Middlesex News 11/15/89 – Others’ prejudice must not control our lives
Someone may feel prejudice toward me because I was born abroad or have a
Spanish surname. It is alright if that person changes his or her beliefs, but I won’t plan
my life on the basis of what others think about me.
I refuse to be a hostage to other people’s beliefs.
All of us can make a small contribution toward eradicating prejudice, yet I feel
that our efforts are misdirected.
We should stress how to cope with prejudice, rather than how to change the
perceptions of others. Perceptions can be changed but it is difficult to do so. Let me
explain and illustrate this point.
Many people in this state feel prejudice toward blacks. Yet when these people
meet exceptionally talented black people, they can be forced to re-assess their opinions
about blacks in general. This is a step in the right directions.
However, no one lives in a controlled environment. Hence these prejudiced
people will face a variety of normal experiences that, looked at through prejudiced eyes,
will only serve to reinforce their prejudice. The end result is the well-known expression
“some of my good friends are black (or Hispanic, or whatever) but…”
It is not enough to exalt the accomplishments of black people or other minorities.
What we need to do is to emphasize that people are individuals. Some happen to be
black, or Hispanic, or born abroad, but these attributes are irrelevant to a person’s
particular accomplishments.
The emphasis should not be on the group to which the minority member belongs
to. Rather, we have to stress the uniqueness of individuals.
Let me tell you a story that happened to me many, many years ago in Florida.
I was still a teen-ager and would go to play baseball at a public park. The other
kids were either Americans or Cubans. Only one kid was black, and he claimed to be a
Cuban. I became his friend.
We would talk in Spanish. I asked him one day about his family and where he
used to live in Cuba, but his answers were evasive. This made me repeat the questions in
different ways.
Finally one day he told me the truth: he was not from Cuba but was in fact an
American black. I was amazed, for his accent was so perfect that everyone did take him
to be a Cuban.
He had learned Spanish playing with other Cuban kids in another part of town.
Then he realized that American whites would accept him as a black Cuban but not as a
black American. He was going to be a black Cuban for the rest of his days, he told me.
The story is tragic but we can learn from it. The tragedy resides in that people
would judge him on the basis of his belonging to one or another group, rather than on the
basis of his uniqueness as a human being.
Facing extreme odds, this young man was bent on beating the stupidity of
prejudice, no matter what it took. He was determined to overcome what others thought
of him, yet he was hostage to other people’s beliefs. His solution was misguided but his
determination was admirable, for he wanted to cope with prejudice.
Well-intentioned people try to change the perceptions of one group toward
another. While I pay tribute to these efforts, I fail to see their success.
Society’s energy should be directed toward teaching minorities how to cope with
prejudice. Then the solution to the problem is in the hands of those who are most
affected.
The first lesson I would teach is that we cannot be held hostage to other people’s
beliefs. The second would be to ignore the prejudice of others.
People are prejudiced because they are ignorant. People are prejudiced because
they think of others as belonging to this or that group, rather than as the unique
individuals they are.
Minorities should improve their human capital, rather than waste their time
fighting political battles that lead nowhere. These battles were important years ago but
they are rarely important now.
We should defend our rights when others violate them, and we should understand
that all individuals should have the same basic legal rights. In the meantime, let others
think whatever foolish thoughts and feelings they want to have.
We should run away from liberals, who will always paint us with some color,
remind us that we are men or women, assign us to the privileged or underprivileged class.
The only groups we want to belong to are those we join by choice.
When people talk to us about our cultural background, remind them that people in
our culture have stood for totally divergent ideas. Remind others that some of our people
have been very good and others terribly bad. Do not let culture be a constraint on
anyone, for we can be whatever we want to be.
If you don’t think this way, then you are a hostage to the thoughts of others. The
time has come to break your chains.