Is Racism Dead?

Some have suggested that I probably put too much pressure on my kindergartener if he was so stressed about a school election. Let me explain what happened the day before. I have also been blessed with an energetic four-year-old. On Monday, before the election, he came home from pre-school very excited because he had the opportunity to vote in school. He smiled proudly as he told me how he had voted for Barak Obama. I only began talking to my small children about politics because it was clear that someone else was already doing so.

What’s really interesting about the whole situation is the method they used at both my sons’ schools. The children were shown pictures of the candidates and asked to point to the one they chose. We live in an area of the country where my blonde-hair, blue eyed children are a clear minority. My kindergartener is the only white child in his class. I chose the school for the programs it offered, but passed up another school which was closer to my home and offered similar programs because I was told it had some tension between different ethnic groups. That school had many more white children than the one I chose. My reasoning was simple: he could not be part of a faction if he was an anomaly. I do not want my children to even notice skin color, let alone be influenced by it. I found it interesting that my son looked at the pictures and did not pick the one that looked like him and his family. Whatever his reasons for choosing Barak Obama, race was not in it. This, I believe, is what it means to not be racist.

Many do not share my definition. In both the concession speech by John McCain and the victory speech by the president elect, a main theme was the gigantic step this country has taken by electing a black man president. This bothered me. In my mind, it is racism of another kind. Shouldn’t the main theme of an election victory be the victory of the politics represented by the candidate? Shouldn’t we care less about the color of a man’s skin and much more about what he believes is best for our country? I suppose it is more than can be hoped for during an election where we were out to prove that we weren’t racist. But someone who is truly colorblind doesn’t have to prove it.

The librarian who conducted the election at my kindergartener’s school noted that one child when shown the pictures of the candidates and asked to choose, looked a little confused and then asked, “Which one is the black one?” Perhaps the parent who told him to “vote for the black one” only meant it as a description so the child would know the candidate with the better vision for America. Perhaps. But the child was clean of the bias that plagues so many in the world and only saw two men in the pictures, not grouping them into racial categories.

During this election we saw black panthers intimidating voters. We saw a white McCain worker make up a story of being assaulted by a large black man supporting the Obama. We had a candidate who attends a church that proudly defines itself as only for people of a particular race. Further, as always, we had polls that grouped voters on categories according to their race and ethnicity, as if they all should vote the same. And we had a victory that was considered more important in terms of civil rights than politics which could change the face of this country for our children.

What is my point? Am I arguing that progress hasn’t been made? Of course not. The world we live in today is much better than the one plagued by segregation and open hostility. My point is that progress cannot be legislated. If we truly want racial equality, it comes with freedom. Each time the government attempts to dictate equality, another type of discrimination is born. People resent being told what to do and others resent being forced to accept help from a government for something they can do themselves. Have hope in the people of this amazing nation. Most of us want racial equality. Most of us teach our children what is right and wrong. Let those who insist on being racist make fools of themselves until they get tired of looking idiotic. Nobody should have to prove they're not racist by endorsing reverse racism. I look forward hopefully to the day when the little boy who asked which candidate was the “black man” will look at a spectrum of politicians in every color and gender and ask, “Which one is best for America?”

Racism will only truly die when we stop trying to make it a martyr.

The Battle Continues

Yesterday my five-year-old came home from kindergarten with a sticker on that read, “I voted.” I smiled at him and asked if he voted in school today. He looked down at the floor and immediately his breathing changed. He gasped and tears started running down his cheeks which he tried to brush away, embarrassed. He said, “I voted for John McCain, but everyone else voted for Barak Obama.” By the end, his tears were coming too hot and fast to brush away and my heart sank as far as it possibly could. This was definitely not something wanted my little boy stressing over. I faked a smile and told him that it was okay and he didn’t need to be sad about it. He looked up at me with extremely intense little eyes and said, almost without more tears, “But Marcos voted for Barack Obama too and, and…” the tears flowed freely once again, “Barak Obama won.”


I started to see the overwhelming complexity of the dilemma facing my little one. I knew how much he loved his friend Marcos. I also knew how much he loved his parents, who had made it clear that we believed in freedom and could, thus, not support the Democratic nominee. He had voted knowing he was making the right choice. But had he expected that the reason a choice was right was because it was the winning choice? Had he been confident, because of his parents, that his candidate would win and felt completely betrayed that he hadn’t? I knew I was facing a very delicate situation. I could not say anything derogatory about the choice his friends had made. Apparently he was already being shunned and mocked at school for standing up and being different. On the other hand, I had to make it clear that the choice he had made was right, despite being unpopular. It was all only a microcosm for the feelings I would inevitably face later in the day as the results of the National election were announced.


The crux of the message I gave Ryan must be said again, for everyone that made the right, if unpopular, choice yesterday. I believe deeply that freedom is not just a social construct or a result of our culture. Freedom is a moral issue. My belief in God makes it one. If we were created by an all-powerful Heavenly Father, then it is absolutely clear that the most primary of his gifts to us is our free agency. He does not dictate our lives. He only gives us correct council which is ours to accept or reject. The trouble is that when we reject the correct way, we always end up losing, by our own design, that free agency we were given. Take, for example, the individual who chooses to become a slave to drugs, alcohol or tobacco. Of course, she never considers the slavery she is subjecting herself to and probably remains convinced that she is still free, long after the war has been lost. I have a very intuitive friend who once told me that “everything evil is addictive.” I think that is a very profound statement.


But in the sense of government, the tradeoff is even more obvious. When you decide to ask the government for more services or money, you are inherently surrendering some of your individual agency in exchange. This principle is painfully clear in the school system where I live. They provide free preschool here, but you cannot take your child out of school without meeting their rules. (death in the family, hospitalization, or illness) If you do, or neglect to provide proof of your child’s illness, they will take you to court. I am not kidding. According to this state, I am not even qualified to decide if my own son is too sick to attend school. I have to visit a doctor for the simplest viral illness. And yet people continue to willingly surrender their rights, even the right to parent their own children, to the government.


This is all a little advanced for a five-year-old. But I desperately wanted my son to understand. So, I explained to him that we have the right to choose and when we make good choices, good things happen and when we make bad choices, bad things happen. I told him that it was okay that his friends made a different choice than him because they have the right to choose too, and we must never deny them that right. I couldn’t explain to him that free agency never only affects you, however. I couldn’t tell him how a family may be destroyed by a parent’s decision to take drugs or how a country could be destroyed by the choices of some when the right choice is unpopular. He’s too small to really understand that.


Luckily, my son taught me something as well. I wanted him to understand that we needed to continue pushing forward and standing up for our free agency even when it is not popular. I wanted him to understand that we can be happy no matter the circumstances brought about by others' choices. I wanted him to understand that his friendships should not be sacrificed because of a difference of opinion and that he should continue to love those around him, no matter what choices they made. In telling him these concepts, I also told them to myself.


Sometimes I feel like this country is floating so far away from the liberty on which it was founded that hope for freedom is winking out. I am afraid as the government grows bigger and my choices grow smaller. But my son’s elementary school election taught me that my family will pick up and move on. I will continue fight for the cause of freedom in my choices, even the freedom of those whose choices would hurt me. I will do it because it is right. Throughout history, this cause has often been unpopular and frequently seemed completely lost. It is not.


This morning I dressed my son in his American flag t-shirt and sent him back to the battleground. To those of us still fighting, remember that before the ballots are all counted, there are still 55,729,124 of us on the side of freedom. Many of us didn’t support John McCain in the primary, but we didn’t give up, because our cause is just. There are still right choices to be made. Our God-given agency is not gone.