The Heartland

For several days now I have been in Columbus, OH, a city that has managed to preserve the rich architectural diversity of its various decades of development and prosperity. With Ohio State University here, as well as state government, there is a stable employed middle class, both white and black. But as I drove around the city with my oldest friend, who is just days from retiring from a career in public education, I was struck by the devastation, the poverty, the boarded up buildings, all of which were decidedly African American.

The heartland has been hit by the economic recession in ways we don't see on the coasts, and their recession started many years ago. As my dear friend spoke about how unsolvable the poverty of the African American community appeared to her over the years, how by the fourth and fifth grades children were already bitter and disengaged from school and from acquiring the habits needed to become economically independent, she questioned what her contribution had been for these last twenty-odd years. Somehow she had wanted to make a difference, and she didn't feel she had. One student told her that her room, the school library, was the only nice room in the building. She wondered how that might matter.

One person cannot end racism and the legacy of race. Not Barack Obama or my dear friend. Racism is systemic and only a systemic analysis, with dedicated, heart-strong warriors fighting the despair, will help us through this mire. America's blight is race and its forlorn legacy. We have no choice but to make the hard choices by looking inside ourselves, understanding our true natures, and finding the strength and dedication to move ourselves beyond race.