the consensus seems to be that prejudice is learned.
And, boy, we sure are taught from early on how to
distinguish our group from their group us
from them a bit. You're a lot like me that starts in
the family. There's always one side you tend to favor.
That's the group you spend more time with. You
understand them of it better. You seem to relate well, and you may
not like all of them, but you have a relationship.
And then there's that other side. Now those people, they are
definitely different and even a little strange.
And the more time you spend away from them talking about
their strangeness, the Mauritz reaffirmed. When you get together with
him, race and ethnic relations are a lot like that, too, but
on a global scale and with many more
troubling repercussions. This is crossing
cultures changing lives. And I'm Kitty Oliver with
the question, Why is it so difficult to
unlearn prejudice and to communicate across those
racial and ethnic lines? In this
episode, we're gonna meet some people from a variety of backgrounds
who are searching for answers in many
different ways. Some are reaching out to others some
of trying to heal old wounds and reconcile with the past and some
of just willing to get together with people they don't know very
well and talk at a deeper level. I can
guarantee that you're gonna want to join in with them. All of
you have had have made that journey from
home, if you will, from one kind of base into a larger and
larger world, you know what was the nudge, if you will, that
allowed you to do it. I enjoyed other people's and the idea that there were
people different than myself out there in the world with such an
excitement. It seems like my life has been a lot of invitations.
So I was invited out West and went out to dance with the
people in the like White Eagle, Oklahoma, the Ponca, the
Kyla, the Sioux out of South Dakota and the Crow. And
in Montana. The pioneer families were very good to the Seminoles and
vice versa. They had a great relationship. So, um,
if we had kept up that family tradition, I would have had no problem at all. I would have
been known to that community. The older people who had been the
first ones educated in North Carolina and in Haskell Institute
recognize the fact that what I was doing was, you might say, a bit
benign. It was not hurting anything, certainly getting some
material that they needed. I grew up in a very Westernized family,
the Creoles, the Creoles of Sierra Leone. The
descendants off liberates it. Africans who were enslaved on
the British in the 19th century
onda many off them a made up off the DOMA
rooms from Jamaica on other parts of Africa.
And those who came from Nova Scotia as well on the Creoles were very,
very Westernized, very British and in the way they did
everything. One of the earliest universities in Africa was actually
established in Sierra Leone for big college. So I grew up with that
kind of Westernized. But at the same time, Sierra Leone had other
ethnic groups, other indigenous ethnic groups. On
when I when I was growing up, creo tended to
see themselves as a cut above the other ethnic groups in the
society. But I came from a family where we had
family members from different ethnic backgrounds as well
as religious background So within the vehicle bets family. We have
Muslims as well as Christians. The whole sense off
otherness didn't matter because I grew up in a very inclusive
kind of family. But at the same time, these
sort of prejudices were there as we were socialized
on. Then I went to England. I finished school in England,
and I guess that's where I began to be exposed to the
differences in terms off how people viewed black
people in England and friends sometimes wouldn't
invite you to their homes or he went to parties with them. They wouldn't
dance with you and just little things. And even at school, I
remember that some of my teachers wanted me to do
what they wanted me to go to teachers training college. But they didn't think I was capable
of going to university. Onda and one of my cousins had to
come down to the school and say, But in our family, we
expect our Children to go to university and all but those
prejudices were there in terms off water. Their expectations
were off me as a black person, individuals, maybe
tabula rasa. But groups or not, groups have
memories and sometimes people groups are still fighting about something that happened
3 4000 years ago, even though they know
nothing about specifically what happened with the details. But the
reality is that they curry these things in their in their minds and in their hits. You
become aware in very subtle ways of who the
other is your positioning there. So what will It was the sense
then growing up and you grew up in Jordan,
weight in Kuwait. It was a very
diverse community. Whether it's the neighborhood or the
schools are everywhere. We went, our friends were from all over
the world, so I didn't grow up having a
sense of, you know, like I am from here. And this is,
you know, I've always been part of multicultural
families and societies and communities and
neighborhoods. My friends in
elementary school are from India from Egypt
from all over the world. So I've always been
exposed to the differences and cultures
and always was able Teoh get
over that difference if at all, notice it. You know,
as Children, you have a different language of communicating than
that, the language or the accent that you speak when we
first went to Jordan after the call for in Kuwait.
