by Calsue Murray

Created on: July 05, 2008

Before presenting the rationale for my resounding "yes!" to the question which is the focus of this debate, I am constrained to point out that the use of the word, race, at the end of that question, is most likely inappropriate. It is most likely inappropriate because it is predicated upon the assumption that there is more than one human race. A term such as, "racial type," would be more appropriate. My concurrence is with basic biological and genetic definitions of "race" that define Homo sapiens as the only interbreeding species of humans still in existence, here on earth. The question, therefore, is whether or not I would move into a neighborhood where I would be the only member of my racial type. Yes, I certainly would!

I certainly would move into a neighborhood where I would be the only member of my racial type because such moves have become common place for succeeding generations of my family. Some of my grand parents moved into communities where they were the only members of their racial types. My parents made such moves. As a mature adult and young professional, I moved, several times, into neighborhoods where I was the only member of my racial type. In recent decades my wife and I have made such moves.

In the early 1800's, my dad's father, my paternal grandfather, moved from the Island of Haiti to the State of Tennessee, in the United States. My grandfather was African. He moved into a community of Native Americans in the United States.

In the 1940's my parents moved into a developing community on the West Side of Chicago. In that community, there were European Americans of German, Italian, British and Greek descent. In that community, there were Asian Americans of Filipino, Japanese, East Indian and Chinese descent. In that community, there were African Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans. In that community, persons bonded in mutual respect, trust and support of the United States, during the Second World War. Adults, in that community, cooperated in their jobs in defense plants. They also cooperated in planting and growing their "victory gardens". We children cooperated as we progressed through the local public elementary and high schools. As I recall those "growing up" years, I recall no negative stresses generated by the fact that numbers of persons had moved into that neighborhood, where they were the only members of their racial types.

As a professional educator, I moved, without hesitation, into communities where I was the sole member of my racial type, at the time of my arrival. In the early 1970's, I moved from the City of Chicago to the Native American Indian Pueblo of Zuni, in the State of New Mexico. In 1980, I moved from the Pueblo of Zuni to the Pueblo of Acoma, in New Mexico. It was there that I met my wife, Angelina Medina.

Since 1980, Angelina and I have moved, together, to communities in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, Dulce, New Mexico and Pine Hill, New Mexico. In each of the communities where we have moved to work, together, as educators, we have been the only members of our racial types, at the times of our arrivals. Being of variant racial types from our student, co-workers and community members has never been a deterrent of our decisions to move. We fully expect that it shall never be deter us.

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