Dr. Cornell West's Race Matters

Truth is not a simple task to understand. We cannot stand with an extremist’s belief and not believe anything else. Dr. Cornell West argues in his essay Race Matters that it is not just one race that is to blame for the racism and inequality, as people often believe, but that it is an individual’s decision to decide if one race is better than another. He is mirroring the idea, unknowingly, that Deborah Tannen writes about when she says that truth is like, “…a crystal of many sides. Truth is more likely to be found in the complex middle than in the simplified extremes” (3). At the time that Dr. West is writing this essay he has seen the injustice and inequality among American men and woman of different races and how mostly there is only …show more content…
West proposes seems very reasonable, however, one must be willing to accept knowledge and hear a different point of view. It has been seen over and over again that no matter how hard the facts may be some people can simply not accept the truth for what it is. People change facts to fit their beliefs. Although this was written about the race riots 23 years ago, this subject of inequality and injustice among minority races is still important and relevant in the society of America. In the mindset of many white Americans the ability to step out of their comfort zone is nearly impossible. Dr. Robin DiAngelo writes this in the Huffington post, “It became clear over time that white people have extremely low thresholds for enduring any discomfort associated with challenges to our racial worldviews.” She sees that whites often lack the ability to see the realities of racial slurs and so they simply shut down when the subject arises or ignore it entirely. Both of these intellects writing two decades apart want the awareness of the reality of racism to shine through, but although Dr. West suggests a solution it is not a successful reframing as DiAngelo has tried. This reframing that Dr. West discusses is also practiced by Jane Elliott in A Class Divided. In A Class Divided, Jane Elliott goes to her classroom of third graders, separates them by eye color, and tells them that one eye color is better than the other. She creates an atmosphere of discrimination and racism amongst the children. This forever changes how these children view racism and it effects how they go on with their life. If everyone is able to go through the process that these children go through then Dr. West’s idea of reframing can change the way America views and treats other