We were the Kuwaitis. Although we were
not never integrated into Kuwait, we always had our
Jordanian passports. We always wore the Arabs or the
Jordanians or the Palestinians in Kuwait. So we were the other in
Kuwait. And then we became the other in Jordan again because we
never we didn't. We weren't born there. We didn't grow
up there. We were kind of different in a way. And then coming
to the States was also a big challenge.
Um, I mean, just the way I
dress, um kind of cast me in a different category for
a lot of people. Although my skin color doesn't really
show anything. Like if I didn't have that headdress on me,
I would pass Is a white person any regular white person?
But then, you know, I was
always different. I was always the other in college. I was
first embraced by the African Americans off Philadelphia because
I was in the suburbs of Philadelphia and my friend in
college, the African American was little friend in college, kinda
embraced me and she took me to her family in our
neighborhood in the mosques over there, so I felt
very welcomed by them. Although the
color was always there. She's the white kid who's,
you know, in a Muslim mosque, you know.
So I was the only one who was
different in the Middle East. There was a lot of anti
American sentiment, so my brothers and my sister and I would
get chased and rocks thrown at us and
shot at periodically. And so it was. It was an
experience where we became very aware of the
tension between cultures.
What set the 10. I think my father really
established the tone that sort of been a through line in my
life. He was a great musician,
jazz, classical clarinetist, saxophonist. And so
my brothers went to school in Beirut, in Lebanon and before it was
destroyed the first time. Beautiful place, just amazing. And
we would go there periodically, and my father would meet with a group
musicians and trade American
song, a jazz piece for Middle Eastern peace. He
would learn one. He would teach one in Japan. I was there when
Hirohito died. So again, a lot of anti American sentiment people were
giving me, you know, I needed to go that way and they said, Go that way And I
went having to trust my instincts to tell me
when people were giving me good information about information. I remember being out
West, though there were young people and it was very militant at the time that the
American Indian movement came in and I remember going past
they were getting ready to have a dance at Pine Ridge and someone raised his
fist and shook it at us as we went by. You know, that kind of thing. So
there is some antagonism. But through music and through dance,
um, out there, we fit in quite well. I just wondered in
terms of racial experiences
how race in America has
affected you and and how you negotiated it, you're
dealing with it or getting around it. I was
the only white member in a black band when I lived in L. A
and toured with them and there Waas uh,
there were great musicians, and as faras
the talent we all got along really well. But one of the other
women in the band hated me, and
the entire time that I was in the group she kept wanting to fight.
We're gonna fight you. And I were gonna fight. I want to fight. She would tell other people in the
group. She now we're gonna fight and I'm not a fighter.
I mean, I'm just not, you know, I mean, if someone attacks me, I'll fight back.
But I kept saying, Let's talk this through.
Let's talk about this. I understand that I represent something
to you, but I didn't do it. It's the same. When I was in
Japan and people were mad about erosion, I didn't do it.
So, yes, there's a cultural guilt. These things are also
magnified depending upon the the the
the social circumstances. That may
be in the structural situation that the groups
find themselves. So, for example, groups that
may with various histories come in contact with one group
doesn't have resource is another does that can cause a lot of conflict.
On the other hand, if one group is very wealthy and well off and they can
accommodate and take it, another group that may lead into leading into
another type relationship I'm coming in as an African
and you know, even before you come you you hear all
these very negative things about African Americans. You
know the ways in which African Americans have been represented
in the media. And, of course, the globalization process
going on. That's all over the world. I have relatives in England was a
I couldn't go to America. They're shooting in the streets all the time.
You know that kind of thing. And so it's for me what has been
very portent. I has bean for me,
too. Established connections and an
understanding off African Americans as the
first you know, set off Africans who came
to this country on the enslavement on. It's been very
important for me to identify with their struggles and the
history, because it's very easy for me to just say,
Well, I'm not African American, you know, I'm not part of
that, and I can. It's It's also very easy to be
accepted into the society as a whole because
I'm not African American, so I'm not posing that sort of threats
to the system in some way. Everybody comes from some cultural
background and some, you know, form of immigration back into the United
States. But issues of power relations, which impacts on race
on how we've been treated. It's very important for them to know about these things and
to discuss it so that they can see that there
are issues that need to be interesting looking at those
inequalities, how those issues have impacted
inequalities in the society. My commitment to
peace, you know, has always been there. Even before I came to the States,
even before September 11 I was involved in
negotiations. Peace negotiations between Palestinians and
Israelis and Jordan has always been
a key player in those negotiations, and
even Aziz young people. We were involved in that. So it's
it's always it's always there. And yet you know the first
assumption, the first face that you know, when
somebody looks at me things. Oh, she's one of them, you know? So
So I have to like if there
is a chance to talk about it with a lot of people, there is even
isn't a chance. Um, it's long
discussions and long conversations until we reach to the
point where well, I didn't do it, you know, and I don't approve of
it. We are doomed to be at odds with one
another as long as we continue to
identify with the group with our particular group
because we realized that in any, uh,
given the situation that there's always a limit
with expect to scarce resource is
that resources that people use for power, prestige and privilege.
