The clothes makes the woman

Reporter Inez Sainz has the right to wear whatever she wants. Jeans that cling like a second skin, belly-baring tops, necklines that just about burst with cleavage.  It's all her choice.  I'm guessing her employer, the Mexican television channel Azteca, does not have much of a dress policy, or it has decided to follow the mantra 'sex sells' and to let Ms. Sainz sell the station's programming the best she knew how.

Now there is absolutely no excuse for the juvenile behavior of the New York Jets coaches and players in the locker room last Saturday, but Sainz would be more than disingenuous if she said the behavior was surprising.  I suspect the sports reporter has found that her style opens many locker doors, giving her access to teams and athletes.   I have no doubt that she understands fully that her clothes play a role in how she is perceived and how she gets her job done.

We must always remember that claiming our freedoms require us to also claim responsibilities and acceptance of consequences.  Young (mostly) black men have the right to wear their pants under their behinds to show off their colorful boxers, boxer-briefs and tighty-whities.  When they unwrap that right, they cannot leave societal assumptions in the box.  There is no complaining about societal perceptions and judgments when anyone wears a look associated with criminals.  Police officers will slow down as they walk by, shopkeepers and store clerks will put their hand to hover just over the silent alarm when they enter, and women will give them wide berth and clutch their purses when they see them.

Hate in any shade is still hate

It has become a scary world to wake up in.  The kind of scary that boggles my mind and makes my heart hurt.  2010 seems to be conjuring up the days of Jim Crow, McCarthy hearings and Japanese internment camps.

We went from campaign grumblings about then-candidate Barack Obama's true nationality, to a seeming marked increase in the number of Americans who believe the president is lying about his religion.  The media-fueled debate - is he Muslim or is he not - has been ignoring the most important consideration: Why should it matter?

Tea Partiers, while certainly having the right to take any political position they like, have hinged their movement on attacks against the President's person and race, more than on position statements intended to address the maladies they identify.  The group's racist statements and signage have not stirred the widespread outrage they deserve.

I guess the country's general apathy made for the perfect environment and time for the State of Arizona to try to legalize racial profiling.  The state's Governor Jan Brewer touted untruths and unfounded statistics in her campaign to paint Mexicans as Arizona's biggest crime and social problem.  Few called her on it, and many supported the legislation that would have allowed police to stop and question anyone who 'looked' like an illegal immigrant.

Jan Brewer and others who prey on the fears of the ignorant are largely responsible for my fears. As are those like Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani for whom division and discord have become effective political tools.  What seemed like small pockets of intolerance in 2008, has ballooned into a canvas of xenophobia that threatens to undo all the country's progress of the last 50 years.  The most recent display of hatred is ironically centered around the site of the deadliest act of hatred against the United States, nine years ago today.  The actions of the September 11 attackers were motivated by hatred, intolerance and a warped sense of religious duty.  (Rev. Terry Jones is apparently motivated by the very same things.)  After the attacks, every speech aimed at rousing the country's spirits heralded the precepts that make America great - justice and liberty being chief among them.  We need those speeches again.  We need to see the lunacy of wanting to bar a perfectly legal Islamic center from being built blocks from Ground Zero - whether our discomfort is based on sentimentality or religious indifference.  We need to be reminded that "liberty and justice for all" encompasses those who look, dress, worship and speak differently from us.

The black elephant in the elevator

I must admit I have never felt the oppression of racism.  The concept has always seemed other-worldly to me actually.  There has been only one time (a disturbing incident in a Huntsville, Alabama Macy’s) when I walked away with a strong suspicion that I had just experienced racism.  Otherwise, rude people have always been simply that - rude. I never assumed that slights, denied career opportunities, or diverted eyes had anything to do with my color.

My husband and I have had an unspoken agreement to not make race an issue in raising our sons.  We have always lived in multi-cultural communities, and they have always had classmates that represented the widest cross-section of the nation.  We never talked about race, always affirmed them and each other, and discouraged using race as a descriptor when talking about someone:  “the short girl with black hair and dimples,” as opposed to “the black/white girl.”   Racial references were so avoided that the boys, when they do refer to someone’s skin color, don’t follow the concepts of race, but of Crayola.  They say tan or brown, instead of white or black.

I expected that my boys will be part of an enlightened post-racial society and I wanted to do a good job preparing them for it.  These days, however, I am not so sure.  I am not sure that there will ever be a post-racial society (or what that even means).  I am not sure that I am doing a good job of preparing my sons for the society that will be.  Recently my 5 and 6 year-old sons in discussion at the breakfast table, both decided aloud that they would marry tan (white) girls.  I was stunned, scared and heartbroken, though I was not sure that I should be.  I tried to find out what had led them to their decision, but neither seemed to be able to identify a catalyst.  They wanted to, “just because…dunno why.”  An equally important consideration: if I am indeed above and beyond the considerations of race, as I like to consider myself, why was their pronouncement bothersome?  A recent struggle with my sons and their visiting cousins over Nintendo Wii Miis turned teary and gave me an ugly answer.  None of the kids wanted avatars that were representative of how they look.  They wanted lighter skin, narrower noses, and straighter hair.   When I created an image that I thought resembled my son he said it was ugly and burst into tears.

My peers almost all reacted with the same resigned shrug of the shoulders and noncommittal references to “other influences” affecting our children when I told them about the incident.  No one seemed as startled or as worried as I was.  Race is not so much a bothersome personal issue for Blacks who have been saved the direct burns of racism through education, attainment of wealth, or geography of birth or residence.

Concern for my sons makes me conclude though, that it should be an issue.   We cannot afford to ignore race in our homes when there are those “other influences” – subtle yet effective – affecting our children.  They will form opinions about culture, race and themselves, and parents have an obligation to try to influence those opinions.  If I continue to deny race to my sons, but the world is telling them they are ugly because their skin is dark and their nose is broad, I am not preparing them for the world, I am sacrificing them to it.  So there will no more ignoring race in my house.  There will be lots of talk about skin color and beauty, about men and women of color who left their mark on the world, about self-worth and the necessity for more than a little bit of arrogance. I will teach them what I have learned – that racial equality and the elimination of racism require us to affirm and value our place on the rainbow.