“Tradition” is as non-threatening a word as “box” or “cat.” It does not incite fury or euphoria within me. The term only seeks to unite people around a shared history and heritage. Tradition should generally stir pride in the person fortunate enough to partake in it.
However, when I see it utilized a mechanism for defending ignorance and reinforcing social barriers, I must laugh and shake my head. I laugh because this is the 21st century, and in Alabama, we are still debating whether or not integrated social activities, clubs and schools are necessary. I shake my head because The University of Alabama invokes tradition to defend ourselves against those who see our ignorance and dismiss the pathetic ruse of tradition as little more than veiled racism.
Now, I will not take the traditional route and rail against the greek system for all its obvious inequities and biases, nor will I indict its members who are accustomed to conducting their exclusive business as usual. My words would fall on deaf ears.
It is our leadership here at the Capstone and a permissive public which allows these glorious traditions to continue. Our leadership turns a blind eye because to challenge tradition would require disrupting the façade of unity and opening the floodgates holding decades of racial tension waiting to spew forth.
The public would rather tread the path of least resistance, either endorsing such archaic sentiments or viewing it as an issue too difficult to discuss. Herein lies the problem with such responses to traditional attitudes.
If you can sit in a room full of well-dressed, educated and like-minded people and then one casually asks, “What did you think of that nigger over there?” or “What will we do about the dirty nigger in office?” or “What about these spics running through our borders?” and no one is in the least bit disturbed, then you have a serious moral dilemma on your hands.
These educated and like-minded people will leave the halls of this college or the comfort of their fraternity and sorority houses to work for our government, open businesses and educate our children. All this time, no one will ever have challenged them to reconsider their notions, as the University fosters an atmosphere of tolerance for ignorance in which we are all equally guilty.
When you spend your social life segregated along racial, economic and religious lines, you know nothing of your fellow human being. You would never know that I, as a black man, enjoy Willie Nelson as much as my country-born-and-bred roommate and that I view rap as a toxic poison rendering youth everywhere imbecilic (surprise, I am not a stereotype).
You would be amazed to find that poverty is not a race-based affliction, nor is it the result of a lack of motivation or some single teenage mother tragedy. There are poor, rural whites in Alabama collecting food stamps, and many of them have jobs. You would see two-parent homes, both of whom holding two jobs and still fighting to make ends meet. You would see that the Muslim and the Jewish pray as devoutly and believe as piously as the Baptist or the Methodist; they have no designs to bomb your homes or steal your savings.
I use the word “our,” as this is not simply “my” problem as a black man. It is our problem as Alabamians and Americans. Our challenge did not end with Wallace’s stand in the schoolhouse door; the tradition remains intact.
We may respect tradition, but we should not embrace Alabama’s when it intentionally disenfranchises members of our community, and we should not shelter our university from criticism when it is its duty, on and off paper, to educate and protect all races, classes and religions.
Tradition has become more than our security and pride; it is a prison decaying our minds. We no longer live in a world where I am comfortable with the racist educating my children, representing me in the state legislature or judging my employment application. We don’t need to embrace difference for its own sake but instead to recognize that we are more alike as human beings than we realize through segregation.
