Jordan M. Allen - postracial a noxious gas of a concept

[Jordan Myska Allen]

In the sixties there was a collective jump in understanding, a cultural development of consciousness which said what's important in life is not just to get ahead, to have a good economy, to study things and think them through with reason. Instead people across our nation and across the globe started to value equality, mercy, passion and emotion. This shift signaled the beginning of the end of a world smitten with by modern values; dominated by factories, capitalism and science. The new postmodern paradigm, like the modern and premodern paradigms before it, offers us incredible insight and innovative solutions to increasingly complex problems, yet like its predecessors also lures humankind into its seamy underbelly with the potential to destroy everything that it claims to hold precious. I believe the idea that we live in a post-racial society is indeed a noxious gas of a concept which threatens to choke just beliefs and righteous actions and allow instead old prejudices to fester and spread unfettered.

To many a post racial society is paradise. Now that we've elected a half black president we must congratulate ourselves for getting beyond centuries of slavery and oppression and celebrate at the table of brotherhood. This is an appealing idea. There are two problems with this - (1) it is denial - there are a hundred million people who don't think the same way - and (2) it denies the beauty and possibilities that come from playing with differences, no matter how arbitrary.

On the denial side - my grandfather makes racist jokes and I consistently witness friends using the term "nigger" as an insult (much to my chagrin). It is a fact that the racial divide is still wide and deep. Yes, many strong bridges have been built. But the chasm has not been filled in not all have access to crossing over. In fact new earth has split as we continue to divide our culture into "legal" and "illegal" immigrants, Arabs and jihadists. To pretend that this doesn't continue, to declare that "nigger" can now be said because it doesn't just apply to blacks anymore and it doesn't hold any real power ignores the fact that millions of people fight and cry and kill over words and beliefs that we don't value. Declaring our society post-racial is like telling all your friends they don't need to wear seat belts because you're a safe driver. Don't forget there are hundreds of other people on the road.

Plus the idea of going beyond race attempts to bulldoze a beautiful landscape of diversity and create a two dimensional flatland instead. This is the problem with that aforementioned shift in consciousness precipitated in the sixties - the postmodern human refuses to accept any hierarchies. In it's bold assertion that each person has a right to their own opinion it excludes the opinion that some opinions are better or more appropriate for certain conditions than others. Don't say the US offers more freedom and opportunity to the average person than Cuba because that's not fair to the Cubans, they might assert. The glorious revelation that no one holds a monopoly on the truth goes too far by rejecting all truth. Recognizing race as a social construct and not a scientific reality is a huge leap to which we can thank the postmodern sunglasses through which we see the world. Yet these glasses blind us to the fact that even as a social construct race exists, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Let's take another metaphorical look at arbitrary socially constructed divisions and how they can be healthy. At Rice, my Alma Mater, we have a very robust intramural sports (IM) league. The teams are completely arbitrarily created - Freshmen are divided into random colleges (like the houses in Harry Potter) and have no uniting element other than where they live. Intra-college IM sports get intense - the level of competition is high and everyone gets a better workout and plays to a higher level because they want to win for their college - a socially constructed barrier like race. At the end of the day, all the colleges party together, they attend class together, they date and marry and travel irrespective of college identification. Yet during IM games they are separate, and the games are just so much more fun as a result.

I'm not saying that we should have an all Vietnamese basketball team playing an all Russian team. That doesn't honor the contribution of the egalitarian mindset. I'm saying there is a way of viewing race which transcends the premodern tribal separations, the modern individualism, the postmodern flatland and includes their contributions of cultural traditions, hard work surpassing all barriers, and equal rights into a integrated vision which respects race as a valuable creation of society without discriminating or stereotyping people on the basis of ephemeral distinctions.

[Jordan Myska Allen]

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