And when people identify with this particular group, they
begin to, uh, wish to protect that
group and was to seek these Resource is for their
group specifically. And then the other group gets jealous and so forth. And so
what? So what s so one of the problems is that
when when one group moves ahead, the other groups as well, you know,
I've got to move my group ahead and then the next room says, Well, we have to move our group head So
there's always as constant. Uh, this is
constant. Animosity have come to terms with
being always, you know, the other in the United
States. And unfortunately, I'm not
alone. There are other people from other backgrounds as well, who are always looked
at as the other. And I guess I'm it's easier for
me to get along with them than then the rest.
You was a job, right? Yeah. In my case, I don't
do that, but I have my Bianca bets and a lot off my
nieces and nephews who live in England will be a commences. They've dropped the
bugle because they say, If I use it,
I'm not going to get an opportunity for a job or
housing all of those things just with that name. And
so for me, it's an act of resistance that I keep my vehicle
so that it will reflect my ethnic
identity. From where I come from, the question becomes,
Who's my group? And for me,
it's It's not one group. It's always
somebody who's interesting, somebody who's doing something positive, somebody who is
kind, somebody who's peaceful. That's my group.
Now that is something that I find on the inside. You only become on the
other when you start saying no, my group is only this kind
of and then once you close in my group, then
my group has to have a certain identity. That identity obviously has to
be. This is the only group. This is the most important with
the and in a will. So when we go
back to our countries and when we're here in where we become
hybrids. Really? Because you have this idea at the back of your mind that
over time Sierra Leonean I'm African But really, you know, when you
go back, whenever I go to Ghana, I dress up
and where my my my West African outfits, you
know, thinking I look West Africa, you know, and somebody
hello diaspora system
come from? How does he know I'm not coming? I'm not from here,
you know, So it could be my walk. It could be my
manner. I don't know what it is so but we have to accept that whole
issue of but that's what I think. It's beautiful, said this final
note, because we keep mixing it up. We may have these
ways of humans of separating, but we also have these ways of mixing
it up, so people were confused the heck out of everybody.
Society changes when pioneers venture out, pushed
the boundaries and dare to try something new.
Innovation requires flexibility. However, you must
anticipate moves and circumvent obstacles to
adapt to a new situation. That's how the
Incheon outlawed African Cap Pereira has
survived in Brazilian culture as a game
and art and a metaphor for life
at the Afro Brazilian Cultural Center in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida Master Pele and his family do their
part to teach the history and keep the practice alive
while grappling with the racial and ethnic dilemmas they've had to
face in American life. When I moved here, I
first came to Minnesota, and that's when I first realized
that we separated because in Minnesota
there were blacks there, whites in their Cambodians. They didn't
have anybody that looked like me. I
wasn't too white and I wasn't too dark. So I was like, out of place.
And that's when I noticed that I had some black friends in Brazil.
I didn't realize it until I actually moved here. The racism in Brazil is different
is way different than here. Here there is a lot more hate hate than
then. I think in Brazil, like you say, you know, in Brazil I
mean, if you see a black man, you probably my thing go. You might want to
steal your purse, depending what he's wearing and things like that. It really depends on how
you dress yourself here. I think the racism here's a lot
more and also different about job in Brazil
black people they don't find, like a good job, the job that they
finds like a That's not a nice job. It's
very hard to find a good job. Most of the white people to get the
the best job, even for bank. A lot of people working in banks,
like people like white people working in bank. You probably see
1 may be true, but no as
better position, you know to me.
