September 1, 2013

Language is an element which is prevalent everywhere. However, it is exceedingly imperative to realize that it is more often than not non-verbal and similarly, racism is not simply verbal but largely non-verbal. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. writes in The Letter from Birmingham Jail, “when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people.” Race talk is ubiquitous but it does not by any means have to be verbal. “Interpretive devices” and “expressive devices” (17) are significant in that they shape how one shapes their thinking and action in the world. Thus, race is something that needs to be deliberately thought about on a daily basis if the definitive aim is to combat racism. Pensive thoughts and scrutiny of your daily engagements are not easy tasks.  Therefore, it requires an individual to purposefully think and act in a manner where love is unconditional for everyone, which requires a tremendous degree of audacity to accomplish. We know how to categorize people and often we also involuntarily know how we are hypothetically to “treat them.” However, it takes bravery, empathy, and the effort of being cognizant to not simply tolerate but to accept and love individuals who are not similar to you, which is not an easy undertaking. bell hooks states that “Love is really more of an interactive process. It's about what we do not just what we feel. It's a verb, not a noun.” This act of loving does not and should not simply apply to race – it should apply to every “social identity” (13). It takes a conscious effort to not simply say “I don’t see color” or “I don’t see race” because if an individual is making such claims, simply put, they must be blind to not see the most important aspect of our society’s eclecticism. We as a society love compartmentalizing our lives – weather it is economic status, sexual identity, or any other marker and the same is indubitably true for race. One needs to learn to love all without normative social influence.