CULTURE, RACISM, AND FAMILY

Introduction

These letters began with a Christmas letter to my children, nieces and nephews to accompany a book which I recommend to your reading as well. (You will find the title in the November 15 letter). Partly the letters grow out of concern for my family as the next generation makes life choices which will inexorably change the potential for their lives. I am concerned because from my vantage point I can see that some decisions limit what they can be and become.

These letters really began formulating in my mind several years ago. My immediate family went through a difficult time because of my decision to help a young man who through rebellion and drug use sold himself in to incarceration. This young man was 16 and I hoped that he could have a chance at a productive life if he learned the culture that operates in my life. Hope is still a word that often occurs when I think of him.

The court released the young man from juvenile jail into my custody. When he came to live with me I wanted to give him my world of Liberty in place of his world of slavery and prison cells. Instead I observed that he gave his world to my son Andrew. I love this person and what I did was with good motives, but perhaps poor wisdom. In all fairness Andrew may have chosen poorly without encouragement. We will never know. With joy I see a turning around in Andrew and I pray for a turning around for my person we tried to help.

For the entire cohort to which my children belong, life directions are being chosen and what little I have to offer is here, a small needle in a compass pointing to Liberty and Life.

The letters do not appear in chronological order. The dates do reflect the order that they were written and show a development in the thought. Some of the letters are signed by my wife Deborra and myself. Those letters were reviewed by her at Thanksgiving. The others are mine alone and may not reflect her thinking. Footnotes and special quotations were added as an afterthought.

There is one resource I feel compelled to lift up. It is Dinesh D’Souza’s book entitled The End of Racism. No discussion of racism should omit this tremendous volume.