I recently posted on my town’s website about my thoughts on the (then up-coming) school board elections. I offered that I was opposed to any member of the board running for re-election who supported the Balkanizing curricula being foisted on kids as young as kindergarteners that sought to separate us by race. Placing one side on that of oppressor (white) and the other the oppressed (everyone else) seemed to me to be a horrible way to teach kids about living together as one people. If anything, it is the antithesis of the MLK dream, and could only lead to one group feeling ashamed of who they are, and the other feeling powerless to be what they want to be. I publicly declared this issue the hill I am willing to die on so strongly do I feel about the corrosive effects of Critical Race Theory and its lower educational off-shoot DEI (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion).
But then I wondered. Was I being a bit too ideological? Perhaps blinded by my “white privilege” into a delusional state of “Rah Rah USA”? Are the Al Sharptons, Ibram Kendis, Mark Lamont Hills, Michael Eric Dysons, and the rest of board members of Race Hustle, Inc. (which includes much of the radicalized Democrat Party now) on to something? Are we indeed a nation hopelessly mired in systemic racism and the perpetual putting down of minorities? Are only whites allowed to make something of themselves here?
The answer hit me during my odyssey through Florida last week. It began in an office in Vero Beach and ended in a hospital there, followed by a flight home and then another hospital here in New Jersey. I will not go through my issues, as I am on the mend. But here is what the story, if seen through the prism of race, as so many would have us see all things now, would sound like.
I was working alongside several colleagues, two Hispanic women, one Puerto Rican, one Honduran, a man of Italian descent, and another Irish. Suddenly, I felt ill so called my female doctor back home who recommended I go to an urgent care clinic. Once at the clinic, I was checked in by a black woman receptionist, taken to speak to a black woman RN, before a white male doctor saw me. By his last name I believe he was Russian Jew but we didn’t talk religion so only a guess. He immediately summoned an ambulance and soon two white male EMTs, one with a shamrock tattoo (Irish) whisked me to a hospital ER. There I was looked over by a black male resident who by his accent I could tell was originally from the Caribbean. Then another white male doctor examined me after the black woman RN took my vitals and administered an IV.
While in the hospital I was seen by several doctors. One was black (this time I believe from Africa by his accent), one a white woman, two Indian men…both immigrants. During my stay my nurses and techs were a Hispanic woman born here, an Asian woman with a heavy accent so yet another immigrant, two black women, and two white women, one of whom had some Cherokee in her. (I tried an Elizabeth Warren joke but she didn’t know who the Senator was. Fail!)
I was soon released and I flew home for New Jersey. As I boarded the plane I peeked inside the cockpit to see a white and black male in the pilot and co-pilot seats. I don’t know which was which. White and black flight attendants managed the flight. My Uber driver at EWR was from the Middle East.
In New Jersey my hospital attendees were blacks, whites, Asians, several Hispanics, all working to take care of me. My doctors were a white woman, black woman, two white males (one of Scandinavian and the other of German-Jew descent I think) and one from India (immigrant again). The tech who monitored my CT scan was Asian. As was the Uber driver who took me home.
Do you see what I’m getting at? It sickened me to even write it down in those grotesquely ethnocentric terms as I couldn’t have cared less what race, gender, ethnicity, anyone taking care of me was. But I do so to make a point. Last week I witnessed through my own office in finance, then the healthcare system, air travel, ground transportation, and the healthcare system again, Americans and hopeful Americans all working together, cohesively, forthrightly, responsibly, and all good at their jobs earning a living for themselves and families, providing vital services, and living out the American vision. There was no oppression versus oppressed in their countenances.
And I noticed especially how many were (legal) immigrants. Of all the 195 countries, they chose to come to this one. But why? Had they not learned from the media, the classroom, entertainment, and other corporate outlets, which all seem to be but appendages of the race-obsessed Democrat Party, that we are a nation in which none of these people should be succeeding, or even welcomed into such a systemically racist system? That they had no right being there, doing what they were doing to keep this old chunk of coal (as Norm MacDonald might say) alive and on his way?
The fact is this. When you do not teach proper history, but opt instead to put forward such dubious premises as the 1619 Project, CRT, or, as often is the case, no lessons at all, you lose sight of just how incredible this country really is. That true story I told you could only be possible in an effectively color-blind nation. No country in history has ever produced such a tapestry of superficially different people all working together in relative harmony for a common good, and for their own good as well. The term “Balkanization” comes from the Balkan states which were savagely ripped apart by violent ethnic and religious strife. It is an ample illustration of what happens to nations or regions wherein people view themselves as tribal members rather than citizens, where differences are promoted and commonality dismissed. Most of human history is like the Balkans. Indeed, the United States is not the norm. We are, in fact, the one giant exception to that norm. No nation so incredibly diverse, and so geographically large, and so ever changing, whereby today’s majority is tomorrow’s minority and vice versa, has ever survived, let alone thrived, as we have.
This is the lesson we should be teaching our children. Instead there are those who wish to take us backwards—while paradoxically accusing others of having regressive tendencies—and re-introduce segregation in just a new package…in the name of “celebrating diversity”. There is no better way to celebrate diversity than to break down the barriers and just let everyone do what they do. I truly believe that from my many observations not just of my previous week but my countless times on trains, subways, and busses, at sporting events, concerts, bars and restaurants, in business, in just the day-to-day interactions on busy city streets in which millions of people of all hues and outlook interact peacefully and politely, that most people wish to not be seen for what they are, but rather who they are.
There is a cartoon racist out there (“white supremacist” is the term du jour) that the political left needs to keep alive to keep its power. When all your ideas are shown to lead to folly, when you cannot convince people to follow your vision for the country, all you have left is the divide-into-mistrustful-camps- (euphemistically called “coalitions”) -and-conquer approach. It is as pathetic as it is transparent. And it does not reflect the America most of us see. The race card is now tattered and frayed. The real America, imperfect as it is, as are all nations, is, to me, a group of motivated people all working together to live out their dreams. The rest is incidental. To try to make it more, to purposefully stoke the flames of division to proffer a false narrative to be used as a wedge to gain power for power’s sake is cynical at best, evil at worst. And very un-American.