Chuck’s Corner #23
Rotary and Racism
Black Lives Matter, Anti-racism, White supremacy and Protests. These words we hear every day if we tune in to radio or television. Why is this? When Barack Obama was elected to the US presidency, I had thought that racism in our country was no longer an issue. We have television and movie celebrities, athletes, a Supreme Court justice, doctors and lawyers that are of African-American descent. Occasionally, I would come across a bigot, but few of my close friends exhibited racist expressions. However, during this past decade I have become aware that it wasn’t over. Code words like “States rights” and take back our nation, began to alert me to the fact that underlying racism still exists. The loss of Black young men at the hands of police officers has has added to change in my thinking.
The fact that we have not overcome the problem has been confirmed by a young African-American friend of mine who has shared with me his perceptions and fears. For example, when he goes into a room, he looks around to see who is there that might harm him or that when he goes into a bar or other venue he seats himself in a location enabling him to see who is coming in. This tells so much about the fear that exists in the minds of so many black folks. He also tells of racist experiences he has experienced.
I invited him to become a Rotarian sometime back, but he declined, because he spends so much time around white folks where he has to pretend to be one of them. He cannot be himself. In other words, he needs to let down.
He met with 4 members of our church study group and shared these insights and other racist experiences. I had asked him to invite some of his Black friends, but explained that it takes time to build up trust, before they would feel comfortable having a dialog.
This discussion and hearing of others with similar feelings has made me understand where African-Americans are coming from. Their fears, although may be appear irrational, to them are very real and we need to hear them and recognize their fears. Here is the problem, given the discomfort that our Black friends being open with us, how do we engage in discussions. I don’t have the answer, but I believe Rotary should be on the front line in the effort to eliminate racism.
Rotary is dedicated to making the world a better place, one component of which is peace and conflict resolution. Our 4-Way test lends to this theme, “building good will, beneficial to all etc. I sincerely hope that this essay will result in our club attack the racism issue.
Chuck