Mike Parker: Attitudes still caught, not taught

I wrote a column nearly 30 years ago discussing problems of race relations here in Kinston and Lenoir County. I came across the column recently and marveled at how what I wrote in 1993 still applies today.

“Our problems with community relations affect our economic well-being and the quality of education our students are receiving,” I wrote. “In last Friday’s Free Press, staff writer Michael Martin wrote about a National PTA survey that demonstrates strained race relations are a problem in our nation’s schools. I don’t believe Kinston and Lenoir County differ from the findings of that survey, where one in four black and Hispanic students said race relations are a problem. Strained race relations in our schools create tension, and that tension gets in the way of education.”

Then I posed this question: Where do these attitudes come from?

“Are babies born into this world with a bent toward forming racial prejudices? I don’t think so. Are parents busily teaching their children the basic lessons of how to mistrust people of different races – or from different parts of Lenoir County? I don’t think so.

“Attitudes are caught – not taught.  No matter what gilded words we use to advocate toleration, our attitudes are the most powerful teaching tools our children see.”

Thirty years later, we are still dealing with too many of these same issues. Mistrust that divides us along ethnic lines still exists. These attitudes are still poisoning the vitality of our community.

“I may read Dr. King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech to my children every night as a bedtime story to encourage proper attitudes, but if my behavior shows I mistrust blacks, then my children will perceive my attitude,” I wrote 30 years ago.

Attitudes are caught.

“I lived in Ohio for five of the longest years of my life. I learned just a little of what being a minority means by dealing with the ignorance of those who could not disguise their contempt for this ‘illiterate Southern hillbilly.’ Some kids I finished school with said they were going to vote me ‘Most Likely to Secede’ in senior favorites. During my first year in Ohio, one teacher wrote ‘awl’ and ‘oil’ on the chalkboard and asked me to pronounce both of the words.  Of course, I pronounced them differently.  I don’t put ‘awl’ in my car.

“I told my teacher that, contrary to Northern belief, people in the South did not sit on their porches and sip mint juleps anymore. When teachers criticized the poor schools in the South, I reminded them of Northern efforts called ‘Reconstruction.’  I asked them just how much of the Civil War was fought in Ohio.

“I remember these cuts and snipes bitterly.  More than the cold Ohio winters drove me back south. Their insensitive remarks about my Southern roots stung me, but they could not shake my pride in my family, my heritage, my Southern-ness, and my culture.

“The experience taught me to be charitable to others because, like me, they have pride in who they are – individually, ethnically, and culturally. The various groups within our diverse community take a fierce pride in their roots.  But in exercising that pride, we must not hold others in contempt or brand them by our notions of who they are.”

As I said then, my fleeting experience as a “minority” had a profound impact on my thinking and on the way I act toward others.

I had to privilege of learning from Deollo Johnson during several summers when I volunteered to be a facilitator for the North Carolina Teaching Fellows summer conferences. The conference for rising juniors was a week-long focus on diversity issues. One of the lessons stuck with me: The only way to overcome viewing others in terms of stereotypes is authentic experience.

The attitudes we “caught” largely form our perceptions of others. By reaching across ethnic boundaries, we may never fully understand the experience and frame of reference of others, but we can begin destroying the wall of separation that exists within us and generates mistrust and apprehension. Authentic experience is part of that wrecking ball.

Remember: Attitudes are caught – not taught. 

Mike Parker is a columnist for Neuse News. You can reach him at mparker16@gmail.com.