THE POWER OF LOVE

It is hard to receive a finger pointing in your direction for something that you did not do. As a Black American, I totally get that. But if we are to become change agents in the solution to the problem of racism, we must admit that it exists. And we must admit that it is systemic. In America, it is in our DNA and we have to unlearn it. American racism, then, is not about people individually-it is about the systems that have supported it for centuries. I like the definition of racism given by The National Council of Churches Racial Justice Working Group: "Racism is the intentional or unintentional use of power to isolate, separate, and exploit others....Racism is more than just a personal attitude; it is the institutionalized form of the attitude."

I think in order to take emotions off the table in dealing with racism we must be logical in our study of it. As I learned in my first year of college, we must start by attempting to disprove the hypothesis. If we think that racism no longer exists, start by research in the opposite direction. This has been my working model that has helped me grow tremendously. While I have not changed my position on every issue, I certainly have gained a lot of knowledge about the other side. So I grew as I gained knowledge and I gained knowledge because I read…everything. I read what agrees with my positions and what does not. After all, SUN TZU advised that in order to win any struggle you have to know your opposition.

The Preamble to our Constitution talked about a goal: "to form a more perfect union". We are not there yet. And those lofty words even then did not acknowledge the disparities that existed. In order to reach those goals that the Preamble promised, we must open up the wounds of our ugly past in order to acknowledge it, move on, and have a more perfect future.

We must acknowledge that Black people were miseducated for a reason. During slavery a Black person could be blinded, beaten or killed for attempting to learn to read. After slavery "ended" there was no government mechanism in place to educate the former slaves. Separate and unequal schools were the law of the land until 1954. We only have to re-read NY Sen. Chuck Schumer's 2008 speech before the Urban League and Action for a Better Community, Inc. titled "The Crisis of African-American Male Unemployment" to see the link between lack of education and unemployment.

The mortgage crisis in this country occurred not because middle class people (both Black and white) put a gun to someone's head and made them give them a mortgage, but instead happened because of greed. Mortgage companies and banks and everyone in between made money and middle class people lost homes. But how has this been played out? Story after story of people (many of them Black, but certainly not all) portrayed as dishonest and liars simply because they wanted a piece of the American Dream. Right wing pundits often put a Black face on the guilty party in this crisis.

The criminal justice system has been highlighted most recently because of the Troy Davis execution. Like everybody, I do not know whether Troy Davis committed the crime for which the State of Georgia killed him. I do know, however, there was too much doubt to do so on September 21, 2011. North Carolina has instituted the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, a program to review all cases where defendants maintain their innocence. Three people have already been released. Craig Watkins, District Attorney in Dallas County established a Conviction Integrity Unit and as a result there have been 21 DNA exonerations as of February 2011. Most frightening, though, is that since 1973, 138 people in 26 states have been released from death row. 138 innocent people would have been killed if someone had not taken a second, and third, and maybe a fourth look at their case. The majority of these innocent citizens have been Black.

Lastly, the opposite of love is hate. There is a record high 1002 active hate groups in America as documented by the SPLC Intelligence Project. These are men and women who have professed on some level their dislike other men or women because of their ethnicity, the color of their skin, their sexual identity, or some other perceived difference. These men and women more than likely have children who they are also teaching hate. This hatred has now emboldened those who “represent” us in the halls of our local, state and national political institutions and now we regularly hear hate speech among our politicians. It has become an us versus them dialogue. We must repudiate them if they do not share our values.

As for me, I choose the power of love. And because knowledge always increases power, I choose to open my eyes fully and see how and why we are where we are as a society. And to do my part to pass this knowledge on. Most importantly, I try also to reconcile all the above with the words spoken in the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians.