2008 Woodie Awards
Building my American identity
Sarah Viets
Issue date: 5/5/08 Section: Opinions
It appears my writings offend some. They believe my focus on race distorts or clouds the real problems. They say my focus on race continues to divide and distort our American identity.
What I say in response is that my intention is to heal our historic wounds, not deepen the divide.
I want to strive for an unimaginable future. I want to live in an age where kids from my rural high school see more out of life than working as a correctional officer at one of the three prisons located just five miles outside of my hometown. I want to live in a time where my best friend can deliver her two babies, now six and four, without having to claim bankruptcy, like she did two years ago. I want to breathe at ease and know I can find a job when I graduate on Sunday.
But to solve America's permanent stain, we must first open our eyes. We must see that African-Americans, Asians, Latinos, whites and the rich and poor do not receive the same opportunities. Each group receives a different amount of money for schools, access to healthcare, different job and economic opportunities, and criminal sentences.
But my grocery list of racial disadvantages is not new. People are aware; they're just tired of hearing the same old list.
But when we start to talk about solutions, we prefer to point the finger. The lack of resources in each community pits whites against non-white communities, and rich against poor. We blame affirmative action, we blame the "model minority," we blame it on crime, or we blame it on the individual - the need to take full "personal responsibility" for personal behavioral flaws. In result, we fight for what little money there is, which inevitably deepens our divides.
We argue over what community deserves more money for schools. We cling to our paid tax dollars for our own neighborhood community services. We don't share. We don't' see the child on the other side of the tracks as our own. They are defined as somebody else's problem. And when that child doesn't receive the same support and opportunities as our own, we blame it on the child. We say it's time for "personal responsibility." We say it's the parent's fault.
But at the end of the day, what does it matter? Who cares whose fault it is? We can have a discussion over faults, or we can sit down and figure out how to stop the problem. But when we do, we must not forget what divides our American identity when we seek to build a unified nation.
What I say in response is that my intention is to heal our historic wounds, not deepen the divide.
I want to strive for an unimaginable future. I want to live in an age where kids from my rural high school see more out of life than working as a correctional officer at one of the three prisons located just five miles outside of my hometown. I want to live in a time where my best friend can deliver her two babies, now six and four, without having to claim bankruptcy, like she did two years ago. I want to breathe at ease and know I can find a job when I graduate on Sunday.
But to solve America's permanent stain, we must first open our eyes. We must see that African-Americans, Asians, Latinos, whites and the rich and poor do not receive the same opportunities. Each group receives a different amount of money for schools, access to healthcare, different job and economic opportunities, and criminal sentences.
But my grocery list of racial disadvantages is not new. People are aware; they're just tired of hearing the same old list.
But when we start to talk about solutions, we prefer to point the finger. The lack of resources in each community pits whites against non-white communities, and rich against poor. We blame affirmative action, we blame the "model minority," we blame it on crime, or we blame it on the individual - the need to take full "personal responsibility" for personal behavioral flaws. In result, we fight for what little money there is, which inevitably deepens our divides.
We argue over what community deserves more money for schools. We cling to our paid tax dollars for our own neighborhood community services. We don't share. We don't' see the child on the other side of the tracks as our own. They are defined as somebody else's problem. And when that child doesn't receive the same support and opportunities as our own, we blame it on the child. We say it's time for "personal responsibility." We say it's the parent's fault.
But at the end of the day, what does it matter? Who cares whose fault it is? We can have a discussion over faults, or we can sit down and figure out how to stop the problem. But when we do, we must not forget what divides our American identity when we seek to build a unified nation.
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Natural Cures
posted 5/14/08 @ 1:22 AM CST
Apparently hispanic is not a race but identifies people coming from south of America. The biggest problem is that when Americans made slaves of blacks, they did something as bad as what Adolf Hitler did. (Continued…)
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