Loaded Terms

UP UNTIL THE SIXTIES Americans viewed public discussion of ethnicity with distaste; according to historian Theodore H. White '38, it was considered "equivalent to talking openly in the parlor about sex." The Civil Rights Movement, by bringing hyphenated Americans out into the open, changed things for the better.

Or did it?

The Movement sparked a pluralistic explosion by pricking the consciousness of every conceivable social group Ethnic Americans waved their hyphens with defiant pride; with the air cleared of stultifying hypocrisy, the dream of racial unity seemed more realizable than ever.

The reality, of course, turned out quite differently: instead of further melting the pot, the pluralistic frenzy of the sixties helped in many ways to polarize the ingredients. Nevertheless, in their subsequent starry-eyed attempts since then to foster complete racial harmony, many Americans have forgotten a basic fact people will always find irresistable interest in categorizing others on the basis of race, class, beliefs, or some other distinctive trait.

This fact shouldn't provide an easy excuse for Presidential candidates, or anyone for that matter, to slander certain groups of fellow citizens. But it should be clearly acknowledged in order to defuse the incredible ethnic touchiness that remains the legacy of well-intentioned era.

Americans, especially Jews, were justifiably dismayed by Jesse Jackson's anti-Semitic remarks; they were inexcusably naive, however, to have been shocked by them.

It is after all a supreme but entirely logical irony that Blacks and members of other minorities should be as, or sometimes more, prejudiced than whites. Anyone who spends his formative years being humiliated and ostracized on the basis of his ancestry (as Jackson was) almost inevitably will become severely race-conscious. The individual bitterness provoked by experiences with discrimination may or may not surface and may even spur constructive attempts to combat bigotry; but it will survive, nonetheless, within the heart.

The Woodstock era discredited the practice of stereotyping without significantly deepening Americans' cross-cultural awareness. Hopefully the highly publicized confession of the country's most prominent minority leader will serve to remind us that we all harbor stereotypes and prejudices, and thereby encourage a more realistic perspective on race relations within our society.

An earnest young woman recently proposed that all ethnic jokes be replaced by Martian jokes, in order to preserve goodwill. This is an absurd suggestion: in addition to making hypocrites of our spacemen, it would call for a return to the old-time two facedness described by White. If Americans refuse to accept the fact that all people (including victims of racial bias) are prejudiced to some degree, they risk losing the ability to distinguish racism from ethnic humor.

Jackson's "Hymietown" remarks were indeed condemnable--but largely within the context of his actions; e.g., embracing P.L.O. leader Arafat and then, amazingly, proclaiming himself representative of all ethnic interests.

ANY TERM can be abused. What is important is not the term, but the situation within which it is expressed. The listener bears as much civic responsibility as the speaker whenever a potentially offensive word or phrase is uttered; knee-jerk reactions can foster unnecessary hostility on occasions when no disparagement was intended.

Most humor has a target, and no one (even a Martian) completely enjoys being the butt of a joke. But unless Americans come to terms with the realities of human nature and of life within a chromatic culture, they will simply stifle a rich source of national humor without promoting a genuine and good natured appreciation of human differences.