A Student's Wisdom

One of my former students, who goes by the nickname Tez, posted this on his Myspace page the other day. After graduating from Stanford Law, he is practicing in Chicago. One of my favorite memories of him was when the library ladies were whispering about whether to call him "African-American," "Afro-American," "Black," or what. I motioned him over and asked him what he wanted to be called. He said, "Call me Tez," and walked back to the table where he was working.

I broke his essay into smaller paragraphs for easier reading.

Here are Tez's words:

1-27-08

I wanted to take a few minutes to comment on something of great personal significance that occurred during the presidential primary in South Carolina yesterday evening. Many of you who know me know that I don’t talk about race often. I generally prefer to elevate the discourse beyond it. But considering this week in which we have both celebrated Dr. King’s legacy and also endured a bitter political discussion with serious racial overtones, I thought I’d comment on yesterday’s events in my old home state.

I very much believe in a country and a world where race is neither a hindrance nor of any consequence—not to say a color-blind country, after all I bemoan blindness and ignorance of all kind—but a country where something like race with such a powerful and pervasive history and effect can be acknowledged, understood, and ultimately made a non-issue. A country where as Dr. King said people are judged not on their color but on the content of their character. I believe in such a country and I saw evidence of its coming last night.

Some may assume that this day has already passed and that race is already a non-issue. And while I love their optimism, my life has shone a different picture. The world is changing but real change happens slowly.

As some may know, I grew up in many places, but mostly in the South—namely South Carolina. First, in Charleston, North Charleston, then the small town of Summerville. It was in these early days in South Carolina that I was introduced violently and vividly to the concept of race. The notion of race was born for me one sad day on a playground when little southern kids taunted me, harassed me for being black, calling me every name under the sun but my own, and told me to go back to Africa where they said I belonged, where their parents had taught them I belonged, despite the fact that my family has been on this land for 350 years.

It was in those days in South Carolina where I saw the Klu Klux Klan march through the streets of Monks Corner and Goose Creek, where I was forced into that vicious world of hate and prejudice. And since that time, in this day and age, both in the north and south, I’ve faced countless acts of racism, been called the n word more times than I know, had bottles and stones and bricks thrown at me, threats of nooses pointed in my direction, and even death threats towards my family members simply for moving into a neighborhood where we were different.

But yesterday, with so many pundits and talking-heads describing how the primary vote broke along racial lines, and all this talk about what role race and gender would play in the South Carolina election, I saw something else. There was one statistic that jumped out at me, that in this southern state where I was introduced to racism, in this former Confederate stronghold, one simple statistic gave me such a palpable sense of hope—that even in this place, the younger generations are rejecting a tradition of ignorance and prejudice and moving on towards something better. That although white voters in SC over 65 yrs old overwhelmingly favored any white candidate, literally one-half of white voters 30 and under in South Carolina actually voted yesterday for a black person to be President of the United States! (Compare this to the nominal 5-10 percent Jesse Jackson got in 88' when he won the state)

This statistic could easily be missed by some who were born and raised in the north with the luxuries of a different heritage, or for those whom the issue of race was not forced upon them. But for those of us who have endured the emotional beatings and let downs of a different southern culture with different rules that change at a glacial pace, this is something special, a sign of a new day. I emphatically reject the juvenile politics of racial identity that so much of the media focused on leading up to this primary, and I don't mean to overstate results from a democratic primary.

The point is not that these young voters chose a particular candidate over another, but instead that they were willing to actually consider all three candidates at all, where less than twenty years ago when I lived there, they would not have. This election is another clear sign that positive change is still occurring. The young are rejecting the misguided ways of the past. And that even in the most unlikely places, and in this perilous age of red states and blue states, the sons and daughters of the South have been willing to open their hearts and minds to a new day of tolerance and open-mindedness. For me, this is a great sign for the future of this country and for what we can be, that we will be able to see beyond the divisions of race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender and see each other for our ideas, values, and commonalities.

I would love to say that my influence in his words shows through, to take some credit. I can't. Rather, I admire his wisdom.