By DON NEEPER
Formerly of Los Alamos
The U.S. is treating “racism” as a collected set of individual issues, that might be separately corrected as, for example, by retraining policemen.
However, violent racism is not an isolated issue. It is a systemic issue of the entire society. The spectacular killings of several black men are among many effects that emerge at the boundaries where black and white cultures mix.
Technically, a culture is a complex system, a large number of actors interacting by non-proportional rules. To alter an emergent characteristic in a complex system, you have to change the rules of interaction.
Rules of interaction? Culture is a set of largely unwritten rules regarding how we meet, greet, and expect particular responses from each other. Racial problems occur where two cultures mix—those places where people with different expectations meet in ordinary activities like work, school, shopping, and walking down the street.
Cultural rules include where you belong and where you don’t. I don’t belong in a closed jewelry store at midnight. In some cities, I would belong there even less if I happen to be black. That’s the problem.
If someone speaks with an accent using words of black culture, would an office supervisor assume that the person is ignorant, unsuited for a job? Would color affirm that assumption? If so, is the supervisor a racist, or is the supervisor simply unaware of his own culture? Most of us not conscious of our expectations. I gained a little awareness one night when looking for a gas station in a black neighborhood of Mississippi. Subtle details of traffic and commerce seemed strange to me, and I felt the stares and frowns of rejection.
The U.S. is not a homogeneous nation with a single culture. Low income neighborhoods generate less tax revenue, thereby supporting schools of lower quality. Economic and educational disparities increase in a systemic feedback, maintaining both cultural differences and inequities.
Education would be a more effective solution to systemic racism than the revision of police budgets. Education means more than better schools. We need awareness training for all ages and cultures via cross-cultural conversations, and these conversations must happen in stores, churches, political parties, and workplaces, as well as in schools. We have to learn appreciation for cultural differences when interacting across a cultural interface, whether that’s white-black, Hispanic-Native American, or any other cultural boundary. After sharing conversations, we can better regard each other as equals.
The nation needs to talk about our cultures, talk across the cultural margins, bringing unconscious feelings into awareness. If you can’t talk about something, you are powerless to change it.
Editor’s note: Don Neeper worked on weapon theory, solar buildings and environmental restoration at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Visit his website at www.neeper.net.