FLOTSAM & JETSAM: Improving ethnic relations by teaching and leading

Sunday, January 10, 2021

Improving ethnic relations by teaching and leading

  Sam Smith – The recent Capitol riots are yet another reminder of how we have failed to build a successful multicultural society. One little discussed reason for this is that even the most decent concentrate on eliminating the evils in current ethnic relations while actually building new relations are typically underrated or passed over.

This is unfortunate, because a successful multicultural society has to value its relations and not just treat them as a problem to be solved.

I feel strongly about this in part because my personal experience as a white guy has been greatly improved thanks to my relationships with those of other cultures whether it be Puerto Rican nephews and nieces, playing for decades in bands that performed historically black jazz, working for civil rights leaders like pre-mayor Marion Barry and Julius Hobson, or living for five decades in a majority black Washington DC. I don’t talk about it much, because accepted conversation these days is about racism, not its remedies and alternatives.

I got into this early. I not only started my school’s first jazz band, I took one of what was then just two high school anthropology courses in the country and then became an anthro major in college. I  like to think that I was inspired in part by being one of six children, a good way to learn early in life that others don’t always think and act like you. 

Maybe also being individualistic, I happily found in other cultures the right to be different. In any case, I remain attached to the view that the variety of our communities have made life much more interesting and satisfying.

Finally, going to a Quaker school for six years taught me what has been called the Friend’s notion of “reciprocal liberty,” i.e. I can’t have my freedom if you don’t have yours.

Key to appreciating multiculturalism is education in the right direction. We need to show the young the value of people not like themselves - before older bullies and bigots teach them otherwise. For example, Matthew Lynch has written

There are a wide range of classroom activities that can help students recognize the essential humanity and value of different types of people.  For instance, providing students with an opportunity to share stories of their home life, such as family holiday practices, provides fellow students with a window into their peer’s cultural traditions.

Showing students everyday photographs of people of different ethnicities, shapes, sizes, and garb gives students the opportunity to see people that look very different from themselves and their family engaging in the same types of activities that they and their family participate in; this activity can help humanize types of people that a student has never had an opportunity to interact with personally.  Welcoming guest speakers into the class that hail from differing backgrounds and have all made a positive contribution to important fields can also help dispel any preconceived notions that students might possess about the relative competence and value of people from different cultures.

Teaching students about multicultural role models also serves as an effective method for demonstrating that people of all genders, ethnicities, and appearances can have a positive influence on the world and deserve to be respected and emulated. It’s important to avoid teaching students about the same minority role models repeatedly; after all, if students never learn about prominent African American citizens other than Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X then it’s likely that some students will assume that few other African Americans have made substantial contributions to American culture and politics.  If students are taught about the contributions that people of various ethnicities, genders, and creeds have made to a variety of different artistic, scientific, and political fields then they’re more likely to respect and value diverse culture backgrounds as a whole.

There are scores of techniques. For example, when I was president of a parents association at a DC public elementary school, the principal had an assembly that consisted of students describing their religions. And a school in Maine recently had the former Penobscot Nation Chief Barry Dana help nine students build a tradition wigwam. Said a community volunteer, Susan Cochran, it was a “profound lesson about Native American values, lifestyle, and treatment of the environment.” And, said Dana, “I took the kids into some really fine skills and they just nailed it.”

Part of the trick is to not just protest but to educate and lead. I recently took part in a conference about the DC civil rights leader Julius Hobson and as I was preparing, I realized that one of the reasons some of these local activists had been so effective was because they approached problems as leaders of a new city - both black and white - and not just as victims of the old one. Cross cultural issues, rather than identity, were at the forefront. Thus they fought against DC Transit fare increases, freeways that would have wrecked both white and black neighborhoods and for DC statehood that would benefit residents whatever their culture.

Yes, you have to protest and fight the bastards in the courts, but the skills we need to emphasize more for a better society is teaching and leading others in a better direction. I have, for example, a dream that black and latinos could take a significant part of the leadership of America’s labor movement – helping white workers as well as those of their own ethnicity.  This could dramatically change things, including  swiping from Trump some of his misguided supporters.

We can certainly learn from the past but we can’t change it. The future we can if we work together.