HAMILTON: Racism and the handwriting on the wall

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Ken Hamilton

March 1, 2012

By Ken Hamilton Niagara Gazette The Niagara Gazette Thu Mar 01, 2012, 10:58 PM EST

Column by Ken Hamilton — I guess if you are me, then you have to take compliments wherever it is that you can get them, and thusly it was at one of the several factories in which I worked.

One day, on the wall of a lonely bathroom stall, I noticed that, sadly, someone had written some disparaging comment about black coworkers. Though I am black, and was annoyed by it, I paid it little attention.

A couple of days later, I noticed that someone had written a disparaging response beneath the first remark, to which, again, I paid little attention.

Not surprisingly, the first graffitist posted what could have been considered a cutting response, which was soon followed by a similarly cutting response from the second graffitist.

But after a couple more volleys of anonymous abuse on the wall, there came a refreshing surprise. Someone tiring from seeing that which was written was more disgusting than that which was flushed wrote upon on the wall in an entirely different handwriting, saying, “WHO IS WRITING THIS CRAP ON THE WALL.”

While I didn’t care, someone else did, and I was happy that I was alone in the restroom when I read yet another graffitist’s handwriting on the wall.

Responding to the question of ‘who,” I think that he summed up the character of the other graffitists, his own and mine by saying, “We know it wasn’t Ken Hamilton because there are no words spelled wrong.”

It was clear that the last graffitist was either more self-confidant or better educated than the first graffitist, and that brings me to my point: Education is the key to the eradication of bigotry, because proper education increases self-confidence and reduces racism and other forms of discrimination to at least a tolerable level.

Thusly, let me help to school you as to why: Proportionately, there are more black bigots than white bigots

Black folks, and other minorities, think about race as much as five-times more often than do — what we call — regular, white Americans. But Floridians think about hurricanes much more than Western New Yorkers, too, because we all think about the things that impact us more than we think about the things that don’t, and race rarely impacts whites in the way that it does blacks.

The reason is that there are five times more whites in the country than there are blacks. With a nearly 200-million to 40-million white/black ratio, if starting off with just 1-in-10 in each group being bigots, then there are 20-million white bigots and 4-million black ones.

Think about it. Bigotry learned by first-hand experience is often taught by repeated, second-hand teaching to others. Because of the sheer disparity in numbers, on a whole, blacks are exposed to whites (and white bigots) at least five times more often than whites, on a whole, are exposed to blacks (and our bigots).

But, as bigotry is an individual trait, racism is a group one. With both higher than average unemployment and lower than average business-ownership rates than whites, the proportion of whites-to-blacks in the workplace are also much higher. That further increases the number of white bigots to which blacks are exposed. Along with the ‘herd mentality’ that many people have in protecting themselves from the things that impact them the most, when each group sees things like the aforementioned ‘handwriting on the wall’, they will generally either actively or passively take the side that most reflects their own social network.

Incidentally, neither liberals nor conservatives have a monopoly on bigots, so there are liberal bigots among you.

The conclusion is, like the handwriting on the wall, that the better the education and global understanding of all groups, the less racism by all groups. Self-excellence yields self-confidence, self-confidence yields self-reliance; and a self-confident, self-reliant person of any race isn’t as subject to group-think — which is racism — as is those who lack it. There are those in each group who ask the questions of who’s writing the crap on the wall. In too many times, it is too many of us, using invisible ink on the walls of our minds that only we know that it is there. But, there are those who recognize who’s probably not writing it at all.

The most important thing that we can do to fix our America is for us to fix our education systems. Each parent must be responsible to send their child to school and ready to learn. Schools must be safe and prepared to teach each child at their ability to learn and to provide a safe, disciplined environment so that it can happen. Teachers must both believe that they can teach and that the children can and will learn. After all, those same kids prove that they do learn to survive in this society filled with successful disincentives.

And we all will succeed by starting to recognize and reward achievement instead of failure, and by punishing those who interfere with those who rightfully seek successful learning and understanding that despite the obstacles, ours is an individual choice as to what we want to be.

Hey folks — the handwriting is on the wall.

Contact Ken Hamilton at kenhamilton930@aol.com.

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