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6. The Tribal Mentality and Favoritism
- University of Texas Press
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Chapter 6 The tribal mentality and favoritism Racism has always been all around us, but I raised my children as if it did not exist. I have pretended all my life that racism is not really there, and that has allowed us to live. Otherwise, well, otherwise, can you imagine what life would be like if we had told our children about racism? mrs. g., central texas, 1996 Pretending that racism has not existed has allowed many Native, African, Asian, and Mexican Americans like Mrs. G. to downplay discrimination. Racism has traditionally kept many ethnic minority Americans, particularly those who cannot visibly pass for mainstream white Americans, from enjoying better lives. For that reason, living as if American life is driven mainly by the ideal standards of the U.S. Constitution is a point of view that some ethnic people can embrace, while others simply cannot. It is not that the latter choose not to, but rather that daily life tells them otherwise, as many incidents presented in this book demonstrate. We could have selected some success stories, but if that were the general case, Hispanic and other minority students would not be having the kinds of problems with education that most of these students experience. Educated or not, people seek psychological comfort, and to avoid permanent discontent, many minority citizens choose to ignore discrimination , feigning indifference, for rectifying the status quo requires personal and communal resources that have not traditionally found ready support in the larger population. Simply acknowledging that racism makes people uneasy because it questions racial and ethnic relationships without improving them should not be socially acceptable. Indeed, we have learned that as individuals and as a nation, most of us would rather avoid the matter of race. We prefer to hope that time and future genera- the tribal mentality and favoritism 77 tions will somehow correct past inequities. That is why racism continues to exist. People would rather not talk about unpleasant realities for which useful solutions are scarce, leaving minority people to work out individual accommodations and adjustments. Racism continues to exist in people who attribute persistent economic , political, and social inequities to the failure of ethnic Americans to improve their lives, generation after generation. Unwilling or reluctant to see people as products of social and economic systems that preferentially advantage whites, people often blame victims of racism themselves for their own condition. Discussing the subject from multiple perspectives , as examined by many scholars and observers, has not yet brought about desirable changes. Whether acknowledgment is willing or grudging , the truth is that indifference and widespread neglect still separate otherwise good American citizens.1 Ralph Ellison wrote about the psychological difficulties of being black in Invisible Man (1947). More than a half-century later, when asked, most people of color still speak about being ignored, due primarily to race and skin color. We were standing, for instance, in line in a cafeteria in Texas, and because we were having difficulty deciding what to order, we asked two African American ladies behind us to go ahead. The younger one thanked us immediately and went ahead. The older one hesitated and then followed her friend. A few minutes later, she turned back to us and said, “We have lived here all our lives, and this is the first time that anyone has ever asked me to go ahead in a line.” The issue is not so much that people of color are invisible, as Ellison satirically posited, but that people who are not white are simply too visible . This is not something we “make up” or “refuse to let go of,” as we have been told. It is that race and color continue to matter in countless negative ways, striking people of color who feel the sting early in life. One four-year-old African American child who was frolicking with her favorite white teacher in the school playground one day suddenly grabbed the teacher’s arms, looked into her face, and demandingly said, “Turn black, turn black,” as if by willing it, the teacher would be like her. They hugged, not wanting to let go of each other. Color blindness ought to be examined in light of the Jim Crow laws and the segregation history that effectively led to the racial problems that we have inherited from the past.2 “Driving while Black,” or “DWB,” for example, is a recent manifestation that has secured media attention for a long-standing practice. The custom singles...