A moment happened to me Monday night that I will likely never forget. My daughter asked my ex-wife and I why we are sad during a conversation. My daughter, Eleanor, and I talk most every night on Skype, a video messaging app. Oftentimes, my ex-wife, Shaye,
Oftentimes, my ex-wife, Shaye, and I will exchange hellos and do the things you do when you are friends who co-parent. Monday was a bit different as we let the unrest of the outside world come into the conversation.
I have been told I’m an empath and this has been confirmed by the behavior of Eleanor. She was concerned that Mommy and Daddy were sad.
Then it happened. I explained racism to my daughter. She will turn four-years old this month.
On some level, I figured this day would come. After all, our family is Puerto Rican. In fact, my dad, his siblings and my grandma lived in the projects of Brooklyn.
Furthermore, I have cousins who are African American, Jamaican, Korean and Panamanian.
Meanwhile, most everyone on my mom’s side of the family is white and they mostly live in rural Tennessee or Texas.
Being related to people who looked different than me has always been the norm. On top of that, I lived in or around Oklahoma City my whole life. However, I am not naive enough to think everyone has the same experience as me. Nor do I have the audacity to think I can understand what it is like to be black in America.
There have been times I have identified as a person of color, but I know I have light skin.
Truth be told, I think my daughter heard the hurt I had in my heart. That’s how I am an empath. When the world is hurting, I feel it.
I see injustice and want to fix it even though I’m just a guy and I have no actual authority other than in this editorial page. Even then, I am limited by a reader’s openness to listen to a different opinion.
I hate to admit that I’m not always as bold as I want to be. I try to select a variety of views for this Opinion page; especially when I don’t have the words to describe I feel or a view on a particular topic.
I’d rather not waste column inches weighing in on every hot button topic. Instead, I prefer my editorials and columns to carry some weight when they are printed. However, after another week of unrest across the world, I had to say something.
First, I hope to understand and practice empathy no matter their view of the protests occurring all around us. You don’t have to agree with someone else’s view on racism or policing. Rather, please try and see things from their point of view.
Second, protesting and looting are two different things. Protesting is protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
It’s easy to claim rights listed under the Constitution when they are convenient. However, democracy and our way is anything but convenient.
The fact is, if we want to claim the Constitution, we have to own all of it. Just as we’d like our rights protected, we should want the same for our neighbors.
On that note, we all need to be good neighbors. That means looting is not the right way to show frustration. The problem is some injustices have been ignored long enough that some people have felt the need to resort to destruction of property to get the public’s attention.
Third, please know and accept that the world is changing. Our population is getting younger and less white. Data from a 2018 Census Bureau estimates shows that 50-60% percent of children under age 15 in Marshall County are white; the rest being non-white.
Specifically, the Marshall County data shows 18.1% of its total population is Hispanic/Latino, 10.9% Native American and another 2.0% African American.
The data also shows 64.8% of the population is considered white only thus 35.2% of the population is nonwhite.
The county is primed to get younger and non-white in time. According to data provided by OG&E to the Marshall Economic Development Authority in 2019, the median age in Marshall County 43.2 years. This is nearly seven years older than Oklahoma’s median age of 36.3 years. OG&E’s data puts Marshall County’s Latino population at 16.8% or 6.7% higher than Oklahoma as a whole.
Lastly, please know that this isn’t meant to take the side of protestors or police. Honestly, we at The Madill Record have great working relationships with members of our local and state law enforcement agencies.
However, we also know that Black Lives Matter protests are occurring in places like Ardmore, Broken Bow and Durant. That means many of our neighbors are looking for a change. Look at a picture of one of these local protests and you won’t see just black faces but also white and brown. They are asking for us to help cure the ills of racism in our back yard.