The other day Mr. Spherical Model was commenting on how much
he enjoys working with a particular client. The main person who brings him in
on projects is especially pleasant. She’s high energy, has a good sense of
humor, works well with others—on top of being good in her field of expertise.
They had an exchange over the weekend about postponing a scheduled
meeting because of a family emergency, and Mr. Spherical Model said he’d be
praying for her. And she thanked him and said that, because he’s such an angel,
she’s sure the prayers would be answered.
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| Martin Luther King, Jr. image found on Facebook |
Other people at that company are also great to work with.
They’re kind of our favorites right now.
For whatever reason, the company appears to be a majority
black, plus a fair amount of Hispanic, at least here at the office we’ve worked
with. But color doesn’t seem to be an issue. It has never come up in any of our
discussions. Since we are the minority there—one that the media would tell you
is privileged and all kinds of negatives—it’s nice to be treated as though we’re
just additional great people to work with.
In other words, it’s about content of character, not color
of skin.
Politics have never come up. Family values may have come up
at times. Respect for co-workers and customers comes up frequently as part of
the job. Part of the company’s ability to prosper depends on workers treating
customers with respect—even when, or especially when, they have complaints.
Everybody prospers when people treat one another as valuable
human beings.
Skin color is so irrelevant that we never talked about it, except
looking at the situation around the time of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.
Our experience is that his dream is reality, which is worth saying.
The irrelevance of race is our experience, in general. We
encounter a pretty wide array of races and ethnicities in the very cosmopolitan
salad bowl that is Houston, Texas. In church. In Scouting. In community
organizations related to politics or service. In business.
That’s why it’s so puzzling when the media story is that the
country is so hateful and racist. I don’t believe it. It’s not that the evil of
racism is non-existent; it’s just that it is anathema to civilization, so you
don’t find it except where savagery wins.
We saw an example this past weekend, at the March for Life.
A group of Catholic students from Kentucky was gathering near the Lincoln
Memorial after the march, and after some sight-seeing, to wait for their bus.
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| screenshot image found here |
A group of adults came at them, shouted vile epithets at
them, tried to provoke them (unsuccessfully). A Native American man, playing a
drum, walked into the group, banged the drum in the face of a young man, whose
personal space was invaded, but the boy was respectful.
This is all on video. But the media attacked the boys,
falsely telling the story, editing video to create the negative story about
them they wanted, claiming the chant was done as they surrounded and attacked
the Native American man to taunt him. (There’s a good retelling of the entire
story here.)
There were two racist elements in this kerfuffle involving Catholic
boys who favored ending abortion. One was that the adult group attacking the
boys was black. Not a typical black group, but what some have referred to as a
cult of black supremacists called Black Hebrew Israelites. They are a known group; they do this kind of attack
frequently. Any journalist who has spent time in New York or Washington, DC, has
likely encountered these people and knows exactly who they are and what they
do, so they would have known without any confusion that they were the ones
attacking the boys, not the other way around.
The other racist element was the Native American, Nathan Phillips and those
with him. He used his race to lie about being a victim when the boys had done
nothing wrong—and in fact were very respectful to him, considering his
purposeful entering of their group and playing his drum in their faces. One of
his companions shouted at the boys, apparently trying to provoke them, and told
them they had stolen the land and should go back to Europe.
I don’t know about the black group’s protest purpose for the
day, but it was footage from their video—an unedited hour and a 46 minutes—that shows them shouting vile things at
the boys, and records the boys shouting only school cheers in an attempt to
cover up the vile words being hurled at them.
The Native Americans were there for a demonstration, completely
separate from the March for Life, that just happened to coincide nearby.
Whether the man with the drum actually thought the boys were attacking the
black men, or was simply lying, is hard to know for certain. But his actions
and those around him show no evidence of racism from the boys—only towards
them.
Social media attacked the boys. One of their chaperones was
on Glenn Beck Radio this morning. If I understood her story, their school
website was hacked in an attempt to get the boys’ names and private information
to “dox” them (which included boys who hadn’t even been on the trip).
The media, aided and abetted by social media, served as
accuser, judge, jury, and executioner for some boys on a school trip. Young
boys. Teenagers. Who believe in protecting the unborn. Based on a brief video
clip—purposely clipped to prevent showing context—that in itself shows them
doing nothing wrong, but is used to foment hate towards them anyway.
This attack happened on the very steps in front of the
location where Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Two things can be true simultaneously. One is that, for the
vast majority of Americans, MLK’s dream has come true. The other is that, for
those who want to find racism, they’ll create it where it doesn’t exist and use
it for their own racist purposes. What we need is for that second thing to be
even more rare.
Maybe we all need to make it a practice to take a step back,
from any media story—or any anecdotal story we encounter—and wait. See if more
context or detail comes out. In the meantime, give people the benefit of the
doubt. Because most of America is made up of people who like each other and don’t
even understand what the anger is about. In our civilized lives, racism is not
part of our personal experience.
