I blogged a while back about Dr. Yancey’s great book, Beyond Racial Division. I mentioned his plan of engaging in conversation for mutual suasion.
On our cruise, I was pleased that we had several good opportunities to chat with African Americans. I was a bit surprised that, I seized the opportunity to initiate conversations with several folks. Victor and Vaneta, both young schoolteachers, seemed very interested in chatting. After we had built some rapport I asked Victor about his experience with racism in school. He said there wasn't much, because his school was almost 100% Hispanic and Black. I was caught off-guard, but happy to hear his experience.
A couple of days later, I was in a cruise-sponsored veteran's appreciation meeting. I struck up a conversation with a former US Marine. His experience was somewhat different from Vic's. He had, to my extreme surprise, run into harsh racism from one of his USMC supervisors. He wisely documented the racism and when things came to a head, he provided his commander with his notes. This resolved the problem, which I was happy to hear. But, I was saddened because my own experience was the the US Armed Forces, back in the 70's seemed far ahead of popular culture on dealing with racism.
As Yancey predicted, it was educational and useful to engage in these conversations. "Mutual suasion" is the ultimate goal, but this only comes about with communications.
I hope I will continue to get, and pursue, these conversations.
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