Early Morning Thoughts about Race, but with No Solutions

Please forgive a bit of a ramble in response to a query about race in the comments section to my recent entry below about how the President appears to have had a folded khata, a while silk scarf sent to him by the Dalai Lama, folded in his pocket when he took the oath of office.

Race is a difficult issue and one I don’t pretend to have a handle on.

I have figured out the primary problem of human suffering is constantly rising grasping, aversion and certainties.

And I’m sure class is a very strong secondary level issue, maybe the strongest of the many secondary issues that sustain inequity among us within our culture.

And racism seems to be a particular poison compounded with class but also different.

I’m profoundly bothered by the fact that after some sixty years here in the West of the several hundred people who have received Dharma transmission in North American Zen only one is African American. (Here the mix of class is also worth noting. I am also aware of only two High School drop outs who have become Zen teachers in the West, Diane Rizzetto & myself)

I suspect the mix of issues are similar to those that lead to the fact that the ultra liberal Unitarian Universalist congregations have so few African American members. Or, for that matter, people who are not of European descent.

But what precisely they are, I’m not sure. I suspect it is a mix of benign and malign issues, sometimes the same thing on a continuum. I’m deeply impressed with Sensei Alan Senake’s work in this regard. (In addition to his commitment to social justice work, Alan’s also by repute a first rate Zen teacher, and I know a pretty damn good musician…) And the tensions between convert Zen practitioners and our Asian and Asian descent family no doubt are tinged by racism, as well. Although there is also that mix of things and those continuums and how exactly race is involved is far from clear.