To Conquer Racism We Must Look Into Our Hearts…

Original Post Date: 2001-09-03 Time: 16:18:13  Posted By: Jan

An American friend of mine forwarded this to me. This is typical of the
simple naivette which permeates liberal America.

By Diana Griego Erwin
Published Sept. 2, 2001

“It became necessary that we convene … because, together, we recognized the
fact there are many in our common world who suffer indignity and humiliation
because they are not white.” — South African President Thabo Mbeki at the
U.N. conference on racism.

A Delta breeze blows in through the open window, carrying with it a dream. I
turn over and an unkempt corner of the sheet wraps around my ankle.

But I am not aware of this yet as all focus is on the dream-presence of a
friend, Patrice, approaching from across a wide conference hall peopled with
international delegates. “I think I found a way,” she whispers. She wants to
address the meeting; make them hear and understand what’s in her heart.

And then in a flash (because that’s how dreams work), she’s standing at the
dais before the U.N. conference on racism in Durban, South Africa — only
suddenly Patrice is not Patrice, but Maya Angelou reading a poem that
captures every flavor, nuance and hurt that is racism.

If the conference seems like a distant international event and not local,
look around you. The consequences of a history of racism are right here in
our community, from the color of the faces filing through our courthouses to
school test score breakouts. In many parts of the country and Sacramento,
people are judged first by the color of their skin in terms of expectations.
Few people want it to be that way, but that’s the way it is.

But I also believe that most Americans passionately believe racism is
immoral, unjust and an embarrassment. The daily machinations of government do
not accurately reflect this. Sure, bureaucracies are rich in formal channels
that enforce laws, investigate crimes and promote policies to protect people
when decency and morals are ignored. But it is the hopeful, frustrated,
soaring, raging, determined and defeated sentiments of ordinary people that
really address its ravages. When people are lessened by racism, the effect is
crystal clear.

And yet we mostly tiptoe around the injustice and humiliation that wear
people of color down day after day. It’s time for a fresh start. That’s
really what the U.N. Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia
and Related Intolerance is calling for. A collective change in thought and
action. A global plan.

Patrice believes we must repent individually and collectively for allowing
ourselves to be divided by color. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
Mary Robinson said it eloquently: “I believe this conference could mark a
historic breakthrough in the struggle against racism if agreement could be
reached on language that recognizes historic injustices and expresses deep
remorse for crimes of the past. If we can do that it will connect with
millions of people worldwide and affirm their human dignity. It will connect
in the way that poetry connects and will be heard by that inner ear.”

Maybe that’s what my subconscious was drawing on when I dreamed of Patrice
turning into Maya Angelou. Maybe I wanted to hear the poetry Robinson spoke
of. A few lines from Alice Walker’s poem, “Expect Nothing,” challenge me
repeatedly:

“Wish for nothing larger

Than your own small heart

Or greater than a star.”

The heart is the answer. I’ve long believed that this country needs a day
when we reflect spiritually and intellectually on the many ways we’ve allowed
color and other differences to separate and diminish us; to acknowledge this
truth; ponder it; discover its lasting fallout. To consider the capacity of
our own small hearts and the hearts of others. We have holidays for
thankfulness, to express love, to remember sacrifices — so, why not?

In my dream, the delegates enveloped themselves in Patrice’s poetry
reverently, like a prayer. They listened. In Durban, South Africa, that’s the
least we can do.

The Bee’s Diana Griego Erwin can be reached at (916) 321-1057 or
[email protected].

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I couldn’t help but actually write to the lady who wrote the above, knowing
full-well I was wasting my time. Here’s the little piece I sent her:-

Dear Diana,
An American friend of mine referred me to an article you wrote entitled: “To
Conquer Racism we must look into our hearts.”

> http://www.sacbee.com/voices/sac/griego/grieg…br>
I’m an white ex-Zimbabwean, now living in South Africa. I hate to burst your
bubble, but most of the words spoken by these people who are supposedly in
favour of solving the problem of “racism” is nothing more than a smoke-screen
for attacking the west.

These people are Marxists and their only interest is in bashing the Western
world and in scamming money out of it.

Just the other day, Robert Mugabe, who also posed as one who fights racism,
blamed the Jews for the problems in Zimbabwe. What you have here, at this
conference on racism, is a podium from which to attack America, attack Israel
and attack the Western world for colonialism. Let me remind you that it is
the likes of Russia and China, with their own despicable human-rights record
who sponsored the so-called “liberation” of Africa which went on to cause the
entire continent to spiral downwards into new levels and depths of poverty
never known under colonialism.

I note how the likes of Fidel Castro, Robert Mugabe, etc stand at the
conference on racism. Castro, a man who single-handedly ruined his own
country. All these people who joke about blacks in Africa forget that blacks
in South Africa probably lived better than whites in Russia. But nothing is
ever said of this.

You would do well to take a look at my website:
http://users.iafrica.com/p/pb/pbs
and check out the photos section is you have the stomach for it.

Here are some quotes from these so-called lovers of multiculturalism:-
(The same quotes from the front page of the website)

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