facial features match those of people that I know from the Indian Subcontinent all the way to Italy. However, after they shared a slight nod, I began to evaluate whether or not they were a threat.

Of course my association of their appearance with the Middle East informed my fear in the encounter, and of course I think that this is an undesirable thing. That said, I think it is an important thing to admit and confront. When the frenzy of condemnation for the NPR analyst occurred, I was tempted to make a similar point, but cowed into quiet by the overwhelming negative backlash to his revelation. From my understanding he was trying to say that increased wariness around people perceived to be of Middle Eastern descent was both natural and should not be condemned.

I agree with both points, although perhaps for different reasons than he has. It is natural; human beings associate to concepts whether we are being told that they are linked, or being explicitly told that they are not. So, whatever you say when you argue about all Irishmen being drunkards, you are reinforcing the mental connection between the concepts. I also agree that it should not be condemned, not because it is desirable that we have these fears, not even because it is natural that we have these fears, but because I believe an open, rational examination of our darker emotions is beneficial necessary if we are to come to terms with them, rather than be ruled by them. If we produce public outcry when people admit to these human failings, it seems that we only push them deeper, which seems to causes them to fester rather than disappear. Try not to think about white bears, you only end up thinking about them more. Thus, I would rather see admission, without acceptance, of such problematic responses, as I am trying to do here.

That is all I have to say about that facet of fear, but I do think it worth noting the other thoughts that entered my mind as I wondered if the shuttle that I was on was about to become a smoldering wreckage. One big thought was that it was terribly unlikely to be the case, followed by the more interesting and less comforting thought that the same could be said to be true for anyone else right before they were blown up. This led to some wondering if other victims of sudden bombings were considering whether they were about to become victims right before they did. Of course, some people have sure knowledge that they are in danger, but I was curious if someone else had been reassuring themselves that this sort of thing was terribly unlikely to occur to them at this specific moment, right before it actually occurred. An interesting exercise in imagination, and all I have to say about this experience.

The next big fear I experienced was caused by turbulence taking off in Denver. There had been a little rough air on our descent, but nothing compared to the shaking we experienced on the way out. I felt something different between the abstract recognition that the aircraft was being shaken quite powerfully, and the visceral response that I had to my falling sensation being activated repeatedly. The involuntary terror of this experience led me to wonder if I could keep my composure in a panicked situation. Setting aside the fact that I think calm produces better results than panic, even if there were no way for me to affect my demise, I should prefer to end my life in quiet reflection, rather than mindless terror. This is one of the reasons I try to look out the window as I land, as last experiences go, soaring over the ground does not seem like a terrible one.

And, after all the fear was released, there still was hope left at the bottom of my heart. At the Beaverton library, a beautiful structure by the way, I was quite upset to discover the Wi-Fi required an ID and password to access. Their gorgeous facility turned mocking in my mind if they were the first library I had ever encountered to limit free use of the Internet thusly. However, when I resorted to asking directions to Powell's bookstore, the destination I was trying to look up, I noticed a list of usernames and passwords for guests to use on the desk. This library, like all the others I had visited, did have Internet, for free, for anyone who cared to partake. As I walked away from that lovely building, it occurred to me that we build these places in so many of our cities and towns. Places where people give away books and information for free to those so inclined to make use of them responsibly. Public libraries were already a place that held great emotional meaning to me, and this seems a good reason to add more. This seems like something worth inspiring a little hope for us poor, frightened, lost humans.