Truths are revelations. However, unlike the Ah-hah! moments on which many romantic, heroic, and mystery stories are based, truths arrive in crumbs, small steps, whispers, and nudges. Truths reveal to us in times and places in which their seeds can germinate. Sometimes the seeds die or are carried away to be planted in better soil. Drama or tragedy carry the seeds of truth; so also do the writings of great philosophers, historians, poets, essayists, and song. But we as flawed mammals, living in societies where outside influences are stronger than our personal abilities to examine information, often fail to allow truth seeds to develop naturally.
Two trees are growing in my front yard. I did not plant them. In fact, in the eight years that I’ve lived on this property, I’ve planted and mourned the deaths of over a dozen baby trees. But two trees are growing tall and thriving through drought and winter freezes – a Chinaberry (Melia azedarach, Persian lilac) and a mulberry. I discovered these trees three summers ago. My front yard, a veritable mess of old Bermuda grass, wildflowers, flowering shrubs and vines, and bamboo, is an attraction for all sorts of insects and birds if not for people. I love it. I keep wasps, butterflies, and birds happy. However, I cannot keep alive the new trees that I purchase and plant. Two tree stems showed up one summer, and I left them to grow even though I did not immediately recognize them as trees. The Chinaberry is now over eight feet tall and will provide both shade and privacy near our large West-facing window. The mulberry grows at the white picket fence near the sidewalk; although only four feet tall, it already has berries. I know that birds planted Chinaberry and mulberry seeds in their droppings. I am just amazed that those seeds germinated and grew healthy roots…and blessed me with continued growth.
The truth of this story is that I must give all credit for future shade, fruit, Spring flower perfumes, and oxygen to Birds. Birds delivered. Birds revealed their importance in human life, their contribution to the existence of insect life. Birds do not fly around shatting out twenty foot tall, fully developed shade trees. Birds drop seeds from their butts, and the rest is up to natural forces…also up to the patience and nurturing that humans can offer.
Decades ago, in university I heard the phrase Institutional Racism. I don’t remember whether the issue came out of required text or in classroom debate. However, I remember the terminology was frightening, that I was skeptical and resistant. My fundamentalist Baptist background and conservative political leanings assured me that racism was outdated, that liberals, Black Americans, and educated elites used Race to obfuscate the more prominent issues of welfare fraud and abuse, urban crime, socialism, family values, and Christian influence on government policies.
The seed was planted in fertile soil. I was questioning the church’s tenets and authoritarian practices. I had recently escaped the cruel and hateful practices of a religious cult. Although I tried to remain a good person, faithful to my family, enthusiastic about my faith in Jesus, willing to sacrifice self for others, my circumstances in the decade of my thirties trapped me in perpetual confusion, angst, and risky behavior. The soil was fertile because I had only one certainty in my life – that my beliefs onto which I had staked my young adult life had not delivered. They had in fact deceived me. My mind was open.
My change did not happen overnight. I did not experience a Road to Damascus moment. I did not embrace the idea that America’s institutionalized racism was at the heart of its capitalist system. I was frightened at first. Why? Because it felt like someone had defecated on me. I was a confused but well-meaning and kind white woman! Why would anyone suggest that everything good that I’d experienced was the product of my white privilege while powerful people deny those same good experiences to others – unless they merely wanted to shame me and blame others for their own shortcomings? That is a tough seed to germinate, a large pill to swallow, a dick too big to…yes. All that and more. On top of all the confusion I was experiencing in my personal faith, this felt too heavy. I had no choice but to deny it. But I would think about it.
One important lesson we must remember is that people will not change their beliefs overnight. Beliefs are deeply embedded, and as we’ve witnessed in this MAGA era, Belief has a stronger hold on a person than does Truth or Fact. People need time to let seeds of Truth germinate, take root, and grow toward the light. People need small, interesting revelations and experiences with people who have different beliefs. I needed to search through my past and keep my eyes open on the people around me.
Think about the insanity of one Donald J Trump. Why is he defiant to change, closed to new ideas and indisputable facts, led to action by personal grievances and conspiracies? Aside from his obvious low intelligence, he is a product of a wealthy class that rewards greed and self-indulgence, no matter how illegally or cruelly attained. He built a powerful political position via the greedy and self-indulging beliefs of Christian Nationalists. Truth seeds never met fertile soil in his brain or his soul. Never.
I began to remember things about my childhood in Amarillo, Texas, and Clovis, New Mexico. Nothing aside from institutionalized racism can account for my having no Black or Brown classmates until I went to junior high school; for the unkind ways that teachers behaved toward the Black and Brown students; for the high dropout rate among Black and Brown students in junior high and high school so that only the brightest athletes among them finally made it to graduation.
My mother and her twin sister wanted to go into nursing after their high school graduation in 1946. But before that, their father, a physician in Sweetwater, Texas, would let them work in the local hospital. Nurses would often send them to the basement to clean patients and floors. The basement was where the hospital administrators and doctors kept all the Black patients.
When I first started teaching, I heard teachers and administrators say that the Black and Brown students were fundamentally incapable of learning as easily as the other students, that in fact the families of Black and Brown students would routinely resist the school’s policies and hold their children back. I saw myself behaving differently toward students who came from poor or locally important families, who were male instead of female, who were Black instead of white, who were Catholic instead of Baptist. For how many years did I uphold the racism in our education system? Too many. Perhaps a decade while I allowed the germination of a seed and the development of its roots, while I remembered and observed, while I pondered the results of classroom work every year and the students’ behaviors, while I participated every summer in teacher training sessions, while I read books and listened to students.
I’ve too many experiences to share in this one post. But I will say this. Institutional Racism exists, just as Embedded Biases exist, just as environment, fear and grievance, or courage and empathy drive Religious Beliefs and Political Leanings. Institutional Racism exists in our school systems, medical systems, religious systems, judicial systems, law enforcement, social systems, film industry, corporate and financial systems. Everywhere humans compete to defeat, defend one’s own way of life, fight over resources, fear and resist change, demand privilege, are rewarded with entitlement, ignore injustice, hear no evil see no evil speak no evil because silence’s approval is easier than resistance to evil…is where Institutional Racism exists.
Empathy is the antidote to institutional racism. If the U.S.A. were to embrace Empathy and Justice and Truth as its standard, we could defeat the racism that owns our institutions and industries. If any hope for a democratic nation exists, it exists within Empathy and Justice and Truth. If any hope for a nation where every human being has opportunities to live a bountiful life exists, it exists within Empathy and Justice and Truth. If any hope for a nation that nurtures every child from the very beginning of their life to be productive, happy, helpful, good, intelligent, and resilient exists, it exists within Empathy and Justice and Truth.