With all the discussion about racism being everywhere, why don't we just concentrate on a few of the tall tent poles first? This blog will stress this point.
We all have many friends, but do we ever think about just who those friends are or are "not"? I don't think so. I want to talk about all those people who are "not" our friends. Who are they? Do they have anything in common? One of the key points that most people never think about is that for someone to be a friend, we first need some kind of encounter. Note that we don't have friends who we have never met, so we have to first start with that set of possible friends. We all know that most people tend to associate with people in our families and local community. We also know that most people in a family are "related" and are of the same "race". Given that starting point, it is no wonder that the USA has communities that are arranged by race. That is a fact and it is caused by our natural preferences to be associated with our family or extended family. Does that mean we are all racists? I don't think so.
When I was about 8 or 9 years old, we lived in a house that we rented from a Mexican family. There was a Black family across the alley from us and I played with them and walked to school with them. I used to eat tortillas made by the mother of one of my best Mexican friends. After WWII, my family moved to a different area and we purchased a farm and I had to leave my friends. In this new area there were no Mexicans or Blacks so I did not have any Mexican or Black friends. Did that mean that I had become some kind of racist? I don't think so. It was just a change of situations that had nothing to do with race.
In this new place, I did make a lot of new friends, but not everyone in the new place became one of my friends. Why was that? I liked being with some of the people and they became friends while I did not like being with other and thus they did not become friends. We all do exactly this same thing when it comes to who is and who is not one of our friends.
I got to thinking about who was and who was not one of my friends and you could learn from doing the same thing. To "Keep It Simple", here is what I came up with. What we all do is divide individuals into at least two groups. Those who we would like for friends and those who we reject as possible friends. Here is a few of my rules that I use to reject those who I do not prefer as friends.
(1) People who have children out of wedlock
(2) People who resist arrest by the police
(3) People who do not complete high school
Your list could be longer or shorter, but I do not have any friends who have violated the three "Simple" rules above. Do these rules make me some kind of racist? Realize that I have had very few personal encounters with Blacks or Mexicans since moving so I have not been able to apply my "Simple" rules to them, but I can assure you that I do not have any White friends who violate the above rules.
This is just theoretical since I have few encounters with Blacks, but if they violate one of the three rules above, they will not be one of my friends. Otherwise they would be in my possible friend set. If Blacks want to be considered for friends of Whites, they should be responsible enough not to violate one of my three rules above. This is clearly a two way street and it requires honest efforts on both sides.
I was just reading a book about the progress of Blacks since the Civil War written in 1882 that traced the progress that Blacks had made up to that time. I was very impressed with education and the roll that Howard University had contributed as well as other Black colleges. It appears that the stress on education within the Black community has actually declined in the past 100 years within the Black community. Why is that? It seems to me that the solution has to come from within the Black community, not from the outside. During this same period, the out of wedlock birth rate within the Black community has also increased and I do not know why either, but the< again, the solution has to come from within the Black community, not from the out side. Regarding resisting arrest by the police, that too has clearly grown worse, but why?
If Blacks want to be considered as possible friends of mine they have to follow the same simple rules that I apply to Whites. I have told all what some of my rules are, so why don't some Blacks tell me what their rules are for me to be considered as one of their friends? It goes both ways doesn't it?
PS----Regarding resisting arrest, I figured it out. It is the responsibility of the "father" to instruct and train their children to not resist arrest and cooperate with the police. If the child does not cooperate with the police and resists arrest, it is the fault of the father. As far as the police, they should be trained and be required to us the least amount of force necessary to effect the arrest. The amount of force required will be totally in the control of the person being arrested and thus the responsibility of the person's father. Could it be simpler?
