MY VIEW
Wesley Carter: Education is the key to eliminating racism
Whenever people ask me why I teach, my answer is usually quite simple: I teach because I have to. I say that, because every once in a while something will occur to remind me of the importance of education and the necessity for my having to be in the classroom.
One such occurrence came by way of a phone call some four years ago from a cousin who wanted to inform me of a tragic incident that had occurred on Dec. 19, 2005. Another close relative, Cindy, had gone to a New Jersey mall to purchase tickets for her and her family to attend the theater. As she was getting out of her car, she was accosted by a skinhead who was on flight from a fugitive warrant that had been issued by Florida authorities. Despite her efforts to get away, he pulled a gun and shot her. She died instantly.
Thanks to the help of numerous horrified witnesses, he was captured soon after in a wooded area behind the mall. That day Walter Dille had two objectives: to kill someone black and to steal a car. One can only imagine his level of satisfaction at having accomplished the first, although failing to realize the second.
Recently, Dille went to trial where he received a life sentence without parole. This dastardly act left a husband without a wife and two sons without a mother. It left this cousin finding it difficult to finish the semester and to begin psyching up for the next. His thoughts were only of revenge.
When one thinks of revenge, one generally thinks of an act of callous retribution; but revenge is also a powerful and emotional weapon that can be utilized in more positive ways.
Why do I teach? I teach because issues like race and racism demand it. My students and I cover such life-altering and senseless tragedies like the one that befell my cousin, the interactions of various races to one another, the religious conflicts like those forever in the Middle East and the role that we as Americans play in such conflicts both domestic and foreign.
We seek definitions to hollow words and barriers like race, discrimination, prejudice, democracy, multiculturalism and political corruption. And throughout all of our discussions, I never allow them to tire of asking the question, why? These are barriers of the worst kind, thus logically, methodically, we wrestle with ways to tear them down.
I force them to think beyond mere platitudes for meaningful answers to society’s most troubling problems; and for many students, it is the first time they have been asked to exact such considerations. They realize more than most that we are continually challenged to determine what it means to be human.
Discussions about the abilities of students today versus those of yesterday are all too common. Sometimes they even rise to levels of complaints about what students are capable of doing or not doing in the classroom. But whatever the complaints or our feelings about their abilities, I never fail to acknowledge the innermost substance that they bring to the academic scene, feelings and concerns not always apparent but ever present, nonetheless.
It is within the students’ innermost that I detect a change in the winds of their relationships with one another and with the world, their deeply felt concerns about race and what it is doing to the integrity of society. They know not only that racism is wrong, but that respect for humanity is right; and that there are always societal consequences when the cause of a senseless death is hate.
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