A new take on an age-old issue

   Every so often, I like to do a Google check on myself to see what I can find. As a former journalist, it's always interesting to see where my old columns have ended up. Earlier this week, I did such a check, and discovered, much to my amusement and disgust, that at least one column, written in 2008, was picked up by a white-supremacist Web site.
   The column in question was in response to an attempted assassination plot against then-presidential candidate Barack Obama by two Neo-Nazi skinheads. One skinhead was from  Bells, Tenn., just one county over from my former hometown of Jackson. The other, from West Helena, Ark. At the time, I was attempting to discern what could cause two otherwise quiet, respectful youths (by all accounts from their friends and family) to develop such hate for other races. Like any good journalist, I was attempting to mine what lessons I could from the failed plot.
   It's been almost four years since that column first appeared in The Jackson Sun. And after re-reading it (along with the hilarious editorial comments added by the forum poster), I decided to revisit the issue of what exactly goes into creating a racist.
   I have always believed that humans are innately good. They aren't born evil. Evil and hatred are learned behaviors. So evil and hatred are taught at a parent's knee from a very early age. What a parent believes, a child is likely to reflect, to adopt as his or her own belief.
   Another reason people adopt racist philosophies is because of the very human need to belong. Many racists (but not all) come from broken homes. They're angry. They believe the world has turned its back on them and that they're being unfairly kept from succeeding. So, instead of picking themselves up and working hard to change their situation, they gravitate to other angry people who share their beliefs. They are seduced by people, and groups, that offer easy answers. "It's not your fault your life hasn't worked out the way your want it," they are told. "Blame the (insert racial or ethnic group here.) It's all THEIR fault." By joining with these people and groups, the nascent racist is able to relieve him or herself of any personal responsibility for the state of their life. They are able to feel a sense of belonging, a sense of family, they might otherwise be missing.
   Here's the thing, though. That sense of family and belonging is based on a lie. Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Brotherhood and the Supreme White Alliance (the group our two skinheads belonged to) aren't based on love and acceptance (the two things our nascent racist is seeking). They are founded on the principles of hatred and exclusivity.
   These groups aren't Christian, no matter how they like to present themselves. Here's a dose of reality. Jesus was NOT white, blond-haired and blue-eyed. He was Middle-Eastern, meaning he was olive-skinned. In reality, he was closer to black than white.
   Jesus never preached hatred toward our fellow man. Read the Gospels, and you'll find that he often associated with, even ate with, sinners and social outcasts. He healed lepers. When he left the disciples to return to heaven, he told his followers to "Go ye therefore and make disciples of ALL men" (Matthew 28). How does any of that fit into the racist's view of a "white, Christian America?" It doesn't.
   The bottom line is, racists are created, not born. It's up to this generation to teach the next not to hate. Parents, teach your children to look at others with colorblind eyes. Teach them to judge others based not on their skin color or ethnicity, but on the "content of their character," to quote Dr. King. Teach your children to take responsibility for their own lives and their own successes or failures. Racism is the easy way out, the coward's way out. Life isn't easy or fair. The sooner we teach our children that simple fact and give them the tools to succeed, the sooner America can live up to its full potential and become what it was always meant to be: a land of opportunity for everyone who cares to dream and to work hard to achieve it.