Search the Community

Ever since that Tower of Babel inci­dent way back in his­tory, we of the human race have been engaged in diverse forms of racial, religious and socio-economic one-upmanship. Some sub­tle, some overt. The peren­nial ques­tion: why is race is such a light­n­ing rod? In the USA, it has been debated ad-infinitum and unfor­tu­nately may not be answered for yet another gen­er­a­tion. One would expect more mature, rea­soned think­ing and accep­tance of this unavoid­able and patently obvi­ous fact; we are all inter­wo­ven with DNA strands that dis­tin­guish (all of) us as being from the same human race. Apparently some individuals beg to differ. One notable case in point. Nina Davuluri was crowned Miss America in 2014. Her plan was to follow her family tradition in medicine and become a cardiologist. She also happens to be of East Indian descent. Interestingly there are those who have chosen to denigrate her based on culture, but somehow adroitly miss the substantive fact that she is highly intelligent and was born in the USA. One online writer (The Thinking Housewife) even stated that because of Ms. Davulri’s appreciation and promotion of diversity in the pageant, that must mean “…she is proud that she is not a white American.” In a word….."Wow!" In North Amer­ica, certain "official" elements of authority, admit to profiling whole people groups, mainly because they “look the part”. All this in an inane attempt at fostering public security. This unfor­tu­nate response has been adopted by hate-filled, ide­o­log­i­cally stunted indi­vid­u­als; arguably, those with less officious mindsets. They cat­e­go­rize peo­ple out of fear, and by doing so, cul­tur­ally cas­ti­gate them out of igno­rance. This not only diminishes a person's humanity; it strips us all of human dignity. Here in Canada, racial issues are no less real and can appear to be less in-your-face; at least in con­trast to our neigh­bours south of the 49th par­al­lel. Yes, I am aware many in Canada have been, and con­tinue to be, on the receiv­ing end of overt expres­sions of racism. While that may be an uncomfortable truth to digest, at ­times I wonder if sub­tler forms of racial intol­er­ance are more insid­i­ous than those that usually motivate a person to go eye­ball to eye­ball with iden­ti­fi­able, intractable narrow-mindedness. February has been set aside as Black History month. Ostensibly to celebrate and honour the achievements of those past and present who have an African ancestral line. While I applaud the intent of the accorded honour, there are those who wonder if it really accomplishes what it sets out to do. Some argue that it is just a method to assuage any latent colonial guilt of the majority who oversaw unfortunate things like the early African Slave Trade, or legal segregation, (schools, public transport etc). There will always be those who look with disdain, suspicion, or outright hostility on certain indigenous, cultural, or religious groups, without having one lick of understanding about who they are, or what their life is like. This year will mark my 37th year in Canada after emigrating from Jamaica in the West Indies. I left a country where I was in the majority. Arriving in Canada, I attained minority status. I was still the same 16 year old who left Jamaica, wide-eyed and fascinated; eager to embrace a new culture, but a 3.5 hour flight adjusted my geolocation sufficiently to render me "different" in the eyes of some. Thankfully I had parents who had grounded me in the realities of life. I was taught that not everyone would accept, or in some cases even acknowledge me. Solely based on the fact that I did not have to pay exorbitant amounts of money to travel to destinations to acquire a tan, which would eventually fade 2 weeks after returning. But if truth be told, I have had way more good than bad happen while living in Canada. While I am grateful for the country of my birth, proud and not ashamed of my heritage, Canada, of which I am a citizen, is my home. My French Cana­dian wife and I have taught our (now adult) chil­dren that char­ac­ter traits such as integrity, com­pas­sion, for­give­ness, courage, among oth­ers, go a long way in defin­ing who they are. Exter­nal dif­fer­ences such as skin colour, hair type; the shape of your nose or lips, among other read­ily rec­og­nized phys­i­cal fea­tures that dif­fer­en­ti­ate the global pop­u­lace, also affirms and pro­motes what I like to refer to as the “unique cohe­sive­ness of diversity”. I pray that February is not a once-a-year crutch for some to appease guilt; or others to foster guilt, by always throwing the racial horrors of the past into our faces. While I will always advocate the need to remember history, let us seriously try to learn from it; by not staying in the past, but embracing the future with all people groups, so that our next gen­er­a­tion will take up the man­tle of inclu­sive­ness and accep­tance with more under­stand­ing and aware­ness than their predecessors. Arabian & Jewish Children - Image sourced from zazzle.com. Images of Nina Davuluri sourced from her Twitter Page & PageantProfessors.com Family image - mine