by Patty Bates-Ballard

Created on: July 08, 2008

This article explains in detail how racism was directly taught for so long that now it is simply learned by cultural osmosis.

Have you ever wondered why America is still struggling with the issue of racism? The laws changed years ago, so why does progress lag? Why are most churches still so segregated? Why do famous (and not so famous) people continue to utter racial insults? Why do children of color graduate at lower rates than their European American counterparts?

Why haven't we ever actually achieved the "melting pot?" U.S. President John Quincy Adams wrote at the end of the American Revolution, "[Immigrants] must cast off the European skin, never to resume it. They must look forward to their posterity rather than backward to their ancestors; they must be sure that whatever their own feelings may be, those of their children will cling to the prejudices of this country."

Melting involved intermarrying and producing "American" children. So the melting pot was for Europeans, and never was intended to include Indians, Mexicans, or Africans. Later, when America did begin to ask people of color to assimilate and melt, many rejected the invitation, choosing instead to nourish a sense of pride in their own heritages.

Imagine in your mind the doctor who invented the blood bank and the process for producing and storing plasma. He was the first director of the Red Cross Blood Bank during World War II, saving thousands of soldiers' lives. He resigned that position in 1942 over the issue of segregation. Not segregation of soldiers or of healthcare workers, but segregation of blood.

The U.S. War Department directed in 1942 that "White" blood should be kept separate from "Black " blood. It had to be labeled that way, of course, because all blood looks red to the human eye. But "White" blood was deemed superior to "Black" blood, and so Dr. Charles Drew, who was African American, resigned his position to become Professor of Surgery at Howard University.

If you imagined the inventor of the blood bank to be White, you would not be alone. Why is that the case? And how did we get to the point in America where we separated blood based on the skin color of the donor? It was no accident, but instead the logical conclusion of an intentional effort an effort that requires thorough examination if we are to understand why America still struggles with racism in the 21st century.

Ralph Ellison said, "there are few things in this world as dangerous as sleepwalkers." If diversity advocates

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