Our Wonderful Post-Racial Future

My sixth grader is about to go through that part of the study of American History which involves the Civil Rights Movement. She will learn that "whites" - an undifferentiated mass that she will be led to believe includes her ancestors - were all racists to all people of color. I will explain to her, as I have to her older sisters, that her family came from a place no where near Alabama and that her ancestors were having their own issues with not being considered entirely American, a story that is part of the story of the American melting pot, except in elementary school, there is no melting pot, just an angry white fondue.

So, what happens after we spend 30 years of trying to convince school children that all whites are racists? Well, in Hawaii, the answer is that whites become the discrete and insular minority and the target of racism.

Also, I've always wondered what it would be like to be in Hawaii on the 50th anniversary of statehood. The answer is not so good:

Anti-white sentiments such as these have been more than 200 years in the making. The pivotal event occurred when American and European businessmen, backed by U.S. military forces, overthrew Hawaii's monarch in 1893 and placed her under house arrest two years later. The United States annexed the islands as a territory in 1898, and they became a state in 1959.

Little wonder then that as Hawaii prepares to observe the 50th anniversary of becoming the 50th state on Aug. 21, it will a muted celebration, devoid of parades or fireworks.

30 years of depicting America and the traditional WASP culture as the Enemy have born a sick fruit.

Johnny can't communicate

The rise of digital communications may have left the current generation clueless when it comes to face-to-face communication:

It does, of course, but how would they know it? We live in a culture where young people—outfitted with iPhone and laptop and devoting hours every evening from age 10 onward to messaging of one kind and another—are ever less likely to develop the "silent fluency" that comes from face-to-face interaction. It is a skill that we all must learn, in actual social settings, from people (often older) who are adept in the idiom. As text-centered messaging increases, such occasions diminish. The digital natives improve their adroitness at the keyboard, but when it comes to their capacity to "read" the behavior of others, they are all thumbs.

Nobody knows the extent of the problem. It is too early to assess the effect of digital habits, and the tools change so quickly that research can't keep up with them. By the time investigators design a study, secure funding, collect results and publish them, the technology has changed and the study is outdated.

Still, we might reasonably pose questions about silent-language acquisition in a digital environment. Lots of folks grumble about the diffidence, self-absorption and general uncommunicativeness of Generation Y. The next time they face a twenty-something who doesn't look them in the eye, who slouches and sighs for no apparent reason, who seems distracted and unaware of the rising frustration of the other people in the room, and who turns aside to answer a text message with glee and facility, they shouldn't think, "What a rude kid." Instead, they should show a little compassion and, perhaps, seize on a teachable moment. "Ah," they might think instead, "another texter who doesn't realize that he is communicating, right now, with every glance and movement—and that we're reading him all too well."

[H/T Lane Core on Facebook.]