No Balm in Gilead
Questions of race lie at or near the surface of many of the United States' debates on public policy, and the rancorous divisions they produce have no easily foreseeable end. Those weary souls who are wont to discern a teleology in nature must begin to see in race conflict some sort of great test or trial imposed by Providence, but what the precise nature of this test may be, or how we may recognize whether we are passing or failing, is more than anyone has yet dared seriously to address. Two outstanding characteristics which we might make note of concerning debate over racial questions in this country are these: the extreme reluctance of whites to come to grips with these questions with unflinching honesty (an unfortunate development indeed, for if there is one great truism in an era of mass communications it is that those who are not willing to engage a subject will have their thinking done for them), and the failure to question the fundamental terms in which debate is framed; in fact, the quasi-superstitious acceptance of an "essentialist" view of race as one of the immutably vital components in determining the course of one's life. Indeed, the very term "race relations" suggests approval of the view that there is something "essential" about race; for presumably there is no need to build bridges over imaginary gulfs.