I’m always pushing dialogue to encourage mutual understanding in order to lessen what divides us where matters of race are concerned. Some folks just don’t want to talk. They want to point fingers in your face, preach, and judge, all the while with ears shut. That is not okay. That keeps us stagnating if not moving backwards.

Standing By Your Beliefs

I want to take this opportunity to point out an example of someone standing firm in his beliefs – beliefs which might be misguided. Below in italics are the accusatory words of Chauncey Devega, a contributor to Salon.com. There are many judgements made in three short paragraphs, and there does not appear to be room for discussion:

For Trump’s voters, he is a hero and a projection of their collective ugliness, anger, ignorance, meanness and bitterness toward “liberals,” “elites,” nonwhites and the “other” more generally.

Racism and sexism are the core qualities of the toxic white male identity politics that Trump rode to victory over Hillary Clinton. In many ways, these values continue to protect him.

As a reactionary backlash against the gains of the civil rights movement, conservatism and racism have effectively become one and the same thing in the United States. In combination with authoritarianism and sexism, an extreme form of right-wing partisanship has smashed expectations about normal politics and now controls the Republican Party.

Now here is a quote by Kyle Smith writing in the New York Post. Mr. Smith has some facts that might not gel with Mr. Devega’s narrative:

Dismissing the WWC as racist doesn’t make a lot more sense than calling them misogynist, Williams argues, citing evidence that upper-class white people are simply better than the working class at camouflaging race-based judgments. You’ll rarely catch managerial types uttering racial slurs, but consider the “Greg/Jamal” study in which corporate recruiters were sent identical resumes, one from “Greg” and one from “Jamal.” The Jamals of the world proved to have a much more difficult time landing interviews.

In case you are interested, read here for the rest of Mr. Smith’s article. I found it to be educational.

If we are to bridge this gap, we have our work cut out for us. First we need to find the courage to tell the ones we come across with accusing fingers pointed in the face of “the enemy” to put down their fingers, open their ears, perhaps read something from a source different from the ones that only support what they already believe.