I will be the first to admit that racial or any type of
profiling and stereotyping has become a part of our culture that is difficult
to overcome. I know that the fact that I’m white and an old guy means that many
that I work around make the erroneous assumption that I must be rich. I have
many memories of visiting my parent’s hometown, St. Louis MO, as a kid growing
up. I can remember on that historic day when JFK was assassinated my grandma
Dotson set out to enlighten me about how bad all ‘Black’ people happen to be.
She used the ‘N’ word and I will always remember my dad’s explosive reaction to
her and then his explanation to me about how horrible racism and prejudice
were. Clearly that day has stuck in my
mind over the last 52 years and impacted my way of viewing ‘Black’ people
thanks to my dad’s response to my racist grandma.
This last weekend I had an incredible experience working
with a group of Muslim college students that participated in a community
project where we painted 5 houses with 140 volunteers. I was so impressed with
the leaders of this group, Samur and Muai, that I want them to continue to
partner with us and also help train some of my leaders about what it means to
be true servant leaders. I have to confess to the fact that I had my doubts
whether other faith based groups or non-faith based groups would really choose
to work with us. I understand that
Muslim, Jews, Atheist, secularists, the LGBTQ community and Christians
typically are viewed as being so diametrically different that it would be
almost impossible to work together. This
last Saturday showed me that there is hope that synergism and partnership works
and that groups from very different faith backgrounds can impact the world
together!
A few weeks ago I had a long discussion with a new friend
who is gay and could be a Muslim on one day or a Christian on another day. We
had mutually blogged together about whether it was possible for people of
different life expressions to work together for the common good of a specific
cause. Our conclusion was of course it is possible but unfortunately for many
we allow stereotypes to stop us from making the effort to at least try. This
new friend was helping another close friend with doing a business plan for a
new nonprofit. We needed his wisdom and fresh approach that had nothing to do
with his being gay and not being a clone of us!
I was invited to a dinner party recently where I was the
‘true guest’ that didn’t know anyone. I was intrigued by a comment the host
made about how police had become too obsessed with using deadly force. What
stuck out and broke my stereotype was that this individual was White, affluent
and very involved in helping undocumented families at a local clinic. I have a
few Black friends involved in doing community work that are quick to make the
assumption that any police action involving deadly force is inappropriate. What
helped me at this dinner was to see that any type of stereotyping gets me into
trouble. So why do I still do it?
I walked into a Starbucks in Dallas this morning; I’m from
Phoenix, dressed like I was back home wearing shorts, T-shirt with my rainbow
sandals on my feet. The majority of the people getting their caffeine fix were
dressed with real business attire. What hurt me was that there was another
older guy dressed like me and he automatically gave me a thumbs up sign. I initially avoided looking at this guy
because I wanted to write a little and blend in with the crowd. Dumb me I stuck
out big time and it was perfectly understandable why the business crowd might
frown at me as this other fellow aging hippie assumed we were brothers.
I appreciate this picture I’ve used with this post that has
a serious of images of different types of people from a hippie, farmer,
cheerleader, Native American, homeboy, grandma, sports guy, Arab and a space
guy. The caption says look beyond the stereotypes! The bottom line is whether
we are willing to deconstruct, discuss and then educate ourselves about the
dangers of stereotyping and profiling!
Thanks dad for helping me understand that life must be
defined by a person’s character and life choices and not by what they are
wearing or the color of their skin or hair!
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