Serendipitous Discoveries

Loretta J. Williams directs the Boston-based Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Awards project which for sixteen years on Human Rights Day has honored outstanding authors, their books--and their publishers--that advance understandings of bigotry and power imbalances in North America.

I read an article in today's newspaper on the new memorial in Washington, DC, that honors those Japanese-American families on the west coast who were forcibly incarcerated at internment camps in the US during World War II. The National Japanese-American Memorial to Patriotism sculpted by Nina Akamu also honors the 30,000+ Japanese Americans who served in the military at that time. Such service was controversial--families fractured even more as sons were asked to fight while their parents were in horse stalls behind barbed wire.

I wish the article had been more comprehensive, had told more about the very complex consequences of the state action. There are many lessons to be learned here. One of the serendipitous aspects of directing a national book award, now in its 17th year, is coming across stories and analyses written by those who bear the burden of those racist actions by the US government. I think here of novelists, social scientists, law professors and poets whose perspectives are those of persons victimized by the presidential executive order. Mitsuye Yamada's brilliant poetry in Camp Notes & Other Writings (Rutgers University Press 1998) comes to mind as does Rahna Reiuko Rizzuto's Why She Left Us: A Novel (Harper Collins 1999).

Each year, more analyses are written by persons from communities of identity that have traditionally been marginalized. This is a welcome trend and corrective as this nation wrestles with becoming a pluralist democracy.

The Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Awards project reviews and considers books published each year in North America that touch on the myriad forms of bigotry and on alternatives to these. We honor authors, promote little-publicized works of merit, and, most importantly, place information in the hands of those in the front lines working for change.

I can attest to how the range of topics and approaches challenge my thinking and cut through the too-pervasive cynicism in today's society. As a social scientist and African American woman committed to social change, I seek to learn more about what keeps people in the struggle to bring about fairness and positive change. I look, too, at obstacles and detours: what dispirits people, what clouds their thinking.

Our meaner culture is part of the dispiriting problem: "the weakest link," attack comedy, hate-filled music lyrics, violent sexual images, fear-mongering. Code words mask the myriad ways that people are taught to dehumanize others. Insidious subtleties camouflage the negative judgments and oppressive practices of bigotry, and lead to a culture that spawns the brutality of hate crimes. Hate graffiti and vandalism are showing up more and more in communities, large and small.

We, the general public, need to know more about the deep roots of this in the norms of whiteness. The Myers panelists welcome another trend: more authors explicating the many ways whites are expected to conform to having more privilege than persons of color. I think here of Jeff Hitchcock's Unraveling the White Cocoon (Kendall/Hunt 2001) that defies many of the existing taboos about talking about white people. He addresses how whites can help create an authentically multiracial and equitable society. I think here, too, of Stephanie Wildman's insightful analysis in Privilege Revealed: How Invisible Preference Undermines America (New York University, 1996) of how the meaning of the idea of "race" changes, but the privileging of whiteness through different devices, social patterns, and even laws remains constant.

The Myers panel of reviewers is eclectic in all dimensions: They live in various parts of the United States, and are involved in a variety of occupations: students, a playwright, organizers, a public defender, professors, social workers, human rights advocates, clergy, a park ranger, teachers and administrators, readers all. The range of ages is broad: 20s through 80s. We discern and honor stories of resistance, survival, resiliency, and hope. Those of us who are not afraid to live our lives motivated by a passion for justice must continue to learn from others similarly inclined. Social justice is not only something abstract; it is a vision and quality of right relationship and cooperative and equitable power sharing. Thus we name the contradictions.

I am looking forward to new connections and deeper understanding of global realities resulting from my attending the United Nations Forum on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances (WCAR), particularly the Non-Governmental Organization Forum to be held in Durban, South Africa, August 27-September 8. My expectations of the actions that will be taken by governmental leaders are not high. The United States is dragging its feet. Here is but one example: Slavery was "an abomination" in the past, Frederick Jones, a State Department spokesperson, said recently, "but we believe it is important that the World Conference focus on a positive and forward-looking [actions] rather than attempt to apportion blame for injustices in the distant past." He went on to say: "Financial reparations and a formal apology would do nothing to address racism and discrimination today. The conference should address current problems."

Say what? That white-washed view of things can be seen, in addition, in the official United Nations WCAR poster released in June. The poster contains a graphic of a young brown-skinned child dancing on tip toes, attempting to capture in a butterfly net a missing jig saw piece of her dress: a red heart. What is the meaning here?

Take a look at the poster on the Web at www.un.org/WCAR/e-kit/poster.htm, and see if you agree that it is 1) cosmetic camouflaging of the fact that racism ravages families, communities, the world; and 2) feel-good propaganda from the conquerors' perspective.

As Myers director, I am proud of our multiracial, multilingual, multi-aged, multi-occupations, pluralist group of panelists who see things quite differently. We know that:

• Being committed to diversity is good, but insufficient.
• Valuing diversity is necessary, but insufficient.
• A heightened ability to shift back and forth between perspectives is necessary as we chip away at structures and practices that demonize those who are different from some false universalized standard.
• What is sufficient is participation in the struggles for full human rights for all peoples.

I'd like to hear what you think of the WCAR poster. An Email request to <lorewill@bu.edu> will get you on the mailing list of the quarterly newsletter, Multidiversity Book Commentary. Mailing address: Myers/BUSSW, 264 Bay State Road, Boston, MA 02215.

Previous Article    Next Article