And that's how they discriminate. Cop Ueda
There was the weapon that they did, so they were not allowed
to practice because if they practice that, they would practice. Defend themselves
for Linda measure. So they have to practice in secret. And that's why they use
as a dance because they slave like to dance that to go out, like to do all the
seven morning other stuff. So that's why they have to use that as a
dance, just like a ceremony for just to display kind of the camp
waiting outside the music and the acrobatics part. They play a big
role because they weren't allowed to do anything that has to do with defending
themselves. So that's why when their masters would come Teoh to see What
are they doing? What are they doing? It's actually all they're just doing that type of
dance, but it's really not. It is a martial art. It was a
way for them to defend themselves, but that's why they have music and acrobatics in it.
So when they started to know that they have their Marshall the
cop were. So they started to put people that
was cracked in there. They were going to jail. There was suffer
as staying on in a back room like they
do in the prison. So they were not allowed to
practice. Yeah, when they found out that they were really doing it too, defend
themselves, they banished those. Those were like
they were the criminals do. A clear that was
there was a bunch of companies that there was like as a criminology.
That's why I wasn't going, is stretching and
fighting and stealing, stealing and using. Yeah, that's why the
couple before was not prohibit, was prohibit.
Now all over the words everybody doing top. Really,
you can see like lawyers, doctors, anybody,
everybody doing. Some people do it for the fitness because it's an excellent way to stay
fit. Some people do it because they really interested in a culture.
But I think the main reason people really enjoy
it is because so learn, be open minded, learned although all their
cultures, a lot of people from other places, other countries
come here on a train I like, started No
one known and conference really important about like how
it's growing everywhere. It's going to other countries,
cities and everywhere, waiting Israel, you know you can
go to, I don't know, some place they would never
imagine. That's couple an engine. So that's this is different
because we cheat the operetta and we teach
our our coach from Mazir. Ah, folklore,
folklore, folklore from Brazil They don't want. They don't
learn in the martial arts, they learn, play an instrument. They learn
Portuguese because they singing always sounds and Portuguese all the same
state, all the kids. It's a
good education for the kids, especially to be open minded to the world. We
say the game because we're not fighting playing.
We're having fun and we're joined it. It does get tough, but it's all a
game. It's a tough game because couple of the ditches out to be
alert. Some people there, they want to be better than others, and
then they lose the game. Let's say if I gave him a hospital, a hospital, me the
sweet When you sweep somebody that's part of cop awaiting. That
is part of the game. But some people can handle that. So what they
do, they get up and they go where you want to start punchy, and that's when you leave
the game. You'll sell you. It was your fault, they felt, because it was
your mistake. He got you again. Get up and try to get him
in the game, Not out of the game. The game of life can pull off
some tricky moves, sometimes sharp turns that get us off
balance. But once we learned to hold our own, some surprises
might be in store. Coming of age in the
South. On opposite sides of the troubling experiences of the
civil rights movement era, Bob Gossett and I share a
curious mind. It has continued for years
beyond his race and change oral history. Interview to other
conversations, one on one, considering you
know, when we grew up. So you were literally sitting on the other
side of the counter or sitting at the counter when I was
outside. Was there
any point of questioning during those growing
up years while segregation was going on? No, not
really. It was not a point of questioning myself.
It was the old adage. If it ain't broken,
don't fix it. You know, to me, it wasn't broken.
What was wrong with segregation? You know, I look at it from my
point of view, not from the other point of view.
Segregation worked. Quote unquote
busing, integration, waas a problem
and inconvenience. Um,
I never thought of the other side of it today. You know,
my kids are as comfortable
not seeing any any difference or
distinction between the races. My son
thinks the the best person to ever walk the
face of the Earth. But besides, Gandhi perhaps, was Martin Luther King.
And when you were growing up, what was the attitude? Martin Luther King was a
troublemaker, you know, to tow us white folks,
Martin Luther King was a troublemaker. You could try to avoid stepping out of your
comfort zone, but inevitably
something will happen to you that hits home, because
then you experience it. It may not be color,
but it could end up being something else. And that's something we're always warring
against a Z human beings. Progress and change,
uh, probably will come about as more we
interact. I hope that
I hope that we can approach everything with a certain
degree of honesty and integrity. And if we do,
then there's no difference between the race is there's no difference
between homosexual and straight. There's no difference between man
and woman. So so
honesty and integrity. That's pretty
good. We're working on it.
Several years ago, I went to an event staged by a group
committed to the healing of racism, and two
women made a presentation that I will never
forget. They said that we're all cousins
52 times removed, So
I thought about it. Maybe that names We human beings are
just the original dysfunctional family
playing favourites, nursing grudges. But there's no way
of getting rid of each other so that names we have to
keep on working to build bridges one by one,