Last night we had friends over for dinner. My wife asked what everyone’s favorite book they read in school. (Her favorite was Native Son by Richard Wright, which she read in a high school social studies class and also happens to be a favorite of mine as well—I read it in college. My favorite assigned reading, though, was The World According to Garp by John Irving.) Our friend, Clint, commented that he had little appreciation at the time for the books he read in school until he reread them in later years. This often seems to be the case with learning. We are often much more capable of understanding as our worldview grows. Ironically, that worldview is very much shaped by that early education. (I very often seen in my current views of the world the deep impression of “The Tragedy of the Commons”, a 1969 paper by Garrett Hardin, which I read in a college geography course.)
Recently, a friend commented: “I keep seeing posts about people not seeing color. The thing is to not judge people based on their skin color!” This statement was on my mind, for some reason, as we had our conversation last night. I have thought about the concept often—perhaps every time I have heard a person say “I don’t see color.” Frankly, if we don’t see color, we are denying a person the very essence of who they are. We are failing to allow the space needed for the soul to speak.
I read Native Son in an elective English course at West Virginia University circa 1983 or 1984, called “Black Literature in America”. (Interesting side note: My 15-year-old son, who was at the table with the adults, talked about reading 1984—something he is reading on his own.) The date isn’t so important other than it was a time when I was still quite ignorant of black culture—and to some extent history. Reading Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, et al. gave me a greater insight into the black experience—albeit from the pages of books and a professor who was very white. Nevertheless, it would have limited these works to have just labeled this as Literature and to have read these with a random collection of literary work. One cannot (nor should one attempt to) read this works without seeing color.
Color, race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomics, family history, education, birthplace, etc. are all dimensions of who we are and why we are. They cannot be filtered out of our interactions. Instead, they should be sought. We are, as Shrek taught us, like onions with many layers (or, if you prefers Donkey’s view, parfaits). We cannot lose our sense of diversity for the sake of “diversity”. In other words, we can’t ignore the complexity of the individual for the sake of categorizing (or not categorizing) groups.
Dare to see and appreciate our many differences. Be grateful for the capacity to see color (etc.). As we acknowledge this and begin to step back to see the greater complexity of the individual, the more the differences will blend into oneness.
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!