11/13/2003

It's Not Always What We Think It Is

During a discussion on heredity in the eighth grade, a teacher commented that one might have a large nose if their father had one, too. A classmate turned and looked at me. Why are you looking at me, I thought. Do I have a big nose? It was a life-changing moment for a thirteen year-old kid.

Overnight, I saw myself differently, and was convinced everyone else did as well. Especially when it came to girls. I blamed every rejection, every hint of indifference on my nose. Surely, I’d be the most popular guy in school, if only I had a properly sized snout. It never crossed my mind that perhaps it was my personality or my ratty flannel shirts or a hundred other imperfections that might have made me less than the ideal catch. No, it had to be my nose.

I was reminded of this personal obsession when I read about the flap regarding the dance team at a local West Chester school. It seems that a girl was not chosen for the team, despite being considered an excellent dancer by those who know her. So the search for an explanation of this rejection began. It didn’t go on for long, because the girl in question just happens to be African-American. Naturally, the reason had to be racism.

Now don’t get me wrong. Racism most certainly exists today. I am constantly shocked by the generalizations and stereotyping that I hear from supposedly educated people. It turns my stomach and lowers my level of respect for people when I hear such talk. So I don’t deny that it exists. We are fooling ourselves if we try to state otherwise.

Still, that does not mean that every snub is due to racism. There are countless factors that go into any decision-making process, from athletics to employment. It is always very subjective. A dropped pass during tryouts, arriving two minutes late to an interview, messy hair – all can be just enough to cause someone to miss the cut.

Jumping to conclusions does no one any good. The first thing to do when life seems unfair is to look inside one’s self. Was there something I could have done differently? Did I make a mistake? If we never examine ourselves critically, we miss the opportunity to improve. Automatically placing the blame elsewhere makes us victims, rather than controllers of our own destiny.

But sometimes, life is just unfair. People make bad decisions that seem to make no sense. Heck, Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. All he did was go out and prove his coach to be one of the biggest fools of all time. That can be the sweetest revenge.

My kids will never know the pain of racism, but they will face injustices just the same. Rather than teach them to look for someone to blame, rather than look for someone to sue, I want to teach them to pick themselves up and move on.

I have no idea if racism played any part in the decision to cut this girl from the dance team. There is no doubt that we must fight racism wherever we find it. But that does not mean that we will find it everyplace we look. And the fact that it does not exist everywhere is a very good thing.