Recently, students took a break from whining about flip-flops, crying over possible Early Decision deferrals (or even rejections! Pingry students being told “no”? The horror!), and writing self-important columns for The Record in order to discuss the off-color topic of race. For many, talking about race is as disconcerting as seeing Senator Robert Byrd and David Duke shopping together for white bed sheets.
Now, I was about as shocked as anyone to hear that race was an issue in Pingry. Actually, I was just as shocked to hear that race was still an issue in America. Last I checked the good guys won the Civil War, Lincoln made everyone friends again, and Jackie Robinson showed that Blacks can participate, and perhaps even excel, in major league sporting events.
So, given this color blind society, why are we talking about race at Pingry, instead of important topics, like our GPAs and Yale and Harvard applications? The answer is: I don’t care why. Discussion of race is not the result of problematic signs posted above the couches. Not discussing race is the result of not having signs posted above the couches. Congratulations to the students who catalyzed the dialogue and who managed to provoke the status quo, and congratulations to all students who realize how silly much of high school is and decide to stir things up or pay attention to things that might actually matter (not that your personally driven pursuit of an “A” average doesn’t matter, but...um...sorry, couldn’t finish that with a straight face).
So maybe the visions of slain proponents of equality, like Martin Luther King Jr, Fred Hampton, Jesus, Bobby Kennedy, John Brown, and many others, are far from being realized. To find out why, maybe we should look to the leaders of this country. Fortunately, I was able to contact some of them. My conversations were as follows:
Me: Senator McCain, we have been discussing race at Pingry and...
John McCain: Pingry? Lotta Asians over there, huh? Not much a fan of “gooks.” His tour bus wasn’t called the Straight Talk Express for nothin’.
Me: Congresswoman Blewster, from Arizona, we have been talking a lot about race and discrimination at Pingry, and I...
Barbara Blewster: Are you talking, Aaron? I can’t see your mouth moving behind that “big hook nose.” But a yarmulke, or even one of those silly Jim Brown skull caps, is better than a feather headdress, “even African Americans are more advanced than Native Americans.” Hey, at least she used the PC terms; she’s practically a liberal.
Me: Senator Hollings, I am so glad to talk to a Democrat, the party for progressives! At Pingry, we’ve been talking...
Fritz Hollings: Say, you’re that Student Body President “from B’nai B’rith,” ain’t cha?
Me: Um, well, no, I...
Fritz Hollings: Ha, just a joke. I am not a racist, I’m as neutral on the issue as Switzerland. Speaking of Switzerland, “everbody likes to go to Geneva. I used to do it for the Law of the Sea conferences and you’d find these potentates from down in Africa, ya know, rather than eating each other, they’d just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva.”
Ha ha! The silly Senator claimed that black Africans eat people! What a jokester, let’s let him chair more committees.
OK, so maybe the government isn’t the best place to look. But we can look to another force that probably has much more influence on the youth of America: Hollywood! How can race be an issue when children are exposed to such great Disney movies as Tarzan and Aladdin. Say...where are all the Blacks in Tarzan? Not one Black character in a movie based in Africa; I guess the animators could only find a pale tan crayon. And Disney’s precious little Aladdin, a Whole New World? How ‘bout a Whole New World Church of the Creator. Why does Aladdin speak English with a perfect American accent and have light skin, but all the villains speak with heavy Arabic accents and have markedly darker skin? Ixnay on the wishing for less racism...
So there are racists in the government, racists in Hollywood, a negative portrayal of minorities in the media, and an extremely small percentage of Blacks and other minorities at Pingry. So maybe race IS an issue after all.
But that does not mean that we need speech codes and sensitivity training and brand new PC terms, and, to be honest, we have more than enough watchdogs already. Ever a attend Model Congress, Debate Club, or an AP Government class? No wonder people are scared to talk about these issues now that liberal thought has changed from preaching tolerance to practicing political intolerance and rampant declarations of racism. When it is at the point that a student can’t express a view such as, “It might be common sense for airport security to be more attentive to the demographic that has been responsible for recent terrorist...,” or say that a black figure is intelligent and eloquent because of the implication that other blacks are not, or when discussion of race has to be marred by obsessive worrying about using the wrong pronoun and sounding pejorative, then we are letting knee-jerk reactions and pseudo-tolerance make honest discussion and true expression almost impossible.
In 1999, a Washington, D.C., mayoral aide was fired for using the word “niggardly.” This year, Michael Jackson lambasted Sony Music honcho Tommy Mottola, claiming that Jackson’s new album sold poorly because Mottola was racist. One: Michael Jackson looks about as Black as the crowd at a Lenny Kravitz concert. Two: When it came out, Thriller was the best-selling album of all time, and this was while Jackson was clearly Black. Three: The new album sucks, I’ve heard it. These are two examples of absurd claims of racism, which, if anything, only downplay the many legitimate and serious ones.
We should all be thrilled that we are talking about race in school and should all be thankful to those who initiated the discussion. We should also realize that being tolerant of beliefs and ideas is more important than spouting ideologue rhetoric, whether it be conservative or liberal, (they all end up sounding like “ditto, ditto” anyway).
Let’s not turn race into the weird alcoholic Uncle that no one ever talks about. Let’s see this as an opportunity to discuss something important, to understand that a main priority should be improving society (even if that sometimes means sacrificing selfish personal ambition), and that these issues are very real, even in Pingry. I think that right now our goal as society should be to curb racism before New York City’s 2012 Olympic bid. Once the NYPD sees African teams competing in the shooting portion of the Biathlon, things are going to get a lot worse than provocative signs hung above school couches.