The Chestnut Ridge People and the Folly of Racism

If you Google racism, you will get two basic answers.  The primary definition given, discriminating based upon supposed racial superiority, is actually secondary, historically speaking, to the second definition given, the belief in different human races.  You see, we are actually just one human race. To disagree with that fact is racism, technically speaking.  The hatred of other races, which is quite different, flows, historically and logically, from this mistaken belief.

The truth is that we all share one ancestry, as has been scientifically documented.  Racism is, therefore, not only immoral and unbiblical, but truly ignorant and imbecilic.  Nonetheless, racism persists, not simply in the South or in America generally, but throughout the world.  This racism takes many forms that span the gap between the two definitions offered above.  There are those who genuinely consider themselves superior because of the color of their skin, while others simply prefer to avoid mixing with other cultures.  Others still have friends of different colors, but would never want their relatives marrying outside of their race.  Racism is not monolithic, nor is it one-sided, as almost every people group has mocked or disliked another throughout history and even today.  

This being my scientific and Biblical perspective, you can understand how I take to being called a racist.  I'm sure the person in question uses the term liberally, but I still took it personally.  I am a lot of things, but I am not a racist.  That is not how I was raised, and that is not how I live my life.  That is not what I teach my children.  This gentleman doesn't really know me.  He accused me of stereotyping him, but there he was, stereotyping me as a typical white guy who stereotypes black guys.  I find this particularly offensive as I am not a typical "white" guy.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I am white.  If you were watching me mow my yard last night, you'd have no question about the complexion of my skin!  However, my family heritage is less than purebred.  

A few weeks into my brief career at Coastal Pet Products in Alliance, OH, a female coworker inquired into my ethnic heritage.  I was, frankly, taken aback by the question.  "I'm West Virginian!" I thought.  I'm a white guy!  Now, we've always known that there is a dash of Native American on both sides of my family, but that doesn't make us unique, at least not around the Great Lakes.  It is only recently that my family has really begun to discuss our origins.  Little did I know that my grandparents experienced segregation because of the color of their skin and the ambiguity of their ethnicity.  Little did I know that they came to Ohio from an area infamous enough to have its own Wikipedia page (under "Demographics," look for the name Croston--that's us).  Little did I know that I come from the Chestnut Ridge People, an ethnically diverse people group known to some as a tri-racial isolate.  We were always told that Grandpa's mom was Cherokee.  Apparently that's a common answer when you either don't know or don't want to admit what you really are.  I think we have a bit of both of those going on in our family.

Some people would be ashamed of this heritage.  I celebrate it.  When I found out, I felt like I had discovered a huge part of who I am that had been hidden from me.  I immediately began researching it as much as I could, but there was little to be found.  We can be sure that we're not purely European, but are we also black?  Native American?  Both?  Those are basically the three answers you'll get, the answer you're rendered usually depending on how closely tied to the group the person rendering it happens to be.  Unfortunately, the racism they experienced sometimes begat the like.  As I researched, however, I came to appreciate just how silly the now-traditional black/white dichotomy is.  Many years ago many of this group were officially declared white, while others were declared black or colored (the group itself is not entirely uniform, of course).  Some have even been recognized by Native American tribes.  As you study racial history, you find that what we consider a "black" person was defined quite differently 50 years ago, and that definition would also differ from what you might find 100 or 150 years ago.  As you attempt to define where to draw the line between white and black, you illustrate the idiocy of the endeavor.  Are we white?  Are we black?  Who cares?!  We are all mixed.  There is no such thing as a purebred human! The idea that someone is 100% anything is mistaken.  We are all the products of generations of the intermingling of different families, tribes, communities, states, and nations.  One key, then, to dispelling racism, at least from a strictly academic perspective, is to study history (spiritual diseases, such as racism is, ultimately require spiritual cures).  Racism flourishes in many historically illiterate people groups.  I am no historian, but I was taught and have read enough to learn the folly of racism.  In truth, all I had to do was read about my own people to learn just how ill-informed racism is.

So, to the person who made such an accusation against me, if you're reading this, I hope you can appreciate how sincerely hurt I was by your charge.  I wouldn't claim to understand what it means to endure segregation or discrimination, but that doesn't mean I'm a racist. I hope you see that maybe your assumptions about me were mistaken.