The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
Mending Wall is one of Robert Frost’s most famous and beloved poems. He describes how, after the first spring thaw, he and his neighbor would set about to put the rocks back in place which had fallen off the rock walls between their fields. The most famous line in the poem says, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,/ That wants it down.”
With the many stories in newspapers and magazines about how Black people in America are facing increasingly difficult obstacles, especially in today’s toxic political climate, it struck me that it has become painfully more evident that something there is that doesn’t love black, including Black people.
Of all people throughout the world, and perhaps for all of human history, those of African Black ancestry seem to have faced more prejudice than any other people. Asians, Europeans, and the native peoples who inhabited the Americas for the past fifteen thousand years or so have not experienced ethnic animosity as have Black people. Whites came to Australia very late in its history, but the Black people who have lived there for millennia, the “aborigines,” have been subject to racial prejudice from the moment the white latecomers arrived.
How can all that be explained? Why is there more universal animosity toward Blacks than toward brown or white people?
For one thing, perhaps, most of us fear “the dark” more than “the light.” At night, especially when there is no light at all other than from the moon or stars, we are far more fearful than when we are in “broad daylight.”
Furthermore, it is harder to detect nuances in darkness than in light. We who are not Black may subconsciously suppose that is true when trying to read Black faces rather than white faces. “Dark” motives are more sinister than “pure” motives. A musical leitmotiv is a familiar theme that repeats itself frequently throughout a musical composition, and thus may become a favorite of the listener.
When someone goes wrong, it may be claimed that person went over to “the dark side.” A highly pejorative American word that has become socially forbidden is to call Blacks “darkies.”
One of the most influential U.S. Supreme Court decisions of the twentieth century was Brown v. Board of Education. The thrust of the case was to decide whether public schools that were segregated by race into white and black schools were “separate but equal,” which is what the odious Plessy v. Ferguson decision declared many years earlier.
As part of their deliberations, the court studied the finding of two psychologists, Drs. Mamie and Kenneth Clark. The Clarks conducted a widespread experiment in Clarendon County, South Carolina among young Black school children. They showed the youngsters four dolls, two with light “skin” and two with black “skin.” They asked the children which of the four were “nice” and which were “bad.” A majority of the children said the white dolls were nice and the black dolls were bad. They also said the white dolls were most like them, which suggested the very young Black children still had a positive self-image, but because of segregation, in time it would likely fade.
The court decided that segregated schools considerably disadvantaged Black children in the quality of their education, and also in the damage those schools created in the minds of Black students. They voted 9-0 that school integration must occur for the good of the entire American society.
Within weeks of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, most journalists across the country began to capitalize the word “Black” when referring to people of African descent. A few journalists and many politicians began to capitalize the word “White” when referencing people of “Caucasian” descent, but thus far, “Blacks” are usually the only racial group to be capitalized. Browns and whites are ordinarily still spelled in the lower case.
If a capitalization assists Blacks to feel more self-esteem, that is a highly desirable social achievement. Browns need it less, and whites have had more than enough self-esteem since we moved west into Europe ten or fifteen millennia years ago.
In summary, it is a blight on the human race that a heavy preponderance of white and even brown people somehow feel superior to Black people. It is fundamentally irrational, erosive, and socially destabilizing. That any educated and especially religious people can maintain prejudice against anyone of Black-African descent is one of the most perplexing stains on the purported wisdom of the earthlings who call themselves Homo sapiens. Both wisdom and justice require that all of us should be color-blind to all of us. 8/20/22
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.