Perpetually permeating the soul of America is a bleak, dismal shame. At times it is meticulously and intricately repressed, hidden, and buried beneath veneers and façades of normality and tranquillity, but the toxicity of such a dysphoric shame is intractable and eternally palpable. Each of us, as Americans, carries this staggering shame in the blood pulsating our veins, in our strong yet wounded hearts, and in the collectively inherited memory that the vitriolic, diabolic, and atrocious legacy of slavery and segregation has bestowed upon 300 million individuals who walk the soil of America. We console ourselves with illusory measurements of progress, yet in favour of dodging dialogue and confessing to our hideous transgressions, we continue to ignore the truth, a denial that leads only to the repeated genesis and manifestation of a grossly minimised race problem. Yes, we’re now aware of our history, but do we comprehend the mammoth implications and the iron-**** grasp that it holds on our lives? Because as an entire society, we live in self-administered purgatory, we are caught in limbo between recognition of a problem (which we have accomplished) and the self-actualisation and enlightenment necessary to alleviate the pain and liberate ourselves from this ideological **** that continually maims us (which we have yet to achieve). Racism and its role in American history has certainly been stigmatised, but by thus marginalising something so grievous and egregious, has the nation only poured salt into its seething gash? When we’re too paralysed in fear to confront something as eclipsing and domineering as racism, do we only push those who harbour hatred and resentment towards any particular ethnic group or religious denomination further underground, to breed and regenerate at their own volition, as long as our pristine fabrication of the mainstream isn’t penetrated? The strides we’ve taken have been immeasurable in eradicating state-sponsored racial supremacy and in granting new opportunities to those who never had them, but there seems to be an imbalance in our approach: we’ve taken on laws, but not attitudes. Segregation condoned by the government is largely an issue of the past, but if you take a glance into any mixed school, more often than not you’ll see students engaging in self-segregation, befriending those whose skin colour matches their own. We’ve repaired the legislative implementations designed to protect the populace, but have we really erased the psychological and spiritual origins of the racist institutions that once reigned in America?
Before we can even consider healing the country holistically, however, we must first examine ourselves as minorities introspectively, reflectively, and cogitatively. As blacks and Hispanics, there are intraracial rifts and offences that we must analyse and eliminate before we can ameliorate interracial relations. Gang membership, misogyny, and homophobia are all plights that afflict both communities that we are often ashamed to admit, yet we must acknowledge these faults and work to promote harmony, peace, and understanding within our own spheres, and until this objective is attained, there is little hope for us to muster the confidence and stability to improve our stances in the greater racial spectrum of the United States. Hispanics especially should also be aware of the rich diversity that constitutes their community: although the majority are Mexicans, there is a substantial population of those who descend of immigrants from other nations in the Latin American realm (i.e., South Americans, Central Americans, Antilleans, etc.). And the socio-economic hierarchy of these different groups mirrors that which rules supreme in America: the financially stable/wealthy upper-middle-class of white South Americans and Cubans contrasted with the impoverished, floundering populations of mestizos, indigenes, and Afro-Hispanics. It is imperative to recognise the contentious conflict and friction that comes from within before we can contend the adversity that originates from without. These issues partially justify why African Americans and Hispanics should work in unison to address the issues that affect them most. One puissant, resonant, sonorous minority bloc is more effective than numerous branches of dissenting voices, a chaotic cacophony that obscures our grievances and concerns and prevents the proper channels from paying an audience to our words and meeting our demands. African Americans and Hispanics, in spite of their considerable cultural differences and their unique histories, occupy very similar positions in the framework of American society and thus they’ve obtained a mutual understanding and empathy for the tribulations that characterise their daily lives. Armed with experience, knowledge, intelligence, and determination, coupled with a strong sense of togetherness and belonging, African Americans and Hispanics can act rhythmically and cohesively to deliver fruitful improvements to the conditions of being alienated minorities in the macrocosm that is America. However, while it is easy to wax poetic about enhancing interracial relations, we often fail to take the time and energy required to see our aspirations materialise, which is why African Americans and Hispanics should try to leave their comfort zones and embrace one another, attempt to learn about their cultures and their histories, to understand their traditions that define them and the heritage the has shaped their philosophies and their spiritualities. Respect is the operative ingredient in a healthy relationship: African Americans and Hispanics do not all have to share identical religious beliefs or political perspectives, but they must respect the rights with which they are all endowed to observe and practise what they desire and as they select to do it; one person’s rights end where another person’s begins. Moreover, and what I consider to be the most significant and vital facet in confronting America’s race dilemma, is the integration of all racial entities into the conversation. We must address the plethora of issues that ceaselessly **** our society with those whom we coexist with in our country. Asians, Arabs, whites, everybody must toil and contribute to forge a culture that presents to all not only equality under law, but equality of opportunity, equality of expression, and equality of life. All of us need to refrain from guiding our sensibilities according to this antiquated philosophy centred on exclusivity and instead march under the banner of inclusiveness and hospitality. We are products of and defined by our own culture and American culture is a wide-ranging, all-encompassing one.
It is absolutely and irrefutably essential that historically black colleges and universities continue to proffer valuable, material support to African American and Hispanic students in the form of scholarships, need- and merit-based financial aid, educational and outreach programmes, courses that concentrate on interracial relations and what we can do to include all Americans in building a better, more egalitarian society, and other general measures that help to integrate these youths and make them feel like less forgotten, isolated, and alienated members of society. Historically black colleges and universities could particularly reap immense benefits by investing some of their resources in the exponentially growing Hispanic community, a group that is relatively new to the United States and is still in the process of trying to find a gentle, positive equilibrium in which they can adapt to American culture and define themselves as Americans while maintaining the beauty and glory of their homeland cultures, resisting total assimilation, which in my opinion is merely a form of self-hatred and cultural erasure. All Hispanics deserve the opportunity to an education and to freedom of expression, showing that while listening to pop and hip-hop, watching MTV, and excelling in school, they can also celebrate quinceañeras, dance to salsa music, and speak the Spanish tongue of their ancestors. A utopia is a romanticised, orchestrated, unattainable society that human nature automatically precludes, but as a people, Americans in no way strive for perfection; the sole objective we should pursue is a country where we can discuss problems and air out a dirty laundry and be truthful to ourselves in a quest for the affirmation of our own beautiful identities, rather than the current trend of self-suppression and the duplicitous belief that all is well in our backyard.
