The cause of racial equality has advanced exponentially since I was a boy.
In those bad old days, African Americans were ubiquitously discriminated against and denied equal opportunity—sometimes by law, often by custom—based simply on the color of their skin. The harm caused to individuals and families was unquestionable and unquantifiable. As the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education stated so eloquently, “Separate but equal is inherently unequal.”
- Self-reliance
- The nuclear family as the ideal social unit
- Emphasis on the scientific method
- The primacy of Western (Greek, Roman) and Judeo-Christian tradition
- Hard work as the key to success
- Planning for the future
- Decision-making
- Majority rules (when whites have power)
- Communication: “The ‘King’s English’ rules”
(After receiving much criticism and after this piece was written, the museum removed the graphic from which the above text was taken without notice, explanation, or correction.)
Human Exceptionalism
So, how are we to bridge harmful racial divides and overcome remaining disparities in opportunities that undermine our attainment of a fully equal society? The answer is as simple as it is profound: In place of disputations over race, a superficial distinction, let us embrace and commit to promoting human exceptionalism and living by its precepts.Human exceptionalism also imposes duties based solely on our humanity. Racism and discriminatory behavior violate our duty to treat each other as we would want to be treated. In this sense, bigotry is a form of withholding. It denies the mutual love and support we each owe to—and are entitled to receive from—all.
That is the standard to which we should analyze our own behavior and judge the propriety of public policies: Do they further or impede human exceptionalism? Looking at it from this angle erases false divisions, eases community guilt, cools angry recriminations, and restores social cohesion.
We have seen the persuasive power of human exceptionalism in furthering the great cause of civil rights repeatedly in our nation’s history.
When Martin Luther King Jr. argued that we should be judged by the content of our character rather than the color of our skin, the heavens shook.
Similarly, in 1831, the great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison committed himself passionately to the immediate an unequivocal emancipation of slaves and complete equality between the races, writing in the first edition of the Liberator:
“I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen;—but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest. I will not equivocate. I will not excuse. I will not retreat a single inch. AND I WILL BE HEARD.”
When Garrison wrote his great editorial, the Abolitionist Movement barely existed. Thirty-five years later, American slavery was a smoldering ruin.
There can be no question eradicating racism from our midst remains an urgent priority. But let us pursue the great cause through inclusive rather than divisive means by embracing our human identity first and above all racial distinctions. If we do, whiteness, blackness, and every invidious “ness” will disappear as we move steadily toward attaining a more perfect union.