All Together Now
Barbara Jordan
When I look at race
relations today I can see that some positive changes have come about. But much
remains to be done, and the answer does not lie in more legislation. We have the
legislation we need: we have the laws. Frankly, I don’t believe that the task of
bringing us all together can be accomplished by government. What we need now is
soul force—the efforts of people working on a small scale to build a truly
tolerant, harmonious society. And parents can do a great deal to create that
tolerant society.
We all know that race
relations in America have had a very rocky history. Think about the 1960s when
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in his heyday and there were marches and protests
against segregation and discrimination. The movement culminated in 1963 with the
March on Washington.
Following that event, race relations reached an all-time
peak.
President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, which remains the fundamental piece of civil rights
legislation in this century. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 ensured that everyone
in our country could vote. At last, black people and white people seemed ready
to live together in peace.
But that is not what
happened. By the 1990’s the good feelings had diminished. Today the nation seems
to be suffering from compassion fatigue, and issues such as race relations and
civil rights have never regained momentum.
Those issues, however,
remain crucial. As our society becomes more diverse, people of all races and
backgrounds will have to learn to live together. If we don’t think this is
important, all we have to do is look at the situation in Bosnia today.
How do we create a
harmonious society out of so many kinds of people? The key is tolerance—the one
value that is indispensable in creating community.
If we are concerned about
community, if it is important to us that people not feel excluded, then we have
to do something. Each of us can decide to have one friend of a different race or
background in our mix of friends. If we do this, we’ll be working together to
push things forward.
One thing is clear to me:
We, as human beings, must be willing to accept people who are different from
ourselves. I must be willing to accept people who don’t look as I do and don’t
talk as I do. It is crucial that I am open to their feelings, their inner
reality.
What can parents do? We
can put our faith in young people as a positive force. I have yet to find a
racist baby. Babies come into the world as blank as slates and, with their
beautiful innocence, see others not as difficult but as enjoyable companions.
Children learn ideas and attitudes from the adults who nurture them. I
absolutely believe that children do not adopt prejudices unless they absorb them
from their parents or teachers.
The best way to get this
country faithful to the American dream of tolerance and equality is to start
small. Parents can actively encourage their children to be in the company of
people who are of other racial and ethnic backgrounds. If a child thinks, “Well,
that person’s color is not the same as mine, but she must be okay because she
likes to play with the same things I like to play with,” that child will grow up
with a broader view of humanity.
I’m an incurable optimist.
For the rest of the time that I have left on this planet I want to bring people
together. You might think of this as a labor of love. Now, I know that love
means different things to different people. But what I mean is this: I care
about you because you are a fellow human being and I find it okay in my mind, in
my heart, to simply say to you, I love you. And maybe that would encourage you
to love me in return.
It is possible for all of
us to work on this—at home, in our schools, at our jobs. It is possible to work
on human relationships in every area of our lives.