FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
 JANUARY 8, 1999

COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS
by Patrisia Gonzales and Roberto Rodriguez
REHUMANIZING SOCIETY

    The beginning of the year is not only a time to look toward the future, but also a time to celebrate the birthday of one of this century's greatest human beings: Martin Luther King Jr. It's also an opportune time to ponder on how we can all humanize society.

    There are some people who actually dread Jan. 15, possibly because they've not come to terms with a black or multiracial America. Unfortunately, some use this occasion to attempt to instill a collective guilt in white America, as though every white person was directly responsible for the sins of every bigot that ever walked this land. But as anti-racist educator Chris Clarke, who is white, of New Mexico State University recently told us, "Most white people don't have guilt; they have resentment."

    Others view this day as a time of "racial healing." That perhaps is a better alternative, but in order for there to be healing, there has to be agreement that there's hurt. And when there's resentment, those who feel resentful feel that they're the aggrieved parties-that they're the ones being hurt. As an example, those who resent MLK day seem to believe that American society is in danger of being physically and culturally overrun by nonwhites.

    Their angst is misguided, though it's real nonetheless. That's why King's commemoration should be used to promote what scholar Antonia Castaneda in the history department at St. Mary's University in San Antonio calls the "rehumanization" of society. This has little to do with guilt.

    If we all go far back enough in our ancestry, there's plenty to be resentful about. World history is replete with genocide, conquest, slavery and discrimination. But resentfulness, of course, is not the route to rehumanization. That route can begin only by acknowledging that the principal problem we face is that most of us have historically been dehumanized, and that some of us continue to be dehumanized. So the objective is not to determine who we blame; rather, our objective should be to determine how we can all help rehumanize society. In this realm, we all have to determine our specific role in the rehumanization process.

    Because of continued racial inequality here in the United States, many people assume that people of color are the ones most in need of rehumanization. We don't agree. Many whites (not bigots) have themselves been dehumanized to the point where they no longer recognize what is civil behavior.

    Every weekend, parents take their children-in "war paint" and with tomahawk in hand-to root for sports teams with names such as "Indians," "Braves" and "Redskins," seemingly oblivious of the extreme denigration this causes native peoples everywhere. The children (mostly whites, but of all colors) are taught that this is normal behavior.
Similarly, in the area of college admissions, many white students are convinced-on the basis of misapplied standardized tests-that they are intellectually superior to people of color. The exams, according to the test-makers, were designed, not as intelligence tests, but as predictors of success in the first year of college. Despite this misuse and mistaken belief, many whites, and increasingly some Asian students, zealously fight for exclusive admissions, believing that most people of color aren't qualified to be on college campuses.

    Of course, some intellectuals believe that all the historical wrongs of society and the rampant racial hostility and inequality gives permission to people of color to live in a permanent state of anger-and that they are incapable of having racial hatred because they have no institutional power. Not true. And even if it were true, a permanent state of anger is not good for anyone's human condition.

    These are but a few examples of how all of us have been dehumanized. One way to rehumanize society is to fight for the right of all to be educated (or at least to create a fair college admissions process as in Texas and as is being proposed in California by Gov. Gray Davis), rather than permitting the proposed $100 billion increase to our already bloated military budget.

    Individually, perhaps we can all additionally learn and appreciate each other's histories and culture. Next, we can actually listen to each other. Then perhaps we can chart a course not on how to rehumanize others, but on how to rehumanize ourselves. Once rehumanized, perhaps we can be in the position to help point others toward their own path to rehumanization.

COPYRIGHT 1999 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE *
Both writers are authors of Gonzales/Rodriguez: Uncut & Uncensored. UC Berkeley, Ethnic Studies Library, Publications Unit.
Rodriguez is the author of Justice: A Question of Race, Bilingual Review Press and the antibook, The X in La Raza II and Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human.