America's Race Problem

Paul R. Lehman, American Democracy: Truth, Falsehood, Falsehoods as truths, and Reality

PART THREE of three

American history has always been taught with a spin that underscores the importance of the European, Anglo-Saxon male. Starting with the pilgrims and subsequently the Puritan who came from England to tame and develop a strange, wild, land given to them by God. The average American educational system also underscores the inalienable rights granted by the Constitution to European American men. The European Americans know from living in American society, the power, privileges, and supremacy available to them, but not to people of color. In addition, the European Americans also know that the system of supremacy denies the rights they enjoy to the people of color. Chief Justice Taney’s opinions in the Dred Scott Case, 1854, noted that the founding fathers, the framers of the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution that: “They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery.”No one offered a disclaimer to that statement until the 13^th and 14^th Amendment. The laws changed, but the mindset of many European Americans remains as Taney stated.

Nevertheless, many European Americans do not see themselves as the reason and cause of people of color not enjoying their rights. The failure of the people of color not enjoying their inalienable rights European Americans believe is due to their inferiority, some additional personal faults, and/ or maybe it is still God’s will. In any event, the perception of the European Americans of themselves is based on the false premise of a race by color, and an hypocritical view of democracy as presented through American history and public education. In essence, their sense and view of reality are based on falsehoods, however, to them, it is based on truth and facts. Consequently, African Americans face discrimination daily from European Americans who do not realize their actions are biased.

Many social changes continue to occur in America since the founding fathers instituted their system of European American supremacy and African American inferiority. The more significant changes involve the actions of African Americans seeking access to their inalienable rights granted by the Constitution and denied by society. Fortunately, America is a society governed by laws, and it is through these laws that changes in the social structure are available. The laws were written without respect to color, but the enjoyment of those rights was based on the ability for those laws to be enforced. African Americans did not enjoy the support of society in enforcing the laws that discriminated and disenfranchised them. For the African Americans, their reality has been the constant and continuous struggle to obtain and enjoy those inalienable rights. A problem for some European Americans, especially the young European American man in question, is that with each gain for rights made by African Americans, represents a loss to them.

A problem consistent in interviews that involve extreme concepts of ethnic bigotry such as the one in question is the fact that the interviewer never challenges the young European American’s concept of race. In other words, questions like: what does white mean? How can whiteness be determined and who determines it? What is a race? How can a percentage of whiteness be determined? He is allowed to continue embracing his false concept of race and, in fact, becomes emboldened in his belief because it is not challenged or debunked.

As long as the interviewer accepts the concept of race from the young European American’s perspective, the conversation will remain cyclical, and his bigotry will go unchallenged. In order for change to occur in the conversation facts and reality associated with those facts must be introduced and considered. The presence and contributions made to America by African Americans are not fiction, but real and documented facts of significance. The recently opened building, The National Museum of African American History and Culture, as well as the statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., situated on the mall, gives proof and evidence to the contributions of Africans Americans to American history and society. The introduction of DNA and its findings are real and important to our understanding of truth and scientific facts. When the DNA scientists reported that their finding indicated that all human being were 99.9 percent alike, we have no reason to doubt them. They concluded that race cannot be discerned from our DNA. While Americans can disagree with the findings that debunk the concept of race by color, they cannot change them. However, if the concept on which the system of ethnic bigotry is based is not challenged, change is not possible.

The young European American who sees himself as white must be presented fact and evidence to replace the falsehoods he has been living with all his life. His acceptance of the facts and evidence relative to race represents the problem as well as the challenge. What rational and logical people view as falsehoods, the young European American views as truth.

Changes in American society are taking place on more rapid basis than in the past because of the many advances in technology and other areas. Many of the changes we are able to witness on a daily base. One of those changes is in the demographics of society. More and more American society is browning because of the mixture of its ethnic population and the union of representatives of different ethnic cultures. The concept of races by color or culture is quickly fading and the significance of race losing its social value. The problem of race has become so confusing that the U.S.Census Bureau simply allows people to identify themselves by providing a space labeled “other.”

However, what is needed is a concerted effort to bring out the factual truth and separate it from the falsehoods. All the lies, myths, deceits, hypocrisy associated with race and American history and society must be confronted and debunked. By doing so, we will be able to see who we are and what we want to be and to start to engage in sound communications. The choice is ours to make; we can be either agent of change or its victims. Either way, change will continue to occur.

The young European American man who sees America as a white society must be given the opportunity to see the falsehood that has been guiding his life as truths. If he is able to recognize and accept those falsehoods for what they are, then a positive change in his perception is possible. If he is unable to discern the truth from the falsehoods then his life will continue to be filled with the disappointments and the loss of his sense of value and self-importance as a European American (white) man in an ethnically diverse society and world. The ideal objective of our future society is for all Americans, especially the young European American, to replace his whiteness with actual truths and facts and be able to state honestly and freely the ending of the Pledge of Allegiance that underscores “liberty and justice for all.”