Amy Coney Barrett - The Solution
For those with an honest interest in resolving the issues associated with "race" in our society, it is always refreshing to see an institution, a business, a family or even a person who transcends the idea that you don't belong (here - wherever that is) because of the color of your skin. Though I have always felt strongly about this matter, indeed strong enough to begin my own nonprofit to address this issue; ERASE Race, those feelings have been emboldened since I began reading the latest offering from Isabel Wilkerson, Caste; The Origins of our Discontents. In this book she describes how a "Caste" system acts much like a cast used for broken limbs. It fixes things in place so that they can not move. Ideologically speaking, that is what "race" does and continues to do in our country. It is a hierarchy created to keep things "in place."
If you are "white", the "caste" says there are things you can and cannot do because you are "white" and likewise if you are "black" there are things the "caste" says that you can and cannot do because you are "black." The "race" caste system is kept alive and maintained by those with a vested interest in ensuring its survival. The reasons may be personal economic reasons or they may simply be due to ignorance of the alternatives to living outside of the "race" caste as Isabel puts it, or the "race" paradigm as I put it.
My wife brought this issue to my attention this week as she began researching the family life of Amy Coney Barrett after her selection as nominee to the Supreme Court. Her story is amazing; particularly the part about 7 children with 2 of them being adoptees from Haiti.
One of those "keepers" of the "race" system, Ibrahim Kendi, a Boston University professor and author of the book, How to be an Antiracist, insinuated that the nominee could be using her two adopted Haitian children as props and could very well still be racist. It was refreshing to see the backlash that he caught because of his statements.
It should grate against our very souls to see someone offer to rescue children from a life of deprivation and possible abuse and then be subject to speculation about their motives by people who have never even spoken a word with them. This is how "race" works. and why I desire to ERASE it. To assume things about people because of the color of their skin is exactly what got America into the predicament that we are in today. Whether the KKK or any of the other "supremacists" we have seen such as David Duke or Richard Spencer of the Alt Right, they all seem to believe like Mr Kendi that "whites" and "blacks" should remain in "assigned" places or spaces; a caste. They are wrong.
Mr Kendi's assessment of Ms Barrett may have been appropriate had he known Amy Coney Barrett and occasioned a conversation or two with her and would have therefore made his statements based on evidence that he acquired from personal interaction with her, but that's the thing: "race" says that you don't need real, factual, personal knowledge of a person. You can make assumptions about them simply because of the color of their skin. Mr Kendi doesn't need to personally know Ms Barrett, he knows "white" people or as he refers to them "colonizers." That's why ultimately "race" is a concept that if it were logical would itself be "racist."
This one really hurts me because of the world in which I live and exist. From family members of all colors to friends who have adopted children of different colors or in one case a family who adopted an entire foreign family of different skin color without a thought about the amount of melanin in their skin. To me, Amy Coney Barrett and those like her are the solution for what ails America. We need more people who care about people and are not hung up on what color the people are. Real compassion is not constrained by superficialities such as skin color. Supreme Court nominee Judge Barrett represents the good that humanity has to offer to the world and that is the care-taking of fellow human beings. What higher calling could we have for our existence?
As for Mr Kendi, I wanted to say mean and hateful things about him but then I realized that by doing so, I would be violating the very principles that I have ascribed as being necessary for the furthering of humanity. So suffice it to say, Mr Kendi, please see that we are made better by caring for each other without constraints such as those you seem to believe should be erected for "the colonizers." Though I have not read your book, I know that it's not enough to tout being "antiracist;" we must be compassionate and caring as well. That's why when it comes to the necessary demise of "race," Amy Coney Barrett and people like her are indeed part of "the solution."
